Post-election clarity

It’s November 6th, the day after the election. A lot of big feelings going on. And while Gaytriarchs is meant to make you dumber and shallower, we thought that we might add our unsolicited 2 cents to the miasma of emotion…but with a specialist. Our last minute guest, Dale Daley, a psychologist, chats with us briefly about some coping skills for both ourselves and how to chat with our kids about what happened, and how we're feeling.

Take care of yourself. Talk with your kids. Raise activists to fight another day.

Questions? Comments? Rants? Raves? Send them to GaytriarchsPodcast@gmail.com, or you can DM us anywhere @GaytriarchsPodcast

Transcript

David: 0:01

Hi, listener. Uh, I know this episode probably just popped up on your feed and you're like, what the fuck? We already have an episode today.

SPEAKER_02: 0:08

But and has Kavan been drinking again?

David: 0:11

Well, probably. Yes.

SPEAKER_02: 0:13

We we just got an episode this morning. And yes, um, I was drinking. But this is a special episode, and we always make sure that Gatriarchs is a fun and lighthearted place where people don't learn anything or grow as a person, but hopefully they laugh.

David: 0:27

Uh, yes. But uh last night was obviously pretty terrible for a lot of us, and we all need a little bit of extra love today and processing what any of this means. But really, more importantly, what I worried for me selfishly, because this is always about me. Always it's about me too. Don't forget me, David. It's about me too. Yes. Is is how obviously how do I get through the day? Um, but that's on me. But how do I talk to my kids about this? And I know we all have different kids, different ages, mine are five and two. Gavin's got teens and preteens. Um, but how do we talk to them about this? And so, unfortunately, for you listener out there, this may be a helpful episode. It's gonna be a quick one. Um, and I reached out to our guest and he absolutely said, Yes, I'll join you, and I so appreciate it. So, this is not gonna be a classy episode where we have all of these sound cues and it's highly edited. This is just a park and bark, and we're just gonna go through it. So, our guest is already here. His name is Dale Daly. He's a social worker and he's a psychotherapist, and most importantly, he's a fellow New Yorker, so we can talk about all things New York. But we brought him on today to please tell us how do we talk to our kids about this? So, please, welcome to Gatriarchs, Dale. Hi, Dale.

SPEAKER_02: 1:40

Thank you, Dale. Hi, Dale. Hi. Um, just jumping into it, Dale. How do we, as adults, as parents and non-parents, how would you say we should get through this period of um shock and awe and um quite possibly paralyzation we all feel today?

SPEAKER_01: 1:58

Yeah. Well, I think therapy is always based, and particularly, I had some training as an analyst, as a psychoanalyst. And so that's just a way of saying we often talk about, we tell stories. Uh, we tell stories about our lives that in some ways, and there's a wonderful line from uh Andrea Rich, the poet, in which she says, the story of our lives become our lives, which is just to say how we tell stories about ourselves really help us manage. And so part of it is I think people need to sit down and really think about the story, the story that perhaps we've been telling ourselves and the story that we now find ourselves in, and maybe look to other stories because historically, God knows, people have been telling stories. And I would say if we had to boil every story down, it's about people going through their lives and hoping for the best, and then something bad happens, and generally they figure out a way to get through it. The world is full of those stories from um nursery rhymes to fairy tales to Marvel comics are full of stories about how the unexpected happens, and what what the fuck do you do uh when that happens? So, you know, I think everybody woke up this morning. My guess is a lot of us were like, this is absolutely, I guess the old expression about this is uh I'm shocked but not surprised. Um, maybe we all already know the world we live in. Um, and so we realize bad things happen. I started to become a psychotherapist during the middle of the AIDS crisis. Um, it didn't just come out of nowhere, and frankly, that was something that I think as as queer men, we have a real history that maybe we're kind of losing touch with because you know, we're uh people like me are getting old and dying not of AIDS, but of age. So um, but we had to figure out ways to get through it. And I'm sure you probably have seen um Into the Woods, which many people would say was Stephen Sonnheim's um way of trying to deal with the AIDS crisis. And he told stories and has these wonderful songs that kind of help us get through things. So um, so to go back to that, I think one thing we have to do is sit down and say, um, and it's particularly, I think, if we're going to talk to other people and particularly kids, I think we have to say, what's my story? You know, what do I think about all of this? How have I in the past gotten through other things like this? Probably the most notable one recently that even a lot of kids went through, obviously, is COVID. Um, what did I what did I learn from that? Is there anything I learned that I can use? And I think that's hard right now because we weren't carrying our toolbox. But all of a sudden, we need to get those tools out really fast.

