The WATCH

As a part-time blogger and a full-time citizens not only do I have difficulty keeping up with all of the mishegas overflowing the Ol’ Pussy Grabber’s enormous immoderate sibaritist gut, I have trouble even keeping my head above water. The Ol’ Pussy Grabber is attempting to drown us in a deluge of marshmallow shit-fluff! But, this week, we could not avoid the story of the disappeared children snatched from the arms of their loving parents at the US border and dropped into god knows what. Certainly, no one in the GOP cares about the abusive hell these children will be living in.

Here at Ye Olde Blogge, we try to find something useful in the the bits of unchewed lettuce and undigested Big Mac and the deep fried chicken skin that constitutes the Ol’ Pussy Grabber’s shit. Believe me in this latest load, it has been more difficult than usual, but we did it. Proving once again that if you’re snarky, sarcasticky, and profaney enough, you can find the tiniest drop of gold in any shower, especially when it is occurring over the Resolute Desk and our wholesome American values.

Trauma, Trauma, and More Trauma

Ending Daca = Violence

That funny feeling you have tickling your brain? That is trauma. More than likely it is secondary trauma from reading the news about the Ol’ Pussy Grabber’s policy of “separating” children from parents at the border as exemplified by this here Chris Hayes‘ tweet:

I am reading these first-hand accounts of mothers who had their children taken from them, with no word of where they were going or how to contact them, and I’m thinking about someone doing that to me and my kids and I feel a rage so powerful I think I’m gonna pass out.

— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) May 25, 2018

Or as told by him on his MSNBC show, All In with Chris Hayes:

Please watch this and share it https://t.co/OPgLx2Omhz

— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) May 26, 2018

CJ’s Twitter Adventure

Or it could be PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, like my dear Twitter friend, Victoria Brownworth, is experiencing due to her cancer and the murderous policies undertaken on her behalf by her federal government.

I am among those cited in the below article.
My premium was raised to $1,978.10 per month (not counting co-pays, Rxs)
My wife has the same plan. She pays $239 per month.
She’s not sick. I am.
The CBO said this would happen.
It has.
We were bankrupted trying to keep me alive. https://t.co/C3cibpsDri

— Victoria Brownworth (@VABVOX) May 24, 2018

Let’s have a quick snarky, sarcasticky, profaney psysplainer of the symptoms and causes of PTSD and secondary trauma, okay? Today, we’ll be relying on useful articles by the UK’s National Health Service, the US’s National Institute of Mental Health, the National Child Traumatic Stress Network.

Trauma Symptoms and Causes

Everybody knows the vernacular definition of trauma, bad shit happens to you which often results in physical injury but always results in emotional harm. Okay, I threw that last bit in there about the physical injury and emotional harm. Not many people will include that in their definition of trauma, but it should be.

Secondary Trauma

Not many people know much about secondary trauma, but if you had to mansplain it some female trauma expert, you’d tell ’em all about how it was the result of having witnessed a traumatic event happening to someone else. And, when she began to point out that it was more about heari~ you’d jump in to authoritatively tell her all about how it could include hearing about the trauma that others experience. And, when she began to tell you about how it frequently afflicts profe~ you’d cut her off to explain how it frequently affects professionals that work with those who suffer traumas like child abuse and sexual assault, which you don’t do because NOT ALL MEN!

Here let’s let the NCTSN explain it, Secondary traumatic stress is the emotional duress that results when an individual hears about the firsthand trauma experiences of another. This nice Atlantic article explains that the symptoms of secondary traumatic stress disorder are the same as those for post-traumatic stress disorder or very similar, but they can be just as severe.

So, everyone who, like Chris Hayes, imagined themselves having their children disappeared into the vast cavernous ICE bureaucracy and were left feeling helpless and distressed and outraged, well, friend, you are well on your way to secondary trauma which is every bit as good as primary trauma! Are you tired of winning yet, friend? So, much winning.

