Bearing With Each Other’s Crash-Outs

Trump’s second presidency has managed to be both more violent and politically successful than his first. It hasn’t yet been a year, but it has felt like a decade.

Understandably, many of us are on edge—no, we are straight up crashing out.

The weight of our anxiety is being carried in our bodies and felt in our relationships.

So here is a messy little story about a bizarre online exchange I just had, which helped me reflect on the boundaries that are going to keep us sane in a year in which our nervous systems are rapidly collapsing.

Bare with me as I unfold the series of events that led to the crash-out:

Yesterday, I woke up with a sore throat. After several months of nonstop travel, book promotion, and dozens and dozens of podcasts, I felt myself hitting a wall. Ulgh. I am not allowed to get sick! I am headed into another weekend of travel for my book tour, and I had 3 events scheduled that day, including two podcasts—which would mean about three hours of talking. I knew something had to give, so I reached out to the two podcasts to reschedule.

I was proud of myself for doing this—I fucking hate letting people down. There is a little gremlin in my brain that tells me if I am ever late, or cancel on anyone, or drop the ball in any way, nobody will like me because I am a useless piece of trash.

But I listened to my body (and to my girlfriend, who told me I should) and let the podcast hosts know I would need to reschedule. I’m glad I did—I needed it.

So I had removed the most taxing aspects of my schedule, but as a self-employed single dad, a nap was not in the cards for me—I still had a list of errands and other work to do.

But that afternoon, a people-pleasers worst nightmare was fulfilled, when I received the exact DM that cheeky gremlin warned me about. He knew—he knew all along!

“Super disappointed man, you didn’t need to lie—we could have rescheduled the pod.”

Whenever I see a DM insulting me or calling me a liar, I get immediately sweaty. “Who-what-now?” I had a double-take and tried to figure out what was happening.

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