Podcast: Election Anxiety: Navigating and Easing the Stress

Dr. Michelle Patriquin, PhD, ABPP, is the Director of Research and a Senior Psychologist at The Menninger Clinic and Associate Professor in the Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. She is a board certified and licensed psychologist. She has authored over 185 publications and presentations and has been honored with numerous awards for her research and mentorship. She serves as a board member for the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA), as well as other nonprofits committed to mental health clinical care, research, and education. Across her work, she is committed to building real-world solutions that expedite the translation of mental health scientific discoveries into robust clinical innovation that improve mental health outcomes for all.

Our host, Gabe Howard, is an award-winning writer and speaker who lives with bipolar disorder. He is the author of the popular book, “Mental Illness is an Asshole and other Observations,” available from Amazon; signed copies are also available directly from the author.

Gabe makes his home in the suburbs of Columbus, Ohio. He lives with his supportive wife, Kendall, and a Miniature Schnauzer dog that he never wanted, but now can’t imagine life without.

To book Gabe for your next event or learn more about him, please visit gabehoward.com.

Producer’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Announcer: You’re listening to Inside Mental Health: A Psych Central Podcast where experts share experiences and the latest thinking on mental health and psychology. Here’s your host, Gabe Howard.

Gabe Howard: Hey, everybody, welcome to the podcast. I’m your host, Gabe Howard. Calling into the show today we have Dr. Michelle A. Patriquin. Dr. Patriquin is the director of research at the Menninger Clinic, an associate professor at the Baylor College of Medicine, and a board member for the Anxiety and Depression Association of America. Dr. Patriquin, welcome to the podcast.

Michelle A. Patriquin, PhD: Thanks so much for having me, Gabe.

Gabe Howard: So I am excited to talk about election stress, because I’m definitely one of those people that is just completely stressed out about the election. But I know the show’s not about me and you’re not my therapist. So I want to start really at the beginning. What is election stress and is this a uniquely American thing, or do other countries struggle with this as well?

Michelle A. Patriquin, PhD: Yeah, super good question. Election stress, I actually have to give credit to ADAA for coming up with that term. I think they really they really got that going. And it honestly, it affects everyone. It affects everyone, whether you’re in the United States or globally, if you, you know, no matter what political party you are, this is a major stressor. It’s a major sense of uncertainty. Because of that, it just is it affects everybody.

Gabe Howard: It’s really I don’t want to put too fine a point on it, but when you say that it affects everybody, it’s all political parties. It’s I think that Americans generally believe that their party is stressed out because they’re fighting the evil of the other party, and the other party is fine because for some reason, the quote/unquote evil people can’t be stressed out, I guess. It seems like this quagmire where everybody believes they’re the only ones who care about society, when in actuality this is something that bonds us. Everybody in society is worried about this, but of course, we’re not talking to each other to get that kind of support. What’s the solution?

Michelle A. Patriquin, PhD: Oh I think that’s the million dollar or billion dollar question. I don’t know if I’m going to give it to you in the podcast. But you know I think right when it comes down to it, you’re talking about developing mutual understanding. I think that and what you said really hits the nail on the head that we are all trying to do the best we can and ensure our values, our worldview, you know, is it, you know, and politics align with that, right? So that we get we win and our worldview and, you know, all these things also win. And but everyone is just trying to I think figure out what’s best. And and to understand and have their ideas of what’s best. And just because they don’t align with someone else’s doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re evil or wrong or a horrible person. Us as humans are just trying to, you know, evolve, survive and have a good quality of life and that people’s ideas on how to do that are going to be incredibly different. And that’s okay.

Gabe Howard: One of the things that struck me while you were talking is that you said that when your candidate wins, your worldview wins, and therefore what you love and care about wins. But I was I was curious in from a practical standpoint, if your candidate loses, that doesn’t mean that everything that you love and care about also loses and dies, right? I mean, I’m just I’ve seen presidents from both the Democrat side and the Republican side in my lifetime, and my values have remained very consistent. So I’m not seeing my values die. But I will admit, when my candidate loses, I become ultra fearful that my values will die.

