“Dear Dr Charlotte,
I’m writing from a place of worry and, if I’m honest, a bit of shame. I love my country, but lately I’ve found myself dreading the moment someone abroad asks me where I’m from.
Our current leader has become such a polarising figure, both at home and internationally, that I feel like I’m carrying the weight of his decisions everywhere I go. His policies, his rhetoric, the way he talks about certain groups, all feels so far from the values I hold. And yet when I travel, I can see people making assumptions about me based on him.
I’ve noticed small things: awkward pauses when I say where I’m from, jokes that don’t feel like jokes, people asking me to “explain” decisions I didn’t make and don’t agree with. I know they’re not trying to be unkind, but it leaves me feeling defensive, embarrassed, and strangely responsible.
It’s also affecting how I feel about travelling within my own country. Some states and cities feel increasingly hostile or exclusionary because of the cultural shifts happening under this administration. I worry about friends of mine who are people of colour, LGBTQ+, or from immigrant backgrounds — whether they’ll be safe, whether they’ll feel welcome, whether I’m being naïve to keep travelling as if nothing has changed.
I don’t want to give up travelling. It’s one of the great joys of my life. But I’m struggling with this sense that my country’s leader is shaping how the world sees me — and shaping how parts of my own country treat people who look or live differently. I feel caught between wanting to distance myself from all of it and wanting to defend the place I still love.
How do I navigate this without feeling like I’m carrying the burden of someone else’s politics everywhere I go?”
Dr Charlotte’s response: From your letter I can feel the incredible weight that you and many others in your country are feeling. Of course there are no easy answers here, but I have a few thoughts that I hope will allow you to think about how to navigate this.
The first is recognising and acknowledging the deep psychological impact that living in a climate like this has. It’s not something trivial that you can put to the back of your mind or avoid. The decisions, attitudes and rhetoric has a deep impact on day to day life, and strongly affects the sense of psychological safety that many citizens are feeling. For the marginalised groups that you’ve mentioned, it not only impacts psychological safety but physical safety on a day to day basis. There is real fear and it’s justified. It’s suffice to say that conditions like this create a sense of psychological threat and this impacts on everyone’s sense of safety (with the exception of those who support a regime that positions them as superior).
So how do we manage the psychological impact of this? Well, this kind of situation doesn’t just but citizens in a bind, it creates a bind for therapists too. We are trained to formulate and alleviate distress, but it would go against our values to attempt to treat distress which is a normal, natural and understandable reaction to the circumstances. The distress you and other citizens are experiencing is a signal that something is not right, and it would not be ethical to aim to make you feel ok about it (even if we could). There is a debate in the therapy world about how much our profession should be involved in political activism and social justice for this reason, and many would argue that we should be addressing the political system as much as treating the impact on an individual basis.
So why am I telling you this? I want you to understand that your discomfort and distress you feel is justified. It’s a lot to cope with and the best advice strikes a balance between protecting ourselves and to take action that can make a difference. We need boundaries around information consumption to regulate our nervous system. We also need to feel we are contributing in the ways that our within our control to change the situation and to support those who are being targeted and marginalised.
It sounds like for you travel is important to you and it’s one of the ways that you regulate yourself in such difficult times. I can fully understand the desire to distance yourself from it all, even for short periods. What I can say is that you have to make the decisions that are right for you. Staying at home and not travelling certainly does not change the situation, and it may make you feel more trapped.
When it comes to dealing from unhelpful questions and attitudes internationally, my advice is to try to remember that these are often based on stereotypes and to hold them lightly. Some people from other countries may have a very narrow understanding of what is going on in your country that lacks nuance and sometimes people will mention what they know in a slightly misguided way to connect. To give you a lighter example, sometimes as a British citizen internationally, people will mention ‘fish and chips’ or our royal family as if it’s an important part of day to day life here. Neither are, but I understand that people hold a simplified version of what Britain is in their minds. Of course in your case, these simplified representations are pushing a button for you, because it’s distressing to feel that other people are assuming that you share your leader’s views. I hope the fish and chips example helps you to understand that the nature of interacting internationally can be reductive, and that’s just because as humans these stereotypes are cognitive shortcuts that enable us to function.
If someone were to assume that everyone in your country supports your divisive leader and asks you to explain his decisions, this says more about them. Most of us who are politically aware know that when divisive leaders are elected, there will naturally be large numbers of citizens who are deeply disappointed. Much of the rest of the world feel solidarity for what you are going through. The problem often is that those who aren’t empathetic are much louder than the rest of us. The more sensitive amongst us wouldn’t bring up politics in conversations with strangers ordinarily, but particularly when we know that a person’s home country is in political turmoil. Again, if someone were to bring this up without sensitivity, this says more about them than anything. I know it can still feel hard nonetheless. In terms of responding it’s very acceptable to say “I’d prefer not to talk about politics” and leave it at that.
Please remember that the discomfort you’re feeling is a human response to a difficult moment, not a personal failing. You are not responsible for the actions of those who lead your country. Many people around the world understand this more than you realise. You can move through the world with your own values intact, and the hope that better days will come.