Trump’s impeachment outcome won’t end our misery. Here’s how to deal. | Helen Ubiñas

I tuned in to almost every minute of the impeachment hearings this week. It was the soundtrack while on my computer, in my headphones while I went through the motions of a workout, and on my living-room television while I made dinner or cleaned up or just sat on my couch, glued to every traumatic and horrific image of the assault on the Capitol incited by Donald Trump.

But of everything I saw and heard, it was something House impeachment manager Jamie Raskin said as he wrapped up the Democrats’ case Thursday that put the events, not just of Jan. 6, but of the last four years, in stark focus:

“What makes you think the nightmare with Donald Trump and his lawbreaking and violent mobs is over?”

His point was that if we didn’t hold Trump accountable, if “we don’t draw the line,” if we “let him get away with it,” we’d certainly find ourselves here — or someplace worse — again.

And, of course, he was right. And wrong.

Yes, this is about accountability. But it almost didn’t matter whether enough Republican lawmakers miraculously found their spines or sense of civic duty, or as Saturday’s predicted vote showed, stayed true to form and let off a traitor.

It’s still not over.

Any of us who have been paying attention these last four years knew that already. But the Republicans’ disdain and lack of interest in the midst of the proceedings were more proof that Trump’s influence and Trump’s mob, in and out of the Capitol, aren’t going away.

Just writing that is exhausting. But what to do with this exhaustion? In time I will turn to the activists and advocates for the inspiration we all need to keep fighting. But before that happens, I wanted to get us some therapy.

I turned to some local mental health experts and advocates — Shesheena Bray, Samantha Rucker, and Adrian Sullivan. (Truth be told, after some of the most therapeutic discussions I’ve had in a while, I probably owe them a co-pay.)

How, I asked them, are Americans supposed to deal with the lingering feelings of anger and despair and frustration as we continue to watch so many ignore “cold, hard facts.”

And even more pressing, where do we find the energy to soldier on when we haven’t even recovered from the trauma we’ve been through? When so many of us are just spent?

First, they all told me in one way or another, we have to get right with our feelings. And no, that doesn’t just mean taking a long walk or burning some sage or distancing ourselves from our daily doom scrolling. But that probably wouldn’t hurt, Sullivan said.

It means not dismissing or diminishing legitimate feelings.

“As it pertains to politics, oftentimes there’s this idea that things that should obviously be making you upset, you’re told to be calm about, you’re told it’s a part of the process,” said Bray, a West Philadelphia mental health therapist and owner of Going Inward Wellness. “What that does is really problematic for the individual because we’re not giving ourselves the opportunity to cycle through the raw emotion… to acknowledge, ‘I am angry about this, I am disappointed in these people, I am disgusted.’”

And it only gets worse, Bray added, when we fail to adequately acknowledge the turmoil that has been created politically in this country.

That, in political speak, is the “let’s move forward” defense that many Republicans urged when voting against Trump’s second impeachment trial. And that, in layman’s terms, translates to utter nonsense.

“In order for the systemic structure as it exists to change, like the political structure that we have, the politicians and institutions have to change as well,” said Rucker, a psychotherapist and intuitive healer who works in private practice and with the Therapy Center of Philadelphia. “There has to be an openness, and an awareness of how it impacts participants. And, you know, in a lot of ways, having to admit to the harm that’s been done in society.”

And if that doesn’t happen — or, in this case, when that doesn’t happen — then the people in that society have to decide just what kind of world they want to live in.

“What happens when we decide to imagine or to yearn for or to want for something other than what is given to us?” Rucker said. “What can we create then?”

The trick — which really isn’t a trick as much as it is a commitment to one another — is that we lean on each other and lift each other up, and even more important, that we have a big enough community that some of us can tap out to rest and restore while others step in. “It really is collective work,” Bray said.

So the question remains: After all we’ve been through and all that lies ahead, do we have it in us to do what needs to be done? To not just hold on to our democracy, but to continue the slow, hard work of making this country what it proclaims to be, what it hasn’t been for many Americans?

Right now I’m going to take a walk, then maybe even take a long nap — something Rucker recommended.

But, eventually, my answer will be yes.

What will yours be?