What Goes Up Must Come Down: What Kamala's Rapid Ascension Signals About America's Cyclic Behavior

America is not in normal health.

Everyone knows she has been ailing for quite some time; political divisions, economic instability, and various other crises plaguing communities (e.g., mass shootings, opioid deaths) have been diagnoses we are now accustomed to. 

This stress of our symptoms affects the mind. We have experienced sadness, grief, frustration, apathy, anger, and many other valid emotions in response to the conditions affecting the body politic.

An abundance of trauma or stress beyond one’s capacity to effectively cope heightens the risk for mental illness to manifest. I worry our collective mental health is starting to decline.

Did You Catch the Fever?

There is indeed a type of fever currently spreading over the nation, but the one currently contagious is a positive one: Kamala fever! I must admit, in watching the Democratic National Convention, I was delirious at one point with the “joy” being injected into our hearts. 

Yet, there is also something in me that is skeptical of this fever. I know that energy shifts are temporary and, like everything, subject to the laws of duality. What goes up must come down, and what goes down is bound to rise.

This “law” has been on clear display over just the last two months: President Biden experienced likely the worst couple weeks of his career following the debate. Meanwhile, Trump’s luck was almost godlike after surviving an assassination attempt, having court cases thrown out, and witnessing an affirming ascendence in the polls. Then it all flipped again. Kamala and the Democrats are now riding high, while Trump’s bliss has evaporated, leaving him scared and wistful for the weeks prior, like a dog looking out the window after it had just played with its owner and they unexpectedly left (whattt happened! Come backkk!!!).

None of this by itself is indicative of a psychological abnormalities in our collective mind: ups and downs are part of nature. Yet, the speed at which these cycles are happening, the intensity of the energy swings, and the fact that there may be some underlying, unresolved “stuff” we are not coping with, makes me concerned. This looks a bit like prodromal bipolar disorder.

A Bipolar Nation

Let me be clear: as a clinical psychologist, it is not ethical or useful to diagnose someone who is not under your own care. So please take the “bipolar” label as more metaphoric than diagnostic. Also, there is not really such a thing as diagnosing a “country” with a mental illness (although maybe there should be?).

What makes someone “bipolar?” The term is unfortunately thrown around pejoratively to label one’s spouse or crazy mother-in-law when they act egregiously, but those uses are usually not clinically accurate. Bipolar disorder is defined by the existence of mania or hypomania followed by a distinct period of depression (it is more complicated, but in a nutshell). These cycles can last anywhere from multiple days to weeks. Although the manic episodes are typically enjoyable and even sought after, inevitably the cycle will turn on its head and depression will return. As my graduate school professor proclaimed, “what goes up must come down.”

There are different theories of bipolar disorder and its etiology, but most schools of thought agree it stems from some combination of genes and the environment (like most other mental illness). From a psychoanalytic perspective, the environmental part can be seen as a sort of “denial” of sadness, grief, or related negative affect; mania is a way to escape these feelings, but because of the laws of gravity, one always returns to them.

I see this moment of Kamala fever somewhat similarly. Americans have understandably been in a state of despair and apathy for some time. Along comes something new to hang our hope on: the Kamala-Walz ticket. There has been a tremendous amount of exuberance around this including an almost unexplainable acceleration of “likeability” and support for the Vice President, where she was deemed too unpopular to be the nominee just weeks prior.

That energy will certainly settle. The question is, when? Can Kamala make it to the finish line before we are again forced to contend with the demons we have conveniently pushed down? I believe we must heal the internal fractures at some point. We can’t ride this wave of joy and positivity into the future without simultaneously contending with our collective shadow.

A World At Risk

The massive momentum swings associated with Trump and Biden/Kamala are only part of a larger picture. There are larger energy shifts beginning to happen all over the world. For example, we see extremist parties beginning to have more sway in Europe and other areas of the globe. We are only in the early stages of these momentum shifts — much larger swings are possible — but it is important to be mindful of them now.

How do we deal with a world in the prodromal stages of bipolar behavior? Short of dousing the planet with antipsychotic medication, we must begin to cope with our demons more effectively. The risk with bipolar disorder is being lured by the shiny promise of a “good vibes only” mindset coupled with the illusion that “this time, it will be different.” This time, I won’t come down. It is a sort of amnesia or denial of what our direct experience actually tells us.

So, we can begin to bring awareness to our pain and suffering, drawing an important line between hope for a better future, on the one hand, and a hasty exit or escape from the very real issues we face, on the other.

A sign of healing in bipolar disorder is often the integration of different parts of the “self”: not only the depressive feelings waiting to be acknowledged, but the polarizing parts of the personality associated with mania or depression — the introverted vs. extroverted, creative vs. logical, cynical vs. ceaselessly optimistic. Maybe we are bound for something similar in our civic space, integrating the polarized parts of our united “self” that have been cut off from one another and turned into shadows that we have denied.