I don't know how to start this post. Like so many of us, I thought "there's no way" -- and we were wrong.
I feel like I'm dissociating.
This cannot be real.
Our provider group chat has been in shock. We are all hurting and scared.
This man is a rapist. He's a felon. He supports Project 2025 which is the essentially the start of the fucking Handmaid's Tale.
What are the implications of this presidency?
Affordable Care Act to be repealed. This means millions of people will lose their healthcare coverage. Over twenty million people are estimated to lose health insurance if this occurs by the end of his presidency.
If Project 2025 comes to fruition, the Department of Education will be removed. This department is responsible for enforcing laws that protect students with disabilities. Funding for public schools will be reduced. The special education students will suffer. The students with ADHD, autism, trauma, anxiety, learning disabilities will suffer.
We know it is hard enough to get an IEP or 504 plan. Given Arizona has a poor reputation for public education, I fear this may disappear completely. And I don't know how to help those kids because all of the Adderall and Guanfacine in the world won't do it.
Curriculum reforms focusing on "patriotism," and removing "woke" ideologies. In other words, removing the actual shitty parts of history, ignoring the struggles of people of color and pretending America is this great fucking place when it's not.
Creating surveillance systems on pregnancy. Federal ban on abortions.
Protections and diversity requirements are proposed to be eliminated. Systemic racism is pervasive in this country already, and this is a move to continue to boost white supremacist ideology.
Further reducing access to abortion for millions of people. This could also have implications for contraception, plan B and IVF.
Trans folx are a massive target of his policy proposals. This includes banning gender-affirming care for minors, redefining gender as biological sex, reducing protections for trans folx, no longer allowing them to serve in the military, penalizing healthcare providers who offer gender affirming care, penalizing teachers who discuss gender with kids, excluding trans women from sports, and cutting funding to schools that accommodate or support trans students.
Powering up the police. Stop and frisk policies which are mostly targeted toward people of color. Allowing police to have more aggressive tactics in silencing protests.
A push into giving the executive branch -- himself -- more power.
More Supreme Court Justices that can impose laws that dismantle progress in civil rights.
Mass deportations.
Policies that promote destruction of our climate.
I'm in tears as I write this knowing that my daughters will grow up in a country that voted for him - again. Knowing that their rights are no longer going to be protected. That America would rather have a rapist lead the country than a woman of color.
My neighborhood group chat is praising him. I am one of a handful of white people in this community. It makes no sense to me.
As my husband and I watched the numbers go up for Trump, the first thing he said was how devastating this would be for the patients here.
He's right.
In grieving this together, please know community can help us get through the next four years.
We are a safe place to talk about how depressing this is. How fucked up this is.
Paperflower Psychiatry was birthed during Trump's first presidency. It was an active decision to make this practice, unlike others, to be openly liberal and progressive in a traditionally conservative state.
As an LGBTQIA+ person, how can you feel safe going to a provider who voted for you to not be able to marry? To not be able to chose an abortion if you are raped and pregnant?
Values are so incredibly important -- and mental health is the most personal, vulnerable component of healthcare in general.
When you open yourself up and talk about your life, does the person across the table prescribing your medication believe that you shouldn't be able to chose your own pronouns? Do they believe that your entire family should be deported?
We have a reputation of being "too political" in some parts of this state. That's all good with me -- what I hear is that we're a safe place to come.
I will not allow people without our values to work here or even complete their student clinical rotations with us. I will not put my patient in front of a person who is not safe to them, and does not believe in them to have equal rights. Is that overly political? If you are voting for my patients to lose protections of their rights, then I'm fine with voting against giving you a job. If that makes me an asshole, that's fine with me.
I know quite a few of us were out there protesting in his first presidency when the Arizona heat was horrible.
Please know that if you do lose health insurance in the next four years, we will find ways to make sure you can still access and afford your appointments and medication.
Many of us including myself were out there protesting the Muslim ban, Trump's presidency and protesting in support of BLM and women's rights.
We will protest, write letters and do everything in our power to protect your rights beyond just seeing you as a "patient." Medication can't fix the devastation of losing your rights, being racially profile, forcing to have a child you don't want, not being allowed to be who you were born to be, or losing school accommodations.
This is fucking devastating in more ways than I can even begin to name. All the Lexapro, Abilify and Lamictal in the world can't fix the impact of society.
If this is the start of the Handmaid's Tale, Paperflower is in the Resistance.
When this shit happens, see you out there.
In the meantime, you are allowed to grieve.
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