What's Different This Time?

2016.  I am a new survivor of childhood sexual trauma…okay, not a new survivor, but a human who recently started surviving my new-to-the-surface memories of my old childhood sexual trauma. What else was new that year? President Donald Trump.  Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a lefty rant about his politics…that’s for another day. Today I want to address the triggers.  Because I was new to my memories then, I was new-ish to being triggered by them. As I watched him be elected by men that I know, men that claim to love me, despite all of the admonishing of women and women’s worth and women’s value and women’s bodies and women’s rights, it was a full 4 years of triggery days and angry nights, especially as I became the mother of…you guessed it, a baby woman.

What’s different this time?

I won't say “we”, because I didn’t do this.  But this time, “you” (whoever you are) all did this…knowing and having seen it the first time around. That’s different for one thing. And what feels different to survivors? Welp, not a whole lot.  We’re still having it thrown in our face when we’re brave enough to come forward. We’re still having it joked about on talk shows and in stand-up. Our identities are still being treated like throwaway details amongst millions of pages. We’re still not being believed. 

What’s different this time?

The poisonous vitriol against women is everywhere. It’s on the streets in Minneapolis when a mother is shot.  It’s in the requirement to have fake hair, fake faces and other fake things to be given a job in this administration, it’s in the East Wing being torn down, and it’s in his sick vial words that cut me like fire when he calls female reporters “Piggy”, and asks them why they don’t smile when they ask about child rape.  

What’s different this time?

The cruelty has coagulated, congealed into one big blob of hatred against women.  It’s not just here or there…it’s every-fucking-where (Roy Kent, anyone? You have to laugh or you’ll keep crying).  You can’t get away from it because it’s soaking in. 

What’s different this time?

It’s not just survivors feeling the triggers anymore. Is there a woman out there who hasn’t been asked to lighten up or smile more at work? Which of us hasn’t felt they’ve not been taken seriously by men who think they know more and know better? Who among us doesn’t know an assault survivor who is struggling?  What’s different is the triggering is in the air for so many of us. In the air like a virus we can’t vaccinate for. 

What’s different this time?

This time, in order to protect ourselves, we’re distancing.  I know so many people, mostly women, who have made the choice to step away from friends and family they love deep down because it’s just too damn triggering to look them in the face and want to say, “Why did you choose this for us?”  Women around me are feeling the weight of working a whole grown-up job, raising whole humans, and feeling like we’re running into a cultural brick wall every freaking day.  He, and so many of them, talk to women who are just doing their jobs, like they are garbage, not worthy of the air they breathe. And by both your vote and your subsequent silence, you are doubling down, punching us in the gut when we can barely catch our breath.  

If a woman you love has stepped away lately, there’s a good chance it’s because we cannot add to our plates the mental gymnastics it requires to make sense of why you didn’t trust a rational, kind, joyful, capable female over this.  And because of your choice, you choose this for us every day.  

So yes, estrangement is on the rise. And if you’re not dealing with it, I am legitimately happy for you.  When a woman feels her voice dwindling more with every new day, removing the people who are adding so many heavy feelings is sometimes the only form of protest we can muster…especially given the real danger that real protesting encompasses at the moment.  Estrangement is the answer for so many women right now because it may be the only detail we can control on a daily basis.  Some of us are barely holding on some days, while still holding up our own worlds…and yours.

The views and opinions expressed in this post are mine alone and do not represent those of my employer or any affiliated organization.