(Note: Like last time, I’m posting this less edited than my usual preferred degree of polish.)

A month ago, before Inauguration, I wrote a post on my concerns about the social fabric. In that post, I talked about "the depth of influence political changes have on our daily lives," and how prone we are to underestimating these effects (to varying degrees, of course).

At the time of this writing, we are in the midst of a coup in the United States.

Now, as expected and feared, we are experiencing fascist tumult. I won't spend words describing it, because there are people out there writing about this who do so way better than I could. I am neither a student of history, nor an anti-fascism expert, nor a community organizer (though you should find these people and heed their words). What I want to say is this:

You're most likely having a reaction.

I don't know much about coups from a political perspective, but I think I know enough to state that definitionally they are destabilizing and, therefore, threatening events (yes, I'm aware that some coups are good: I imagine this is the case even for those). Whether through your awareness of the events, the social fabric dynamics playing out, or some other ineffable resonances rippling through the collective, chances are you're feeling it.

Some of us are staring into the void watching news updates by the minute. Others are going about our lives, either by choice or without choice to change attention from the necessary tasks of survival. Some are forecasting all the possibilities and mapping scenarios, as fearful rumination or pragmatic planning (or both). Others are staying in the present moment, in the present system of their world as imagined, and maintaining status quo.

Whatever it is you're doing, you may very well be doing what your nervous system does in response to instability and threat, whether you've fully registered instability and threat or not.

Since last weekend, I've caught myself multiple times a day saying things to myself like "why am I not getting anything done," or "I don't know why I'm crashed, this is not usually when I would be," or "maybe I have a new health issue and need to call my doctor." (Capitalism brain, am I right?) Trying to push myself through my normal schedule, with the self-imposed (read: internalized) expectation of feeling "normal."

Only to remember: "Wait, wait. There's a coup. I'm not supposed to be okay."

This happened to me constantly during Covid. And then too, I had to catch myself and say, "Wait, wait. There's a pandemic. I'm not supposed to be okay." I'm not failing to locate some other problem or utilize some tool to help me function better. I'm feeling how it feels to be in the situation I'm in.

This is just one example of what my nervous system does. I'm impacted, I forget, I somaticize (migraine, brain fog, what have you), I wonder about the physical problem and its hindrance on my functionality, and then I remember again.

What does your nervous system do? Some reactions I am seeing, many of which I experience myself:

• Nihilism: "I feel instability and threat: let me give up now and see it all as hopeless and useless, to get out in front of potential fear and loss."

  
  

• Attachment/Comfort Seeking: "I feel instability and threat: let me re-engage actively or in ideation/fantasy with a comfort person(s) or object of limerance from past or present."

  
  

• Control/Mastery/Certainty Seeking: "I feel instability and threat: let me seek or reify my sense of control over my safety, security, and how things unfold for me."

  
  

• Separation/Not-Us-Ism: "I feel instability and threat: let me insulate myself or experience myself as insulated, focusing only on elements of threat that apply to others."

  
  

• Sublimation/Disavowal: "I feel instability and threat: let me hide the true cause from myself and displace these feelings into an internalized or externalized container, such as some other dynamic or disturbance, where it is easier to have these feelings."

  
  

• Existentialism: "I feel instability and threat: let me zoom way out and/or way in, to either trivialize this experience in the grand scheme of the universe, or no-day-but-today it and cease broader meaning-making in favor of the present moment only."

None of these are wrong or bad, and they all represent elements of truth. The idea is to un-gaslight yourself and locate yourself within the collective reality, which we are not taught to do (and, indeed, are actively discouraged from doing).

We're in a coup. What are you experiencing? How is it showing up in your body, thoughts, feelings, behaviors? How can you register this to yourself? Who do you want to tell?

May we all find and hold onto ourselves and each other inside of whatever this becomes. Solidarity.