Michelle A. Patriquin, PhD: Yes. Right. Well, and I think it gets down to I think we get very wrapped up and that’s part of media. Right. They get us real wrapped up and emotionally invested and, and ready to, to sort of join the battle, join the fight. And because we’re so emotionally invested, we think, you know, kind of it’s this is the end all be all. But but. Right. This is this is not true. Right? We’re almost get too attached to the political process party And it’s not just our fault, right? That’s part of the the marketing. Right. And that’s part of the the attraction of it. And to really feel emotionally invested in this. But but in the end, you are not your worldview is not what the political party’s worldview is. You are not attached to a certain person or not. Whether you that political party wins or loses doesn’t mean you win or lose anything. You don’t have to win or lose anything. You can stay thinking the same things you thought before. Before that or after stays the same.

Gabe Howard: It really seems like a lot of the marketing for the presidential campaign, especially this year, is fear mongering. If this

Michelle A. Patriquin, PhD: Hmm.

Gabe Howard: Person wins, you will die. If this person wins and it’s both sides. I want to be very clear. I’m not alluding to any candidate or the other. It just seems like everything you read, the stuff that comes out from the candidates and then also all of the other like political action committees who are also releasing their own ads. They

Michelle A. Patriquin, PhD: Mm-hmm.

Gabe Howard: Always have this doomsday scenario. And again, I’m almost 50 years old. I’ve lived through a lot of presidential elections and I’ve seen these doomsday scenarios before. It just seems like now the rhetoric is worse. But then I’m reminded that our country went through a civil war. How could it be worse than when we were literally firing guns at our fellow countrymen? And the whole thing leaves me very confused, which of course contributes greatly to my personal anxiety.

Michelle A. Patriquin, PhD: Yeah. You know, I think the preying on fear. Right. I yeah, I’ve seen that too. It’s all, you know, kind of a this is the only way to survive. And if you think about it from like an evolutionary standpoint, it’s brilliant. That’s our core. You know fear survival. Right. That this that we are here and, you know, kind of when we are in our most sort of anxious, activated, say like that’s like what we do is we just try to survive as individual. If we get kind of, you know, feeling more safe and secure, then we can do work on social connectedness, reciprocity, all of those things. But, you know, it’s it’s really a strong strategy, I would say from a psychological and a kind of I wouldn’t say in a manipulative way, but, you know, they you know, they’re preying on emotions and our core fears, fears around uncertainty. One thing that when, you know, elections are uncertain, you’re not sure how they’re going to turn out. And one way to kind of prey on that is a fear. Plus a kind of saying it’s going to be certain in a certain way, you know, like, right, like having some sort of direction and sort of finite. Oh, yeah. Well, this is the way it’s going to be. So if this happens, this is the way it’s going to be.

Gabe Howard: Yeah, it really does seem like the messaging is this is the thing to be afraid of, and I have the solution. And by the way, that’s definitely going to happen. And it almost never seems to happen. But yet cycle after cycle after cycle, people believe the rhetoric again. How do we get people to sort of rise above that and, and look at the actual policies and have a more reasonable view of what happens when an election occurs.

Michelle A. Patriquin, PhD: Yeah. How do we rise above kind of the fear and the stress? And I think one way always right with like, fear, anxiety, taking a step back, not letting that fear and anxiety drive your actions the way you view yourself, the way you view others, recognizing it, labeling it, even sometimes it’s really hard to just even dial yourself back and think, oh, right, I’m worrying about something. Okay, this, you know, election is really making me, like, really afraid about this topic and this happening. And instead of getting wrapped up in kind of the emotionality or the messaging that someone may be delivering to you, thinking about it in a more Our concrete. You know, where you’re getting your information even. Are you getting your information from you know, social media and these kind of more emotionally driven ads, these little clips of information that in no way can capture everything? Or are you getting your information from maybe reading about, you know, kind of a more expert in the field and more objective sort of view that may, may or may not change. People get kind of ramped up and worried about it, fearful about it. But in the end, for the most part, it’s fine.

