"People are always somewhat stressed during elections but I've never seen it this extreme," Judi Bloom, a Los Angeles-area psychologist, said, according to Agence France-Presse.
Earlier this year, a poll revealed that more than half of Americans are stressed out by the 2016 presidential campaign. The candidates' rivalry has been a well-publicized issue for months across all media, and people are simply tired of it.
"[One] patient who is very ill joked that the good thing about dying is that he will not have to watch any more political commercials," Robert Bright, a psychiatrist in Arizona, said.
Instead of positive slogans like Obama's "Yes We Can" rallying cry, the current presidential candidates have largely relied on the fear factor, increasing voter ire.
Sex scandals and hyperbole abound: Trump has accused his rival's husband of sexual assault, while Clinton has accused Trump of groping women and sexual assaults, charges he's denied.
As Bright claimed, "Those words, images, created a feel of lack of safety for women in general. And for those having had sex aggression, it absolutely triggered things, reactivated traumas, gave them nightmares."
WikiLeaks has also added fuel to the fire by publishing several of Clinton's emails, and the FBI has reopened the investigation of Clinton's private email use, escalating situation just a week before the Election Day. Not surprisingly, such information causes much stress to voters. Bright asserted that this level of anxiety has not been seen since the September 11, 2001 attacks.
"It's a very negative campaign, with candidates accusing each other of lying, saying the election is rigged and it generates a sense of hopelessness, of 'this is the end my friend,'" Bloom said.
