Such stress about the future of the country, of course, is largely predicted by political ideology. The American Psychological Association survey shows just 26% of Republicans feel stressed over the political climate, compared to a whopping 72% of Democrats.
Psychiatrists have seen more Americans coming in to therapy complaining about angst over President Trump. Typically, such patients feel a large sense of worry, helplessness and overall anxiety.
“It's pretty bad,” says Dr. Robert Lustig, author of an article entitled
"This is Your Brain on Trump" in MedPage Today. “I'm very worried. People are going to be going to psychiatrists for years because of Trump.”
Lustig, professor emeritus of pediatrics, division of endocrinology at the University of California, San Francisco, is very clear that he is no fan of Donald Trump.
“I'm pretty upset for myself and for my family and for everyone else,” he told Just The News. In our interview, he even compared Trump to the genocidal, totalitarian warmonger Adolf Hitler, minus the entrenched philosophy.
“Hitler had a very specific ideology,” Lustig said. “Trump has ... zero ideology. Trump just wants to dominate and rule."
While Lustig is adamantly anti-Trump, he can still step back and acknowledge that the president has afflicted people with the unofficial “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” He says there’s a science behind it.
“It's all about two chemicals: dopamine and cortisol,” says Lustig. Dopamine is the reward or pleasure neurotransmitter. Cortisol is the chemical that is released in response to fear. It all goes to the prefrontal cortex, a filter that comprises the thinking part of the brain.
When stress becomes persistent, your mental state changes.
“You lose your filter, you lose your prefrontal cortex,” Lustig explains. “Prefrontal cortical dysfunction is the hallmark of basically all of the societal behavioral problems that we have experienced in the last 50 years.”
Those behavioral problems are addiction, depression, anxiety, inattention, and hate. “When your prefrontal cortex doesn't work, all of those five go hog wild,” he says “Those are the five components that people call ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome.’”
Lustig is convinced Trump has a non-working thinking portion of his brain too.
“He has no prefrontal cortex," he says, "and guess what? He's making sure none of us do either, and that’s ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome.’”
