Author Jeff Gillenkirk died from a heart attack two days after he published his article “The New PTSD: Post-Trump Stress Disorder.” The Washington Times reported:
Gillenkirk, 67, suffered the heart attack Tuesday while teaching a class of third-graders in San Francisco, Alternet reported.Mr. Gillenkirk, an Alternet contributor and onetime speechwriter for former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, wrote in his final article of the severe anxiety he and others have experienced in the aftermath of Donald Trump being elected president — “a painful, sad irony,” said Alternet’s executive editor, Don Hazen.“Anguishing yet again over election results in the middle of the night, I finally realized I’m experiencing something similar to PTSD,” reads Mr. Gillenkirk’s article, which was published Sunday. “Triggered by the election, to the most powerful office in the world, of a man who’s espoused wholesale exclusion of Muslim immigrants, deporting millions of undocumented immigrants, repealing Roe v. Wade, abolishing the Environmental Protection Agency and encouraging Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia to develop nuclear weapons, among other polarizing proposals.“While post-Trump stress in no way equals the level of trauma experienced by combat veterans in Afghanistan, Iraq or Vietnam, this is an experience shared by tens of millions of Americans right now,” wrote Mr. Gillenkirk, who concluded the article by sharing the phone number for a suicide prevention hotline and a maxim often attributed to activist and songwriter Joe Hill: “Don’t mourn, organize!”
Kids, don’t take politics too seriously. Also take care of yourself!
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY