To most Americans, it was just an election—but a top Hillary fundraiser literally got carted off to the looney bin after Donald Trump’s unexpected upset win on November 8.
Benjamin Ryan, who raised $187,000 for the Democratic nominee, checked himself into a New York City psych ward on Election Night—having fled Hillary’s would-be victory party at Manhattan’s Javits Center, suicidal over the fact that Donald Trump would be the next President of the United States.
Ryan dedicated most of his year to helping Hillary Clinton win the White House—even door-knocking in Philadelphia just days after an emergency appendectomy. His hard work landed him a ticket to the VIP area of the victory party.
Ryan described his Election Night struggles in an op-ed for the Huffington Post. While the night started off strong—Ryan described Hillary’s predicted win as “a catharsis 25 years in the making”—it quickly turned into “a wake” by 9pm, when Trump’s victory was all but assured.
Fleeing the party for the privacy of a stairwell, Ryan texted a friend, “I want to die.”
He added that his friend “soon appeared in the stairwell and cradled me in my hysterics. We kept in touch with a therapist friend of mine, Austin, through phone and text. Austin strongly urged me to leave the party. Hearing that I was suicidal, he proposed that I have myself committed.”
Because of Hillary’s loss, Ryan had what he described as “a nervous breakdown: catatonic, plagued by involuntary jerking motions (my head furiously shaking “No! ”), speech patterns disjointed, weeping uncontrollably.”
Ryan spent much of the night in the “fetal position.”
He described himself as “the only garden variety anxious-depressive in the ward, and was probably the only one gainfully employed, certainly the sole Ivy League grad.” Virtually everyone else was “homeless or unstably housed and largely suffered from psychosis.”
Ryan wrote the op-ed as a call for suicide prevention—but that didn’t stop commenters on the article pointing out how ridiculous it was that Ryan would check himself into a psych ward because of the results of an election.
The top comment on Huffington Post, from a man named Adolfo Esquivel, eviscerated Ryan: “How privileged you were to be able to breakdown because you couldn’t face reality of an election. It was just an election and nothing happened to you… Look at your pictures smiling and attending concerts because that’s how good your life was. I literally can’t believe you think it’s ok to say [your] life was ruined over a election.”
Esquivel’s comment received more than 250 likes—along with many people agreeing with him, calling Ryan “pathetic” or a “cupcake” for his Election Day meltdown.
