"I just couldn't deal," Larry told me, staring at a TV tuned to CNN while sipping a tall boy of High Life. "I felt the initial tug [to drink] the night of the election, but never gave in. By the time he took the oath, I'd been thinking about it a lot—how nice it would feel just to numb out with a few drinks." That night, with the looming specter of a Trump presidency impossible to ignore, Larry went to the store, bought a 12-pack. He's now back to his old habit.
He's not alone. Existential dread is the reason my friend Dana hasn't been able to get herself to the gym in weeks. Anxiety about what's next is the reason Alex, a co-worker, has been smoking more than usual, up to two packs a day at one point after quitting for a spell. It's the reason another, Catherine, has been smoking more weed than normal, which concerns her.
"I haven't been sober this year, I don't think," an old acquaintance told me recently while catching up on Facebook. Stress has lead
Judd Apatow to overeat,
and is the reason Lena Dunham can't eat at all.
All of these emotions are built atop the same foundation: Trump. He is the reason many are giving up or giving in, why they're succumbing to despair or taking wild nihilistic stabs into the void.