If after hearing about someone you care about, it could be an absolute stranger, because, hey, call me crazy, some people care deeply about strangers, and crazier yet still, care about people who might not look precisely like them, like, shoot, I’m just spit-balling here, like someone who is white might care about someone one who is less lily white and more brown in skin tone or someone who speaks only English and lives in America, might could find herself caring about someone who doesn’t speak English and is trying to immigrate to America. Crazy, right? But, it could happen. It could.

It is that point in the psysplainer where we talk about symptoms and shit.

The Symptoms of PTSD

PTSD, the experts assure us, isn’t just for combat veterans any more. Just like VD, anyone can have PTSD. According to the UK’s National Health Service and the US’s National Institute of Mental Health, PTSD can be caused by any number of traumatic experiences.

Here’s the NHS’s list.

• serious road accidents
• violent personal assaults, such as sexual assault, mugging or robbery
• prolonged sexual abuse, violence or severe neglect
• witnessing violent deaths
• military combat
• being held hostage
• terrorist attacks
• natural disasters, such as severe floods, earthquakes or tsunamis
• a diagnosis of a life-threatening condition
• an unexpected severe injury or death of a close family member or friend

Now, remember, you could be secondarily traumatized by reading about these terrible things happening right here in America to people or hearing about them happening to family or friends. But, I’m curious, what are the elements from that list that sound like an experience you’ve had either directly or indirectly with the Ol’ Pussy Grabber’s administration? I’d love to hear your story in the comments.

Personally, I find myself focused on the terrorist attacks that are being perpetrated by the police on the black community, as exemplified by police murdering unarmed innocent black citizens, white people racially profiling and shaming PoC, or ICE agents terrorizing PoC at the border or wherever they happen upon them.

Gaslighting

Is Trump Gaslighting America?

This type of trauma is prolonged. It occurs over time. It is accumulative. And, it is coming so fast and furious that we don’t have time to process the depth of reaction to one traumatizing event before the next is upon us. You see friend, we’re moving beyond the ordinary type of abuse and into the realm of gaslighting.

The Ol’ Pussy Grabber is a gaslighter, or purveyor of narcissistic personality abuse. He’s abused his family, his employees, his associates, and now he’s abusing the entire country! So much winning! But, there’s more of that to come both in his time remaining in office and in this post.

Fight-or-Flight, PTSD, and Secondary Trauma

No Investigation

According to the NIMH’s article, PTSD is an extension of any experience that triggers the fight-or-flight response. These events are anything that causes you to dump a lot of adrenaline into your blood as you prepare to fight off whatever you perceive is threatening you or run away from it. It can develop after some very acute dramatic traumatic experience or after a prolonged exposure to a disturbing situation like an abusive domestic situation. Or indirectly where you are only hearing about something awful happening but you can’t actually fight it or run from it. And, mother-of-god, it just keeps happening week after fucking week! And no one seems to be doing anything to stop it!

Again, I’m back to the prolonged exposure to the Ol’ Pussy Grabber’s gaslighting ways. At the beginning of the week, I was really focused on the DoJ and FBI briefing the Ol’ Pussy Grabber’s defense team composed of Devon Nunes, Trey Gowdy, and his personal lawyer, Emmet Flood. Hell, they ain’t even trying to hide their pipeline of evidence to the Ol’ Pussy Grabber. While it felt like the world was spinning out of control when that was happening, we got the revelations of 1,500+ children being “lost” in the system taken from their parents, threats of sexual abuse and sexual assault, and actual honest to goodness murder.

How about you? What is putting you on edge right now? Feel free to share in the comments.

People with PTSD have unusually high amounts of adrenaline and cortisol (a hormone associated with stress) over a prolonged period of time. This means that you are constantly prepared for fight-or-flight. You are in a state of hyperarousal — and not in a good way — constantly on the look out for danger and threat kinda like racists now seem to be on the lookout for PoC and go off on rants.

