Hyperbolic is just a snobby way of calling me “hysterical”
Co-existing with people who simply cannot understand your post election sadness and fear
Dear Stork’d Family,
Like so many of us, I have spent the past week processing complex emotions about the election results. Not merely the fact of the win, but the flashing hazard lights of those wide margins. In those numbers and statics lies an alarming truth:
I am more alone than I thought.
On election night as the tallies rolled in, the widening chasm between my beliefs and the vast majority of my friends, neighbors and countrymen was made abundantly clear. Like the coyote chasing the road runner, I too had that moment of looking down to realize just how far off the cliff I was suspended.
And just like that, the gravity of our nation’s shifting zeitgeist took hold and the bottom fell out.
*****
The sensation of feeling like the road runner free falling through space conjures the image of the Grand Canyon.
The last time I visited the Grand Canyon was with a very spry ex boyfriend. We were in a rush to catch our flight home and hiked too far down into the canyon. We booked it back up hundreds of steps in 90+ degree heat as fast as we could climb, and yet I wasn’t quite fast enough.
I found myself climbing behind him on the verge of passing out as he “encouraged” me sharply: “you are hiking at a 3 mile per hour pace and you need to go at 4 miles per hour!”.
Human accelerometer skills notwithstanding, that relationship did not continue much longer than the return flight home. (Shocking, I know.)
This election is bringing me back metaphorically to that cartography, only this time I imagine myself huddled on one side with a crowd of like minded women, members of the queer community, environmentalists, economists, former Trump cabinet members, and a variety of other allies.
I envision us kicking dust onto the fernbush and watching the squirrels scurry wondering, why are we so sparsely populated over here? Across the way an enormous crowd in MAGA hats gathers. They can’t hear us scream our warnings over the void, “watch out for the venomous snakes at your feet. ” They will learn soon enough I suppose.
Isn't it fitting that in both scenes of the Grand Canyon (one real, one imagined), I am out of step and off pace with the men in my life?
*****
I made the mistake of trying to build a bridge with the other side of the canyon.
Just days after the election a white, male, heterosexual friend/ colleague and I got on the phone to chat about an incident of misplaced humor in our friend group. I know he sees the world completely opposite from me on most things and so I was very careful to communicate with intention.
I leaned on communication skills gained from years of biting my tongue as the only woman in the boardroom to very cautiously pick my way through the minefield of word choices and sentence structure and gingerly articulate my perspective.
Assuming you can’t argue with someone else’s feelings, I shared with this guy that I was deeply scared.
I happen to be scared about so many things right now:
the fear and empathy I have for anyone who might be rounded up in internment camps and deported (including possibly denaturalizing US Citizens) and the resulting the implications on the humanity economic future of this nation
Increasing fears about sexual violence in the wake of the Matt Gaetz appointment and the “your body my choice” movement (to see how pervasive it is, just look at the merch you can buy on amazon declaring your intent to r@pe and control
Fears about growing iniquities for our children if threats to the department of education are made real
Uncertainty about foreign policy
Concern for the future of democracy
Fears about the existential crisis that is our dying planet
Fears about who will get the privilege of marrying the person they love or divorcing the person they don’t
And so much more
Yet, for the sake of trying to bridge connection, I chose one, salient fear that I thought he, a father, could relate to. That as a woman in this country, am very scared.
I shared that I had read Project 2025, I have witnessed the loss of healthcare sweeping our nation and I was terrified. As a woman in this country, who is trying to get pregnant, I am worried about my access to lifesaving medical treatment if I should need it. As someone who had an miscarriage last year (and the surgical treatment for that is… a D&C or abortion) I feel very scared about my ability to access such care if I need it in the future. I feel very scared that I could be denied lifesaving treatment, leaving my son without his only parent. I expressed my concerns about accessing birth control, choosing when and if I implant embryos, getting to build my family.
And of course, I am not just scared for myself. I am afraid for every woman in this country. I am afraid for the children we are raising who will grow up to believe that this medical inequality is normal, or that women’s bodies don’t have worth.
“You’re being a bit hyperbolic” was his response.
*****
“Hyperbolic”. In a word he dismissed all of my feelings and those of the many many people who feel like I do.
I am reminded that “hyperbolic” is merely “hysterical” dressed in a fancy costume.
Hysteria a word from the Latin root, “Hystera” or womb
Hysteria - a dismissive term for a woman who speaks her mind or is too “emotional”
Hysteria - a medical diagnosis that was often treated with institutionalization, forced marriage or lobotomy
Hysteria - the ability to lock up or mutilate a woman because she has the audacity to possess the combination of a uterus and an opinion
By gussying up the word “hysteria” to its fancier, more high-brow cousin, “hyperbolic”, my friend swiftly and effectively dismissed me along with any and all of my attempts at bridge building. My feelings relegated to Bedlam.
*****
How does one continue to exist in a world where the vast majority of those around you not only don’t see your perspective, but don’t even believe your point of view has merit? How does one continue to express a position when it will automatically be dismissed as hyperbolic.
Do I continue to build bridges? To go out on a limb? To cross the chasm? Do I give up, and connect only with those on my side of the canyon? Self isolate? Do I get loud and fight more aggressively for my perspective?
I am embarrassed to say that my first instinct was self-doubt. If everyone is voting differently from me, am I the one going insane?.
My second emotion was rage: how dare he. Not only how dare he dismiss me, but how dare he gaslight me into questioning my footing on what had previously been firm ground?
*****
Hyperbolic - I still can’t get over that dismissal. Up until that conversation, I had imagined myself to be the road runner, skillfully out maneuvering any and all threats. But with that one word, I become the coyote, free falling for the sake of another’s entertainment.
When was the last time you were dismissed as hysterical, hyperbolic, or too emotional? When was the last time you felt like the coyote?
Gestating Around the Internet
In more fun news, I was honored to guest on the amazing podcast, Love Lab Uncensored with Kate Graham and Rebecca Eudy, two sex and relationship therapists who ask all the juicy questions (don’t worry fam, this episode is clean)
I really enjoyed this profile about a Solo Foster Mom By Choice whose parenting took the form of fostering 24 babies who needed a safe space before reunification, and ultimately her decision to adopt one of those babies, The Cut
There is a particular pain in not having babies in your life when you want them (I have felt it acutely), and hopeful grandparents feel it too. It is easy to see how torn you would be between wanting what’s best for your child and supporting them in their life choices (aka: remaining childfree) and mourning the loss of the identity you crave, Grandparent. The Unspoken Grief of Never Becoming A Grandparent, The New York Times
Billionaire (and suspected criminal) Pavel Durov is giving away free IVF…. if you have his child. The narcissistic desire to father hundreds of kids is not new, but now it has political justification in the form of the Pronatalism Movement and a number of wealthy “donors”. More to digest here, but if you want to listen to some great podcasts, check out past episodes Eve Wiley, Conception Deception and Louise McGloughlin, The Revelation: Donor Conception
Listen Season 6 here or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or Google Podcasts.
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