Gabe Howard: One of the things that shocks me the most is I love my wife, I do, and I picked her to be my wife out of all of the available choices. And she’s just one person and I married her. I don’t agree with everything she says. You heard it here first. I don’t think that that should be a controversial statement. But sometimes she’ll say things and I think that’s wrong. Sometimes she’ll say things and I say, that’s wrong. Sometimes we don’t agree and we have to, you know, just agree to disagree for the sake of our marriage. The reason that I bring all this up is because I’m shocked at the number of people who 100% agree with a politician. They’re just

Michelle A. Patriquin, PhD: Hmm.

Gabe Howard: Like this politician 100% of the time, never makes a mistake, gets everything right, never gets it wrong. They are perfect in every way. How dqo we go from not trusting our spouses? But we completely trust a politician, and I see a great number of my fellow country people believing this. And again, I want to be very, very clear on both sides of the political spectrum.

Michelle A. Patriquin, PhD: Yeah. Yeah. That is a really, really interesting point. And, you know, I think part of it comes to, you know, especially with social media and like the things that we see in front of us, we just think you know, we’ve just processed that information in a way that’s fast, not very analytical. And we just take it all in and, and agree with it for the most part. Right. Or maybe not necessarily agree. Sometimes it can go either way. I think it’s very binary. Right. Black and white sometimes like, oh no, I completely disagree or I completely agree. And I, I think with kind of agreeing 100% with a politician. I think I think it’s a we are trying to derive certainty and unequivocal sort of I’m going to buy in. I’m going to because this is, you know going to provide some stability. Right. Stability and my ideas and my sense of direction for the future. And so I, you know, 100% will just agree to everything. And I think we’re always looking for people to use different resources for it. But. Right. You use different resources to kind of frame your worldview. And so that’s just a way to have some certainty about that. Okay. This politician agrees with this. It’s the political party that I align with. And so we go with that.

Gabe Howard: I’m framing this question in terms of the election, but it’s really just a broader question. Whenever somebody hears that something is going wrong or going bad. They tend to as humans. We as humans tend to believe that whenever we hear that something is improved, we’re very skeptical. What is it about us that makes us steer completely into the negative, as if it’s it’s unmitigated fact, flawless in every way. But the minute that you say things are improving, the economy is improving. Crime is improving, unemployment is improving. People are like, well, I don’t think that’s true.

Michelle A. Patriquin, PhD: Yeah. Well I think part of that comes from trying to prevent those negative things from happening. Right. And thinking about it. So like we are going to really zone in on those negative things because those feed our worries and we’re worried about, you know, all sorts of different things and we don’t want them to happen. And when good things start to happen, we’re skeptical because we want to make sure when these bad things happen, we weren’t blindsided. I knew that that was going to happen. You know, that I, you know, predicted that that would happen. And so I’ve prepared an XYZ way. And and it didn’t blindside me and I’m prepared for it. But I think in the end that also sets us up to kind of always be on the defensive. Right? Always be in this stance of what, what is bad going to happen. And, you know, ultimately, we live in a very complicated world. And there’s always, you know, things that you can think about negatively or there are negative things happening. And that’s just the way, you know, the world is. And and, you know, not that we want to have any I saw you just did something on toxic positivity.

Gabe Howard: Yes.

Michelle A. Patriquin, PhD: Right? So, so right. There’s there’s a realistic. Right. Like a realistic way of, you know, in a hopeful way of really thinking about stressful events, you know, election or not. That’s that’s in the middle. That’s that’s more sort of objective, thoughtful. And ultimately, every situation is never black and white. It doesn’t matter what you know. It’s never a binary. It’s never A01 like the computers. You know, we’re humans and it’s always gray. Always. Every situation is gray. W

Gabe Howard: Speaking of black and white thinking, my black and white thinking would make me think that after the election, if your candidate won, your stress gets better. And if your candidate loses, your stress gets worse. Is it that clear or does the cycle just start over again and just look slightly different in the beginning? But eventually we end up back at the same place?

