No One is Coming to Save Us: Effects of Politics on Mental Health

By Josephine Belliveau

We were sitting in a circle behind the register. The store was dead, the fluorescent lights distilling our misery. It was the day after the 2024 election and three teenage girls worked the closing shift after a long day of school. We felt more abandoned by the world than usual. 

Our hopes and dreams for a better future collapsed with the election results. The next 4 years were laid out before us in the stomach-twisting murmurs of Project 2025. The unimaginable had already taken place. Now, our worst fears for the unknown were as close as cold concrete floors below our bodies.

Turns out I’m not the only one who has experienced politics taking a toll on my mental health like that night.

A 2025 Harvard Youth Poll found that in this uncertain political climate, young people feel the effects seeping into their mental health every day, citing “eroding trust in democratic institutions.” For most of us, political chaos and corruption are all we have ever known.

No one is alone in feeling this way, as only 13% of Americans feel like the country is progressing in the right direction. We’re existing within an uncomfortable period of purgatory in which the progression of our country feels out of our hands. Though 21st century youth don’t hesitate to take to the streets and protest, in the darkest of times, it feels like no number of people can change the immovable.

Anyone could have walked through the door of the store that evening, storming past our shining red, white and blue “OPEN” sign. Tucked into a Red county in the Red state of Florida, the trucks had flags waving, music blaring. Every once in a while, a shout of solidarity, like their favorite team just crushed the opponent. They killed it, obliterated the enemy. Even our sorrow felt lethal. It lurched at every nauseating reminder that this was reality. Violence was as celebratory as it was mournful.

Anyone could have walked through the door. Maybe they would have screamed, and we could all have something in common.

Some say that Americans used to be more civil, a kick under the table was all it took to hush talks of politics over supper. Maybe there was enough respect between people to have real conversations. They say the guttural division among classrooms, algorithms and family reunions is a 21st century phenomenon, and the symptoms are worsening. 

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel it; constantly measuring people’s levels of complicity, who’s anxiously bouncing their leg under their desk, contemplating if my own crisis reaction is appropriate. Am I watching too much, waiting for something to happen, when the responsibility lies in my hands? So many of us have voices, but we are waiting for someone else to write the answers.

There was no answer at the end of that night, when the fluorescent lights flickered into darkness. My co-worker locked the store doors behind us, her Hello Kitty keychain catching beams of moonlight. Nothing clicked into place. I drove home in my parents’ car with nothing on the radio. What could suit the mood for such an occasion? 

I finally did what I hadn’t been able to do all day during the world’s most ironic history class or when I pricked myself with a merchandising gun. I cried. I cried because my little sisters had to grow up in this world, though they are worth being protected. I cried because they don’t deserve to be scared. Neither did my coworkers.

Like a shooting star, or more realistically, a cracked traffic light, the bare truth was illuminated.

No one was looking out for us.

Almost 2 years later, what was once the frightening unknown has unraveled in a series of disheartening events. Hope is a thing that comes, goes and looks different everyday. When I think back to that night, I find solace in the fact that other people were there to share the heartache with. 

There’s no doubting that these next 2 years will be just as hard. When the world is looking grim, it’s easy to lose sight of the bigger picture – that 87% of your peers and colleagues feel the same. Wherever you go, though it may feel lonely, there’s a good chance that you are not alone.