Yes, Trump Deragement Syndrome is real, and yes, it can be treated
/
Stop me before i kill again!
Interview from “The View”:
“Oh my God. I used to, I would walk into the airports, I’d go to the first class lounge, check in, then run over to the Fox News section and start assaulting people,” Handler replied, saying that she would run in and call people racists and then run right back out.
“Then I’d run back in and go, ‘Do you want your daughter to have rights, because she won’t?’ and then I’d run out,” Handler continued. “Then I’d run back into the Fox News section and I would go, ‘Are you still a racist?’ I mean, I was out of my tree, and my level of outrage was just not — I couldn’t handle it anymore.”
Unfortunately, therapy has been only partly successful:
Handler went on to say that her goal in going to therapy in 2016 was to “learn how to talk to Trump supporters” because she felt that her anger was preventing her from having productive conversations. “Now, Trump supporters, I don’t have anything to say to them anymore at this juncture,” she added.
So, Chelsea still can’t hold conversations with Trumpers, but at least she can control her compulsion to attack them — for now. This is good; this is progress, but there’s still work to be done,
Just like other TDS victims, Handler’s irrational hate and anger turned out to stem from other, deeper issues and not just some large, orange man:
Handler concluded that her therapy had been helpful in part because it brought her to the realization that, while she did hate Donald Trump, what she was angry about was a childhood experience that she had not dealt with.
Sadly, I still fear for Chelsea’s mental health. Simply refraining from attacking strangers, but continuing to hate them, and refusing to engage them in conversation is only a start, because a suppressed urge is likely to resurface.
Chelsea reminds me very much of the late Audrey Kishline, who, unable to stop drinking, started a national movement called Moderation Management, based on the belief that alcoholics could indulge in alcohol so long as they didn’t overdo it. That was in 1994. In 2000, Kishline, driving drunk and on the wrong side of the road in an F-350 pickup, slammed into a car head-on, killing a father and his young daughter. Released from prison in 2004, resumed drinking, and hanged herself in 2014.
Pray for Chelsea on Election Day. And watch out.
