We Went to the Woods - Bent But Not Broken
Deeply grieving and exhausted after little sleep the night before, Jon and I loaded the pack into the car and went to the woods on Wednesday. The skies were gray and the air was cool. Knowing nothing of elections, the dogs ran freely in the browning meadows. Winter is coming.
I always hated The Empire Strikes Back. I am never a fan of the middle. I like the beginnings and the resolutions but unfinished and fraying edges make me anxious.
That Trump is returning to a position of power along with the 20% of the hate-filled and/or brainwashed Americans who put him there supported by interference from fascist leaders here and abroad who desire a heteronormative, white male control is so devastating to me right now I am finding it hard to see the light.
How? How could so many nod along with an abuser in this way?
I have my own experience of this as my mother allowed an abuser into our lives and then nodded along with him for six years, normalizing his behavior until I’d had enough and left, bent yet not broken.
While talking with Jon in the car on the way home from the woods I was trying to answer this question, the how of it, beyond the racism and the misogyny (more on misogyny in my next piece).
It looks to me like this - If one has not honestly assessed the abuse they experienced as a child and done at least a modicum of healing around that abuse, then one is much more likely to look for abusers in positions of power and align with them so as not to rock the status quo of their existence.
I broke free from my abusers many years ago and will not sit at a holiday table with them or pretend that what happened was anything other than what it was. If one chooses to continue to dine with their parental abuser without having felt the depth of their trauma, sought out healing, and received amends from them then that same one can not call out or even see Trump as an abuser, not in a visceral way, not in a way that would cause them to break free from the cycle of abuse. It won’t track. They must make his abuses okay, then their parents are okay, and then they are also okay.
“Nothing to see, move along, keep going. Don’t rock the boat. And please don’t make me recognize that the pain and suffering I feel is inside of me and is not being thrust upon me by some idea of immigrants stealing my jobs/money or imagining of children being forced into a gender not of their biology.”
We are living in a structure of sickness that elevates the abuser in part due to a family structure that elevates abusers. Children are dependent upon their abusers for the fulfillment of their basic needs. We collectively depend on our system to fulfill our basic needs.
The system itself is largely abusive, and it perpetuates by keeping abusers in positions of power.
There’s a meme going around that if everyone is dysfunctional in some way, if everyone needs therapy and healing, then it’s the structure around us that is sick and not each of us individually. Our sicknesses are not our fault. They are our coping mechanisms in dealing with late-stage capitalism and a patriarchal system that is crushing us.
My path, for now, is compassion and love for all, with a healthy dose of boundaries when it comes to those who support Trump’s abuses so as not to have to deal with the wounds they lug around inflicted upon them by their abusers when they were young.
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I came to a similar understanding last evening.
Listening to the supporters talk, I could hear the same belief/hope that finally the abuser is going to behave properly and life will improve.
Those of us who have lived/broken that cycle know what is coming.
As mad as I am about those who believe you must suffer to be rewarded in the afterlife, I also understand that they can’t yet see their abuser as we can/do. They haven’t hit rock bottom. They still believe that their love can fix/heal/change their abuser. Right now they are in the calm/honeymoon phase. Unfortunately, I still will feel the collective pain when the abuser reverts back to their true form.
My main concern in this moment is what can I do to help those that will become collateral damage.
Nora, I really appreciate you articulating this so clearly. This connection between unresolved trauma and choosing abusive political leaders has been percolating in my mind for months. I can't help but feel that the genocide being perpetrated on the people of Gaza is reenacting the unresolved trauma of the Holocaust, though I don't have the courage to say so publicly.
On a microcosmic level, this dynamic you're describing played out within my very own family this election. My mother intended to vote for Trump, despite my son and I explicitly informing her how a trump presidency could directly harm my son. It took me a while to parse out the various levels of betrayal I felt, and at the bottom was this: she threw me and my son under the bus for Trump exactly the way she and my grandmother threw me under the bus by choosing my grandfather as a babysitter that fateful day when I was ten years old. It was the only time in my life he was alone with me, and I still bear the scars. To leave your ten year old daughter in the care of the same man who used to chase your own mother around the kitchen with a butcher knife while she screamed takes a mega dose of denial. She knew he was a monster, just like she knows Trump is a monster. But the little girl inside of her is so desperate for daddy's love that she never received and deep down hopes that if she's just loyal enough, long enough, he will become the father she needed and wanted him to be. That little girl's loyalty has been projected onto Trump, and she threw her only living descendants under the bus for him.
I dont know how we as nation, as humanity, begin to heal this pattern collectively, but I'm committed to my own healing. As they say, let it begin with me. For now, let us all hold each other close and stand against the storm. Sending you tons of love this morning, my friend.