Sponsor Break

Gabe Howard: And we’re back with Dr. Michelle A. Patriquin discussing how not to stress out over the upcoming election.

Michelle A. Patriquin, PhD: We just end up back at the same place, particularly we get in these patterns of thinking, right? This automatic kind of thought processes. And when we do that, oftentimes we just find another stressful event to latch on to, I think, and potentially repeat those ways of thinking as well. Instead of trying to work on realistically reversing them and, and using it almost as a way to really work on our anxiety, our stress management, how to deal with these things and then apply it to another situation. You know, the election is something you can kind of practice. It’s a big stressor, I know, and it’s very, you know, it’s stressful for everyone. But how do we use that in a way that doesn’t replicate or exacerbate, you know, any other additional stresses. We have to.

Gabe Howard: And what would that look like? How do we not steer into the anxiety but instead steer away from it?

Michelle A. Patriquin, PhD: Yeah. So, you know I keep talking about media. So I think definitely get off the social media stop scrolling. I got to tell that, you know, I got to do that myself. So no one’s perfect at it. But I think stop kind of mindlessly absorbing information I think is really, really important, being conscious of what you’re viewing, seeing and then how it affects you internally. If you find yourself being triggered or getting angry, upset, you don’t need to look at that information, right? Especially like on Instagram or Facebook. If it’s really evoking some strong negative emotions in you, just stop looking at it. There’s there’s no, you know, healthy reason to be looking at that information. I also think getting involved in things that you love outside of your phone. And so whether that’s time with your family or you know, volunteering a new place, meeting up with old friends you haven’t met up with, you know, there’s so many different things you can do. Learning a new sport or whatever. All of these kind of things to really get yourself out of a sort of negative cycle. In terms of stressful event. I also think connecting with other people developing, especially those who may have different than you. It’s challenging, but. Right. Like if you can have some really strong relationships, I think with people on the opposite side of the political spectrum from you, that can be incredibly reassuring, right, that you have shared common values, interests. And really, I think you have a good friend, which is always a good thing. But then also just really making sure that you kind of start to understand the other side a little bit more and that can relieve a lot of stress.

Gabe Howard: People often say that in polite conversation you should never talk about money, religion, or politics, but your advice seems to be to find someone who disagrees with you and then become friends with them. And I got to be honest, it sounds super difficult because if you if you feel like that person disagrees with your morals and your values and your ethics and they’re so very wrong in their thinking, how do you even begin to bridge that gap and become friends with them in the first place? Where do you even start?

Michelle A. Patriquin, PhD: Yeah. Well, I think, you know, the first thing is really reframing how you think about when someone disagrees with you politically. Right. That that they’re not immoral, that they’re not wrong. Right. That instead they actually just have a difference of opinion and a different way of thinking about the world. And, you know, one of my best friends from college is very on a different side of the political spectrum, and it has taken a lot of time. I think your first impulse can be wrong, immoral, this is not the way that we think about things, but it takes time and understanding and really getting into some of the nuances. You’re like, whoa, okay, I understand why you think that way, or I understand why, you know, the whole kind of history of all sorts of stuff of how you got to this as a value. And I think that, though, isn’t something that you’re just going to do, like in a second in any way. Relationships, building relationships, it takes time and it takes understanding and shared interests outside of values, politics, all sorts of things. And I think it’s really powerful though, starting to really understand the other side in a more nuanced, right, thoughtful way, and not jumping to conclusions. Because like you said, in the end,

Michelle A. Patriquin, PhD: when you get down to the nitty gritty or you get talking about stories or experiences you have, I have found in conversations there is so much empathy, understanding. I may vote this way, but when we talk about a certain story or experience with someone who cares about you, it doesn’t matter how you vote politically, they’re going to say, I’m so sorry that happened. And just really connect. And and so I think not getting lost in the kind of grandstanding. That kind of attitude. And at the core, again, like we were talking about, these things are so gray. People don’t necessarily, you know, believe everything, you know, that the political party may vote for getting to really understand where they’re coming from, why, what are the stories and the life experiences that they have had that got them to this point? That I think in the end actually is incredibly healing, incredibly stress relieving. It’s like, oh, I totally see how you got to this ideas and the reason you you know, vote this way or lean this way. And but I still love you no matter what. And you’re not necessarily wrong. We just think, you know, you can always make fun of them, too, so that helps. [Laughter]

Gabe Howard: [Laughter] We embrace humor as healthy.

