Mental Health Help for Republicans

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My fellow Americans of the Republican persuasion,  you’ve recently found out that you suffer from an incurable, extremely aggressive metastatic cancer-like illness known as Drumpfosis, which is almost as deadly as cancer, in some respects at least. I want you to know that your panicked reaction, delayed as it is, is normal, in most ways.

What you are experiencing is grief over the loss of your hopes for remaking America according to your desires, and understandable fear and uncertainty about the future of your Grandiose Obstructionist Party. You’re still only concerned about yourselves; but your egocentric focus on your party, rather than the nation and world, does not really surprise.

You are suffering all the same, so, as a concerned citizen, mental health expert, and compassionate human being, I would like to help you  with this. Even though we may not cure your problem, we can make living with it somewhat bearable.

You may or may not remember — probably not, because this was likely part of that liberal education which you so despise — that human grief proceeds in five predictable stages:

1. Denial — The first reaction is denial. In this stage individuals believe the diagnosis is somehow mistaken, and cling to a false, preferable reality.

You have passed this stage already, so congratulations. With every stage you’ve put behind you, you are closer to healing (such as it is) and reality (maybe).

Most of you, though not all, are ready to admit that Drumpfzilla, the pathological agent which causes Drumpfosis, is real and as tremendously virulent as it appears, if not more, with no vaccine or treatment available. Some of you are still in the substage of denial called stupefication, but that too shall pass, most definitely before the summer, as the warm weather and electoral process will enable a faster spread of Drumpfosis and firmly entrench it in the USian population.

2. Anger — When the individual recognizes that denial cannot continue, they become frustrated, especially at proximate individuals. Certain psychological responses of a person undergoing this phase would be: “Why me? It’s not fair!”; “How can this happen to me?”; ‘”Who is to blame?”; “Why would this happen?”.

Being a compassionate person, and a mental health expert, I know it is unfair and unhelpful to gloat and repeat We told you so!, so I won’t do that.

But it must be said that yeah, we told you so, and so many times that it became annoying. I’m just mentioning it to ground you in reality a bit more, the reality teaching us that if you act in destructive, reckless and irresponsible ways, there will be inevitable and predictable consequences.

You did not think that you could cheer on and support corporate greed and destruction, along with psychopathic selfishness and contempt for the weak disguised as a philosophy of self-reliance, with impunity, did you? Oh, you did? Well, you were wrong on that, like on so many other things.

As Inspiredbythedivine1 puts it:

When dogmatic religious conservatism, xenophobic paranoia, and hatred of the poor and disabled is at the forefront of your party’s message, you can’t be surprised that a Hitler has arisen from the depths to rule your party. 

So in case you want to know “who’s to blame?,” reaching for a mirror* would help. Lashing out at proximate individuals, your fellow humans of the liberal persuasion, will not, and will only make things worse.

Anyway. Many of you are ready for the next stage:

3. Bargaining — The third stage involves the hope that the individual can avoid a cause of grief. Usually, the negotiation for a better, Drumpfzilla-free future is made in exchange for a reformed lifestyle. People facing less serious trauma can bargain or seek compromise.

Yes, well — I don’t know how ready you are to embrace a reformed lifestyle… Heck, who am I kidding? You’re not ready, and likely never will be, since you do not want to accept responsibility for your destructive behavior.

No, you cannot avoid Drumpfzilla now. Sorry. Yeah, I know, it stinks. It really does, and not just for you, even though you don’t realize it. And, contrary to what you still believe, throwing money at the problem is not going to help. You may hope that your attempts to placate (ha) Drumpfzilla, or marginalize (he he), or paralyze it (gasp) via contested convention will be effective, but that’s only because you have not fully shed your denial yet. So go back to Stage 1 and stay there until November, when reality jolts you out of it whether you want it or not. Especially if not.

4. Depression — “I’m so sad, why bother with anything?”; “Drumpfzilla’s rule is inevitable, so what’s the point?”  During the fourth stage, the individual becomes saddened by the mathematical probability of Drumpfzilla’s semi-hostile — yet democratic and legal — takeover of his/her own party, the country, and possibly the world. And then the Universe, because its ambitions are huuge, limitless really. In this state, the individual may become silent, refuse contact with the world, and spend much of the time sullen.

Frankly, I don’t know what to tell you here.  You may as well stay home during this election, I guess. Or vote for Hillary, the sanest Republican candidate this year. Or come on over, will have tea and cookies — why not, we may as well.

5. Acceptance — “It’s going to be okay.”; “I can’t fight it, I may as well prepare for it.”
In this last stage, individuals embrace Drumpfzilla’s rule as the inevitable future. Acceptance typically comes with a calm, retrospective view for the individual, and a stable condition of emotions.

Yeah no, you won’t have any of that “retrospective view,” we know that. But I won’t hold it much against you should we end up together on a wooden bunk in a re-education / internment camp. I will even share my last potato with you. We bleeding heart libruls are like that, as you well know, ridiculing us for it so many times.

But maybe it won’t be that bad. We could take consolation in the fact that our re-education / internment camp will be the classiest, most amazing camp ever, with the Arbeit Macht Frei sign over the gate made of gold (the real thing, not just gold-plated). And as we slowly nibble on that potato to make it last longer, we can remind ourselves that this isn’t the end of the world, is it. Is it…?

*h/t Victoria

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