Side Effects

As, no doubt, the whole world is aware we just had presidential election in this country. In some ways it reminded me of my first windowpane LSD trip. The trip was awesome but the side effects lingered and colored my whole world. Prior to the birthday acid I thought I was happy. Afterwards I realized I wasn't and radically changed my whole life in a matter of weeks.

After this presidential acid trip I knew I was severely depressed. And the signs had been building since the Democratic primary in New Mexico. First result is I changed my registration to unaffiliated after being a Democrat for most of my life. For a while I was rather too self-involved to realize that most of my friends were crying more, more withdrawn, more afraid. And soon I began to suspect anyone who did not exhibit these signs. Did they get the placebo or just cheek it?

Or, heaven forbid, did I have friends who voted for him? During the beginning of the cabinet picks I waited for them to become aware of their mistake. Instead they became brazen. Rude. Crude. And downright socially unacceptable.

One dear friend even told me to "grow up and get off it." Well, that ended a friendship based on art and history which had survived the election. Nobody tells me to grow up. Especially on my own Facebook page. I began to notice that it was suddenly more and more acceptable to use once politically incorrect racist and sexist terms and "grab pussy" even on the internet. I used the unfollow and then unfriend options a lot more than I had.

Would this wear off I asked myself. Rather like cleaning up your act with your dorm mates the weeks before going home for the holidays. But, no, it seems to have gotten worse. I went from crying to abhorred. This cannot be my country, not my president, and not my friends. I was never a prude about cussing but I do not like verbal abuse in any form but especially not in the elected leader of our country or my friends.

I am an introvert but my circle of friends has gotten smaller. My public appearances less. I wear safety pins on my jacket lapels and found myself just recently searching the internet for decorative original jewelry in safety pin form. Say in silver with turquoise? Obviously this is not going away fast and the safety pins I found in my sewing drawer will not suffice for all occasions.  Couldn't they have picked a spider symbol? I have lots of spider lapel pins.

I have even found myself watching documentaries about French resistance in the German invasion, and The Man in the High Castle streaming, and taking notes of how to deal with the reality outside my castle walls. Maybe I can just stay home. My cringes will give me away as an enemy of the state.

Some side effects are permanent. Some fatal. Time will tell.