The five stages of post-election grief?

Not that I really believe in them—but I do hope you feel free to grieve, whatever that looks like for you

“The more difficult it is for us to articulate our experiences of loss, longing, and feeling lost to all the people around us, the more disconnected and alone we feel. Talking about grief is difficult in a world that wants us to ‘get over it’ or a community that is quick to pathologize grief.”

-Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart

Ever since I woke up last Wednesday morning, it seems strange to me that the world is still turning. 

The sun still rises, birds still flutter about, baristas serve up coffee orders, people go out for brunch. Dog people walk their dogs. Cat people walk up and down the street yelling “tuna snack” to lure their cat back indoors before dusk—because you know she responds to “tuna snack” but not her own name. (Oops, maybe that one’s just me.) 

People and doggos are still out and about, going about their business / Photo by Jenn Simpson on Unsplash

I think of other times in my life when I’ve been surprised—sometimes mildly comforted, sometimes borderline offended—to see that the world keeps turning. I remember the loss of a close friend. A piece of family-changing news. 

The feeling is one of grief, really. Except, those other losses have been personal. I didn’t actually expect that other people wouldn’t go work out at the gym or bag groceries at the supermarket just because something awful happened in my personal life. 

This grief, though—this post-election grief—it’s collective. So many of us hoped for a different outcome and were devastated to find it was not to be. I feel like we should be wearing sackcloth and smearing our faces with ashes. Sitting in the dust. Writing lament songs and singing them together.

(For what it’s worth, as far as lament and protest songs go, Die From a Broken Heart by Maddie & Tae and What About Us by P!NK have been running on replay through my brain for the last few days. I offer them in case either proves a wee bit cathartic to you as well. The nerve of this guy, indeed.)

In the midst of all this, I find a small bit of comfort in the realization that I’ve learned a few things about grief these last eight years. 

Our current political situation is similar to 2016 in some ways and vastly, terrifyingly different in others. But we may find ourselves experiencing some of the same feelings—whether shock, or rage, or numbness, or disillusionment and the desire to disengage. We may feel inclined to fight or flee or freeze or fawn or some combination of all of these.

For those of us who are experiencing the election results as a devastating change to what we hoped our collective future might look like—I hope we take as long as we need to grieve. 

If it feels helpful, we can acknowledge some of the different stages we might go through. (Not necessarily all or even any of them, and not necessarily in this order, and probably not in a linear, neatly progressing fashion—you get the idea—but maybe, still, some of them might resonate.)

We might find ourselves experiencing times of:

1. Denial

I went to bed early last Tuesday night, as part of my self-care effort to keep as consistent a bedtime as possible, and to allow the possibility of plenty of sleep. 

I also went to bed last Tuesday night clinging to an assumption that the election results may not come in quickly, and the next president of the United States might not be decided for at least another few days, if not longer. 

I hoped that some of the swing state races that didn’t seem terribly close might tighten up, and that some of the races that did seem close would tilt in Harris’ favor. I was aware that things were looking grim, but I didn’t quite believe what I saw. I couldn’t quite believe it.

It wasn’t until I found myself awake at 5:30 am Wednesday morning and checked my phone that I saw that the result had been called. Until then, as I watched state after state turn redder and redder on the saddest map of the U.S. I’ve ever seen, I was in denial.

2. Anger

Like much of the internet, I’ll admit I’ve been going through some phases of mentally blaming different people or groups of people for the election results. (And of course, if we’re pointing fingers, we’d be remiss not to point a finger at the 53% of white women who voted for a sexual predator who has never bothered to hide his hatred of and disrespect for women.)

I’m not saying I’m proud of this. I would very much like to find healing and repair for the blame-worthy choices people have made, to find a way to come together when we’re falling apart (to borrow from the subtitle of Alicia Garza’s book The Purpose of Power). 

I still want to see what we can build among people of goodwill of all sorts going forward together. I would like not to assume anything about people I meet based on their race or gender or the combination of the two, because even though the odds might be that someone voted for Trump, plenty of people in their category didn’t. 

But maybe we need a minute to get there. Maybe we’ve got some anger, and that’s okay. 

We can attend to this anger rather than push it under the rug or internalize it. Maybe, in time, we can let our anger move us to mobilize, to unite, to do something good and healing for ourselves and others and our communities. 

3. Bargaining

Did he really come by this result honestly? I don’t know. I hope, at least, that we might know someday. Preferably someday soon. 

I’m not sure it’s exactly “bargaining” to want an investigation into election integrity and voter suppression, but it’s not not bargaining. And that’s okay. That’s where we might be at.

4. Depression

There were days last week when I thought, maybe I can do a little bit of work. I was mostly wrong.

I could read, I could take notes, but I couldn’t really write much. I didn’t want to be on social media. I moped around a lot. I walked a lot. My spouse and I cooked some nourishing meals and then went out to eat when we normally would have cooked. We watched a movie. We finished the Apple TV series Slow Horses. 

It feels like a confusing combination of choice and privilege to be able to just bum around for a while. But I want that for everyone. I want time off for grief of all sorts. 

It’s okay to be so, so sad thinking about the choice so many people made and what might be coming over the next four years. I hope we have space—I hope we make space—to feel all those feelings.

As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once asked as he looked around the world and saw violence, racism, militarism, and materialism on every side: How could you see all this and not be depressed?

Dr. King reminds us it’s okay to feel the depressed feelings / Photo by Florida Memory on Unsplash

I’m not necessarily talking about clinical depression, but about looking around and just being really bummed out by the difference between how things could be and how they are. There are times when we just need to focus on resting and taking care of ourselves and being with people who love us. 

This is often all part of the grieving process, and it’s okay. It’s not a less faith-filled or holy response. Don’t let anyone tell you it is. Feel all your feelings; it’s how we heal and integrate ourselves and, eventually, figure out how to move forward.

5. Acceptance

I don’t want to “accept” this, in the sense of giving up on the possibility that our country might still move in some more positive directions. 

But I keep coming back to the word “integrate,” which perhaps captures something of a similar idea. 

Slowly, I feel like I’m integrating this new reality—this reality that is so far from what I’d hoped for—into myself, into my mind, into my expectations for the next few years. Integrating it into my plans, into my sense of self and community and faith and future. 

I think this will be a longer process. And it’s something that, if we do it at all, we do it together. But maybe we’re on the way.

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I don’t know how you grieve. I don’t know if you can relate to any of these stages or any of the things I’ve shared here, and it’s okay either way.

Whatever post-election grief looks like for you, I hope you have so much grace for yourself through it. So much patience with whatever the process looks like. So much gentleness, so much willingness to roll with whatever your body is feeling. And I hope you’re with people who can hold that kind of space for one another. 

Take your time. Feel free to move slowly. And remember we’re in this together.