David: 5:21

Yeah. And and it's funny, the the thing you were saying about tell your story and characters in Marvel and and and and my world in TV, you know, when they say, you know, your character is only revealed through its response to conflict. And so when you're talking about building character, it's always like, you know, you put something in front of them, how do they react? That is their character. So that's that's really helpful advice. I find I'm struggling with my kids. You're to say talking to your kids and telling the story, is trying to not cover what I how I talk to my kids with all the anger and fear and um vitriol that I feel seething out of my bones because they can't understand that. And so I'm finding I'm struggling to my son last night. This was before the election, said, I hope I don't want Donald Trump to win. I said, Why? I couldn't believe he had even heard those words. And he was like, Because then they'll take one of you. And somebody had told him that gay dads and it all kind of came through. So it it fills me with rage. I'm feeling rage right now. And so I know one of the I'm not listening I'm not a therapist. I'm I am a therapist dream. You're gonna make your whole life off of what's going on in my head. But the one thing I do know is I can't layer all of this vitriol on how I talk to my kids. So is there any practical ways that we can talk to them about A, what happened, but really B, why dads or moms or mom and dad are acting the way they are?

SPEAKER_01: 6:45

Yeah, yeah. Well, I, you know, part of that I would say starts with, again, as best we can. It's it's like that old thing about trying to center yourself before you help other people. And I think that's particularly true with kids. And I know it's hard because we don't always have time, particularly the day after something like this, to kind of really find a space to say, what am I thinking and feeling about this? But I think that's really important before we go to our kids, because you're absolutely right. Kids shouldn't have to deal with one, the kind of fear that your son was expressing, because I think we would all say that's probably in the world that we live in, that is an unlikely scenario. Um and so, you know, sometimes in psychology, we talk about what we call emotional reasoning, which is this idea that, oh, I feel certain things, so therefore it must be true. So I think it's important at a time like this to go, just because we feel something doesn't mean it's true, and then actually use logic, which of course kids have their own kind, but it's adults who need to help them shape it with some kind of rational thinking to say, of course, you might feel those things. And I'm really glad you're talking about what you're feeling, uh, and let me talk to you about that, and let me work my way through it too. But I say as far as fury and anger, frankly, I think that's part of maybe a parental responsibility. You just have to kind of buck up and go, I need to find places where I can talk about this and lots of them, and I need to talk and rage all I want, but I'm not gonna do it with my kids because that won't help them at all. Because at the end of the day, you're trying to figure out a way to help them through it, um, not get them lost in it.

SPEAKER_02: 8:46

Yeah, we are all definitely mired in an awful lot of our own emotions and feelings, but it makes, I mean, if I can just translate what you said, we do have to kind of be the grown-up in the situation and not stress them out and not traumatize them. We can talk about the facts, we can share our feelings, but um sometimes uh while it's good, I think, to show emotion, obviously, we gotta hold back a little bit so that they can process without thinking that they suddenly need to help us feel better because we're the inconsolable ones. Does that relate? Dale, could you is there any way you could illustrate for us in the first question how you might go about writing your story in the moment? How can we actively do that today, tomorrow, and the next day?

SPEAKER_01: 9:36

Well, I I think one one way that I would tell my story is the things we know about everybody's story. I just want to live a happy life and I want to be safe, you know, and I and I want to feel like I'm in a world that feels like it has some control in it. And we are very blessed, but also really challenged by the fact that we largely have a life like that. Many of us, um, you know, it may be helpful in a weird way that we're queer because we do know what it's like to be the other, but largely we don't. Um, so it makes perfect sense that we want to feel safe and we want to feel like uh we have some way of accessing happiness and joy, and maybe telling ourselves that story that this is this is when I have to go to my superpower, or this is when I have to dig really deep and think about my ancestors, or this is when I have to dig really deep and think about when I was 30 and thought I was gonna die. You know, think about those times that we've had those, you know, I guess we formally call them vicissitudes, you know, shit, the shit that happens in our lives.

David: 10:56

Thank you for translating for me. I really appreciate it. Vicissitudes went right over my own.

SPEAKER_01: 10:59

Vicissitudes is a nice word for shit. Um and and how we did that in the past, what that story was for us, and if that has any relevance to things now.

SPEAKER_02: 11:13

We so frequently end our episodes talking about shit, frankly. We love to say to people, tell us about those shitty times as a parent when the kid pooped in the subway or pooped in a restaurant or pooped in your hand or whatever. And so I feel like um we just needed a little bit, some vicissitudes, some shit to get through our shit. And Dale, um, thank you for taking some time. Demeaning yourself by being on our stupid little podcast. What feels like a really important time, but maybe we just dig deep and tell a new story and say, you know what, it's a new chapter. And here we fucking go, parents and nonparents alike. So thank you, Dale. Thank you, Dale.

SPEAKER_01: 11:56

You're welcome. You're welcome.