When Donald Trump won the election in November, I was between stages of utter disbelief and total panic. I cried and I prayed and I cried some more, hoping that something had gone wrong and that something would be discovered and undo this whole thing; but here we are today. Immediately after the election, I couldn't bring myself to watch the news or The Daily Show with Trevor Noah (which I have loved for years), and even had trouble watching the hilarious and all too accurate Saturday Night Live sketches about the outcome.

I have heard from multiple sources how those of us unhappy with the state of our country (contrary to what political commentators like Tomi Lahren believe, we are not simply "whining that we lost," we are worried about where our society is headed) should be doing as much as we can to show our displeasure with the current political state. How we cannot just accept the monster recently sworn into office and should be fighting for what we believe in. While I did attend one protest, I have to be honest: I don't want to talk about Trump. I don't want to talk about how unqualified he is, about how racist his policies are, about how his plans are going to fail. I don't want to talk about him repealing Obamacare and how millions are going to be left without insurance. I could talk for days on how horrid his views on abortion are and how necessary birth control is for so many women (and frankly, the planet itself), but I don't want to. For my own mental health, I don't want to discuss what he is doing to America. It fills my heart with too much rage, and anger will get us nowhere. I admit that I am privileged in ways that allow me to ignore him to a certain extent, but others cannot. I'm white, and neither I nor my parents are immigrants. I'm a woman, but my insurance is not through Obamacare. I can choose to temporarily shut off the part of my brain that thinks about him and his negative effects, but don't think that that makes me ignorant.

As a sociology major, I know a lot about society, about people. I know that we need to persevere and make sure that racism, sexism, Islamophobia, xenophobia, and every other horrifying ideal Trump has pushed do not survive. I know that I can't avoid talking about him, thinking about him, writing about him, and maybe this mental block is temporary, a survival tactic put on by my brain for my own good. As someone with anxiety, I cannot shut off the part of my brain that worries. I'm always worrying about something: if that conversation was extremely awkward, if I thought I did a good job on that exam but actually failed it, if my boyfriend actually hates me, if I'm annoying my friends, etc. Add onto that the significant world problems we should all be worrying about, like overpopulation and global warming (sorry Trump, not a "hoax"), and adding the 45th president into the mix is just too much. I support efforts to counter him, like the Women's March, but please, understand that I don't want to discuss him regularly. Understand why I don't want to watch the news, or why I don't read or write many articles about what he is doing.

We will get through these next few years. They will be hard, but we will persevere. Some of us will fight for what we believe in, and some of us will simply try to get through this with our mental health intact. Regardless of how, we will win this battle. I may be riddled with anxiety, but I have not lost my optimism.