Michelle A. Patriquin, PhD: Humor is so healthy and it’s fun and, you know, a little competition and it doesn’t have to be so serious.

Gabe Howard: I cannot agree more. One of the things that I always think about is when somebody is in trouble, we don’t run up to them and ask them their political affiliation. We run

Michelle A. Patriquin, PhD: No.

Gabe Howard: Up to them. We see this in traffic accidents. We see this when people lose their children in the mall. We see this when we see scared people, we immediately help them and we don’t ask them any questions about any of this. Politics takes a back seat when we see people in trouble. I think we need to remember that when we’re just bored, when we’re just walking through life, everybody’s just trying to make their own way and make the best decisions for them. And sometimes we’re going to disagree on some things. But ultimately, I do truly believe that if I were in a crisis, if I needed help in the middle of of the world, if I was out in public, people would come and help me. And I don’t believe that any of them would care about my political affiliation.

Michelle A. Patriquin, PhD: No, they definitely wouldn’t.

Gabe Howard: Dr. Patriquin, as we as we wrap up this show. I just have to ask, is there any other advice that you can share with people who are experiencing election stress?

Michelle A. Patriquin, PhD: I would just say, we keep bringing up the term uncertainty and when things are uncertain or you’re not sure of the outcome, that doesn’t equal catastrophe. I think we catastrophize that’s a big word we use in the way that, you know, sometimes we kind of have these automatic ways of thinking that, you know, when things are uncertain or we’re just not sure the outcome. We just go to the worst. We were talking about that, you know, earlier. And uncertainty doesn’t equal the worst outcome. Uncertainty is right. It doesn’t. It’s uncertain what the outcome will be. So we have to remember that that can also be a very positive thing that we can’t always be, you know, really trying to get out of that automatic jump to the negative. We want to know that’s protective and we want to stay safe. And so we really are, you know, always kind of jumping to, like, protecting ourselves, our families. And that makes a lot of sense. But that all it also does make sense to maintain and to understand that there is hope. There is the other side. And that really there is a positive uncertainty just means we don’t know and don’t know. I mean, it could be either way. Yeah.

Gabe Howard: Dr. Patriquin, thank you so much for being here. Can you tell us a little bit about the ADAA and about the Baylor College of Medicine and the Menninger Clinic, please?

Michelle A. Patriquin, PhD: Sure. Yeah. I’m so happy to tell you about all the three of those things. I’m really fortunate to work with all of those groups. So ADAA is the Anxiety and Depression Association of America and recently joined their board and just a fantastic organization and resource for a host of mental health disorders, particularly anxiety and depression and those that co-occur with it. But definitely check those out. There’s some good resources there. And then, also, I’m director of research at the Menninger Clinic, and we’re an inpatient/outpatient psychiatric hospital. And we’re actually one of the top psychiatric hospitals in the United States and have been for as long as there have been U.S. News and World Report rankings of psychiatric hospitals. So we’re very proud of that. And also I’m associate professor at Baylor College of Medicine, and we do a lot of research with our wonderful colleagues at Baylor.

Gabe Howard: We absolutely appreciate you and we appreciate all of our listeners as well. My name is Gabe Howard and I’m an award winning public speaker and I could be available for your next event. I also wrote the book “Mental Illness Is an Asshole and Other Observations,” which you can get on Amazon because everything is on Amazon. However, if you want to sign, copy and get some free podcast swag, or you just want to learn more about me, head over to my website gabehoward.com. Wherever you downloaded this episode, please follow or subscribe to the show. It is absolutely free and you don’t want to miss a thing. And hey, can you do me a favor? Recommend the show to the people you know. Sharing the show with those you know is how we grow. I will see everybody next time on Inside Mental Health.

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