trumpsomnia: feeling exhausted and afraid

As some friends are keen­ly aware, I don’t nor­mal­ly al­low un­flat­ter­ing pho­tos of my­self be­cause I’m just vain enough to care about that shit. 

But I’m shar­ing this be­cause peo­ple need to see the face of Trump­som­nia, of fear, of anx­i­ety so great that I don’t even feel like my­self. I was shocked to see that I looked this aw­ful. The bags un­der my eyes aren’t from end­less cry­ing, they’re from lack of sleep. I’ve been wak­ing up at 2:30 a.m. since Elec­tion Day, and while that hour isn’t strange for me, the anx­i­ety that’s keep­ing me from get­ting the re­main­ing sleep I need is like noth­ing I’ve ever experienced.

Usu­al­ly, my anx­i­ety is root­ed in things that, while *cur­rent­ly* not some­thing I can fix, can be con­trolled and fixed even­tu­al­ly. Or they would have been, had he not been elect­ed. This anx­i­ety is so much worse be­cause I KNOW this is com­plete­ly out of my hands now. It’s not just him; it’s now the leg­isla­tive and soon the ju­di­cial bod­ies of our gov­ern­ment that will be against peo­ple like me and our rights. And that TER­RI­FIES me. 

I am Lati­na, a woman, broke, and have a chron­ic ill­ness that qual­i­fies as a dis­abil­i­ty, even if I still don’t qual­i­fy for dis­abil­i­ty ben­e­fits (and most cer­tain­ly nev­er will un­der this regime). Ex­cept for the fact that I’m straight and still rel­a­tive­ly young, I am every­thing the Trump regime hates and wants to dis­pose of. 

Like mil­lions of oth­ers, I will prob­a­bly be los­ing my health care and will be un­able to af­ford my own un­der the regime’s new pro­posed plans. The ca­su­al dis­crim­i­na­tion I’ve ex­pe­ri­enced most of my life will now be am­pli­fied, though that’s noth­ing com­pared to what my Mus­lim and black friends are al­ready fac­ing just a few days af­ter he was elected. 

I am scared that, while born and raised here, my cit­i­zen­ship will now be ques­tioned and doubt­ed be­cause of my last name and skin col­or. I don’t know what will be­come of me these next four years and be­yond, and that scares me sleepless.

So, the next time you want to tell me to calm down, not wor­ry, not to be dra­mat­ic, etc., please re­mem­ber this face. 

It won’t look like this for­ev­er, but I’m sure I’m not the only one who looks like this or worse af­ter what hap­pened on Tues­day. YOU might not have the same wor­ries I do, but SO. MANY. OF US. DO. And you shouldn’t dis­miss that. 

PLEASE don’t ca­su­al­ly dis­miss the pain and fear that mil­lions feel. Yes, we can and will mo­bi­lize to pro­tect our­selves and oth­ers, but that fear and un­cer­tain­ty? That’s not go­ing away for a long time.
 

UP­DATE: For­tu­nate­ly for every­one, I now look like this. Yay for care­ful­ly ap­plied eye make­up and a smile!
 
 

—kim­ber­ly a. morales

Flom­mist Kim­ber­ly A. Morales is a food and well­ness blog­ger, and pa­tron saint of cats. Copy­right © 2016 Kim­ber­ly A. Morales. Top im­age bor­rowed some­where from a group on Face­book … prob­a­bly Pantsuit Na­tion.

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