Does Donald Trump make you want to kill yourself?

This isn’t a joke.

On the night of his election, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline received two and a half times more calls than it normally would have, and I literally went to bed feeling like Anne Frank.

I was filled with a fear that most of us, thankfully, have never felt before. What’s going to happen to us? What’s going to happen to non-whites and non-Christians? To women? To gay people? What’s going to happen to this country of ours? If you think I’m exaggerating, click on the news.

There are children, probably as you read this, being ripped out of the hands of mothers who are legally seeking asylum at the border. These mothers are told by government officials that their kids are being taken away just for a quick shower.

But, in actuality, they aren’t being returned.

They’re being taken away and detained. Some like dogs in cages. The comparison to concentration camps in Nazi Germany is almost too obvious to make; but there it is—just in case.

Just two days ago, it happened while a woman was breastfeeding her baby. In America. The land of the free and the home of the brave. What’s next? As with everything, we’ll have to wait to see how it all unfolds.

But can we do it together?

And can we remember, together, that love prevails? Regardless of the fear we may feel, we will live with love in our heart.

They can take away our health insurance. They can deport us. They can intervene with our reproductive rights. They can kill the environment. They can put the interest of big business before the well-being of powerless people. They can treat animals abysmally in slaughterhouses. They can alienate the global community. They can make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

They can persecute me because of my skin color, gender, religion, and sexual orientation. They can destroy this country, which hundreds of thousands of people died to defend. They can even cart us away to detention camps.

But we’ll live and die with love in our heart.

They can’t beat us.

We will never lose.

Because—for us—love prevails.

We will see to it.

Together.

Because united we stand and divided we fall.

Thank you, as always, for trading your time for my words. And please remember, you are loved. And, with that, you are love.

~ gb

~

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-TALK