This is a more grammatically correct version of a text that I sent my parents and sisters Nov. 9, 2016:

I have done so much thinking today while attempting to process everything. I have come to a basic understanding of why and how it happened—something I put my conscious thoughts toward—but the strangest thing was my automatic, subconscious response. I had chills all day, fought back tears at so many random moments and finally let them out at times. However, I could not pinpoint a single conscious thought that had caused the tears and chills (my defense mechanisms were definitely in play).

I got an idea, though, when a female classmate got choked up while discussing “if Trump were a woman,” and I could not stop my own tears from flowing. My realization: for the first time, I truly felt inferior as woman.

I recognized today that, among other things, I took this for granted. Of course, I have always known we women have been fighting a battle for equality and I have also heard countless women’s stories of discrimination, but I quite honestly had never personally felt limited by being a woman. I had never thought that I could not get somewhere in life because I am a woman.

For the first time, I experienced that personally today. It is not a truly conscious feeling, but it is what sparks my innate fear, anger and most of all, disappointment.

However, I am also deeply grateful to you all for making me feel empowered, for allowing me to go 20 years without once doubting that the sky was the limit. I am grateful for our family and for the communities in which I was raised and gained an education.

Other things that I am fortunate for but have taken for granted: the diversity of the communities, which have enabled me to understand other views, sexual/gender orientations, races, religions, you name it, so that I do not fear any of them (even more so, I am able to love them). Because as Lecturer in Mathematics Michael King said this morning to my Linear Algebra class: fear stems from what we do not understand. I have reasoned that the working class in rural America has little to no interactions with those populations. Therefore, they are unable to understand, and ultimately fear, those groups of Americans. Trump ran off that fear.

So, that’s my long way of saying that I realized today how fortunate I am to have been raised in the highly educated, suburban/urban, liberal “bubble;” to have incredible moral values because of my understanding; and to have learned how to think critically in order to make sense of all of this and to see others perspectives, including those that do not yet see my own.

And finally, thank you for enabling me to attend a school that discusses these difficult topics, one where a math professor would spend the entire class today to discuss the election results from a philosophical perspective and actually enable me to make sense of this mess.

Katie McDonough is a member of the Class of 2019.