Flashbacks, Re-Experiencing, and Free-floating Anxiety

Trump, the Election, & the 7 Sins of Memory

One of the most prominent symptoms and most well known is the flashback or more properly termed, re-experiencing. A flashback is a type of re-experiencing involving a vivid involuntary intrusive memory of the traumatic event. These can include the physical symptoms you experienced at the time such as racing hear and sweaty palms. But, also your emotional symptoms of anxiety and fear. Other re-experiencing symptoms include nightmares or particularly disturbing or scary dreams and intrusive frighting thoughts or mental images.

With prolonged psychological abuse like we as a nation are experiencing, though, we are not likely to have a specific event to re-experience. It is more likely to be a feeling of dread and nausea unless, of course, you happen to be one of the unfortunate few that have had a direct experience with the Ol’ Pussy Grabber or his administration like if he had actually grabbed you by the pussy or ICE has racially profiled you or you’re one of the many black people who’ve had the police called on them for simply living your daily life or you’re an immigrant stopped at the border and had your children flushed into the long night of confiscation. Then, you might have a specific traumatic event to re-experience.

Without that event to re-experience, many of us will simply experience free floating anxiety, hyperarousal, or feeling on edge. If you find yourself being especially irritable, snapping angrily for little or no reason, having trouble sleeping, being easily startled, or having difficulty concentrating, then you might could be being affected by the mishegas freely flowing from the Ol’ Pussy Grabber’s ass or hearing about the many people who’ve directly traumatized by this government.

I know that there have been several times this past year where I’ve had insomnia. Sometimes it is work related, but sometimes it is combination of what is going on in the news and my other anxiety issues ganging up on me.

Cognition, Mood, and Avoidance

Poor Whites Voting GOP

Just reading the news, leaves me experiencing the last two sets of symptoms: having my mood and cognition altered and avoiding the sources of the trauma. I’ve found myself being confused by the key features of the scandals and human rights violations and other atrocities being visited upon real live human beings that I empathize with by this administration. I can’t remember some of the important plot points in these events. I am feeling increasingly despondent and negative about the world. I feel like the Ol’ Pussy Grabber is winning and the we’re all about to watch helplessly as the conservative Christian rural voter elects to have us all sold like a cheap natural resource to industry and we all end up living in Cancer Fucking Ally just like them. And, of course, I feel guilty about it!

Goddammit, I’m a blogger and the first thing they said at how-to-be-a-blogger school right there eight o’clock day one, write a blog post, change the world. Well, it has been two fucking years that I’ve been blogging about the dangers that the Ol’ Pussy Grabber poses to our country, and it is still happening! Fuck, it is enough to make me think that they were overstating the effect that blogging would have on the world. It’s getting so I don’t even wanna blog no more.

Here’s the way the NIMH listed them just in case my snarky, sarcasticky, profaney rendition lost you:

• Trouble remembering key features of the traumatic event
• Negative thoughts about oneself or the world
• Distorted feelings like guilt or blame
• Loss of interest in enjoyable activities

But that last bit is the avoidance symptoms. I don’t want to read the news. I’d rather watch meaningless pointless early 21st century sitcoms than even read my beloved and inspiring Wonkette. By doing so, you avoid further traumatizing yourself. It is a survival mechanism when you find your world really going down the shitter. But, we can’t. We must stay engaged.

Call Congress

Brain Hack: #HashtagResistance

So, make yourself feel better. Call your Congress person and give them a good old sense of how this ICE mishegas makes you feel.

• Call My Congress: Uses your zip code to locate your Congressional Representative and your Senators. And, it returns phone numbers, tweeter handle, party affiliation, voting record, and link to C-Span appearances!
• Call Your Rep: Uses your address to give you your representative and senators but with their local and DC addresses and phone numbers.
• The Capital Hill Switch Board: (202) 224-3121.

And maybe ask around for a good therapist specializing in trauma and abuse and has a sliding fee scale.