Right now you probably feel like a spring that’s been tightly compressed under enormous weight. From the outside, it appears still. Inside it is coursing with intense potential (anxious!) energy just dying for release.
All elections elicit this feeling to some degree. But the 2020 contest has raised the stakes, adding looming threats of disinformation and interference, contested results and a president who has repeatedly antagonized a deeply polarized electorate. It is an extremely stressful moment. The best description I’ve seen of our collective anxiety was from Mother Jones editor in chief Clara Jeffery: “The entire country is awaiting a biopsy result.”
Why is waiting so difficult and what, if anything we can do to make this uncertain moment a little more tolerable?
Waiting on news like election returns (or even just for Election Day to arrive) combines two unpleasant states: uncertainty and powerlessness. Each are deeply uncomfortable emotions. Put them together and it feels like torture.
“For many people, they’ve voted and thus have taken what is perhaps the last action they can take to have an influence in the outcome,” Art Markman, a professor of psychology and marketing at the University of Texas at Austin, told me. “At that point you’re strapped into the roller coaster and it’s climbing up the hill and you can’t stop it.”
The closer we get to an anticipated event, the more we have an emotional investment in it, and the more emotional investment, the more anxiety. Our brains begin to obsessively ruminate, chewing over our thoughts again and again, which becomes counterproductive.
Often, Mr. Markman noted, we are deploying something called “defensive pessimism,” which is a strategy our brains use in stressful situations where we can control the outcome, like, say, a big exam. “It’s a great coping strategy when you have agency because being defensively pessimistic forces you to study more,” Mr. Markman said. But in circumstances out of our control, it is an example of the mind working against its best interests and creating more anxiety.
Superstitious types might cringe at this point.
But Mr. Markman said it’s actually better to adopt an optimistic mind-set in the run-up to the returns. “Defensive pessimism is creating a fictitious state. You’re feeling pessimistic but you don’t really believe it. Deep down you think your candidate will win, but you’re telling yourself they won’t, so when the actual outcome happens it’ll hurt less. But that’s not how it works. So really you’ll be paying the price twice. Once for anticipatory period and again if the results don’t go how you want,” he said.
Kate Sweeny, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside who studies the psychology of waiting, told me that there’s a difference between defensive pessimism and bracing for the worst. We can prepare so as not to be surprised by a negative outcome. That doesn’t mean we can’t also hold out hope and feel optimistic.
“Bracing for the worst makes sense when you lack agency,” she said. “We see it in even the most optimistic people because it protects us and also elevates the experience of good news.”
Ms. Sweeny noted that many people are understandably scarred by the surprise results of the 2016 election but that, regardless of the outcome, 2020’s contest won’t feel same as four years ago. “Those on the losing side learned a really hard lesson the hard way and I don’t think any of them are keen to relive that trauma,” she said. “But there’s a huge emotional gap between hoping for the best, as many are now, and blindly expecting it, as many did then.”
In 2016, Ms. Sweeny and her team did a study looking at supporters of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, assessing their anxiety. A month out from Election Day, both sides were dead even in their worry about the outcome. Closer to Election Day, it was Trump supporters who were more anxious. This year she’s running the study again and the results have flipped. So far, Joe Biden supporters are far more anxious about the outcome than Trump supporters.
“It’s a totally different mentality we’re seeing. That doesn’t mean it won’t be shattering for supporters if Biden loses, but it won’t feel like 2016,” said Ms. Sweeny.
Regardless of outcome, we still have to wait for it. Thankfully, there are a few things you can do to make the interim less agonizing.
Don’t cancel. Schedule.
“Lots of people tell me they’re canceling everything during election week and I’m like, ‘No please don’t cancel. Schedule. If you have nothing to do you’ll only revert to worrying and obsessively consuming news,” said Ms. Sweeny. Dr. Megan Ranney, an emergency physician and associate professor at Brown University, echoed the advice. “Just as many believe in prayer — here, I believe in action. Vote yourself, and help others to safely vote,” she said.
But don’t limit yourself to just one thing. Any activity that can provide a sense of control or agency will feel like a balm in this moment. Dr. Ranney suggested staying busy. “Volunteer, start a craft project, cook, do something that reminds you that life will go on.”
Don’t deny your feelings.
If you’re scared, allow yourself to feel that way for a moment. “Denying the pain and fear and anger leads to bad things down the road — the feelings always come out somewhere,” Dr. Ranney said. “Have someone to vent to, whether a therapist or clergy or best friend or all of the above, and be intentional about letting the feelings out.”
Give yourself something to look forward to.
One way to counter nervous anticipation is to plan something exciting for the immediate future, Mr. Markman argued. “Focusing on something desirable is a great strategy.” He suggests that planning and cooking your favorite meal or making plans to see friends in a socially distant way can help. “It’s not fiddling while Rome burns,” he told me. “There’ll be time to refocus thoughts to the election as returns come in, but planning and executing something you enjoy will reduce uncertainty between now and then.”
Remember: We’re all feeling this uncertainty together.
An election. A pandemic. An economic crisis. A climate crisis. Mass protests for racial justice. It is a painful and tense moment in America right now. We’re all living through it together.
“If you’re feeling like crap, you’re not alone,” Ms. Sweeny said.
In November 2020, these are words to live by.
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November 02, 2020 at 05:00PM
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