Triggering Consent and Convention
One of the support groups that I belong to allows for people to just kind of post free-form comments that are highlight moderated by the people that have volunteered to keep the group a safe space. I appreciate that there is freedoms to express (and some people do...too often and with reckless abandon...let's be honest), but to be safe with each other and not cast the shadow of judgement. I mean...cast all you want, I guess. We all do. But don't go castin' it in this space.
Someone wrote today, "This isn't a political discussion, but do you feel like this election is triggering you?" I thought that that was a very interesting thing to think about. That aside from the political beliefs that you hold, the candidates, the coverage, the ads, the rhetoric...is it triggering? Only women responded about being sexual abuse survivors, or having domineering and abusive fathers with narcissistic behavioral patterns. They responded with how they cope and how they feel. And amazingly, it didn't get nasty about beliefs, candidates names weren't mentioned and no one offered anything other than complete support and genuine care and concern. It was amazing and beautiful.
And then, I realized that the rest of the world is not as safe as this space.
I have written before about sexual abuse. I have written before about not feeling the need to fraternize with survivors in abuse support groups as a part of my emotional recovery. I have written about what has happened to me and how I moved on with my life - sort of. I don't live in a perpetual state of victimization. I don't know why that is: whether it is the work that I have done, the way that my mind works, or both. Probably that last one. The residual effect of abuse, for me, is the tremendous amount of work that I need to do with self-worth. That is a life long study of all of the 2304820348 reasons that I am fantastic and why everyone should be thrilled to hang out with me.
And they should...because it is true.
I do not readily use the term, "triggered," and think it is because I rarely feel triggered. I have learned a lot of ways to cope with things that have happened and not to relate them to my own trauma because I have learned that the world is not about me. In so many ways, anxiety makes a person so insanely self-centered or something - so sure that every glance, every word, every motion, and every feeling is about them and the myriad of things that have happened in their lives. At least, it did for me. This is different from PTSD, which is something that I do not have and something that I do not make light of at all. For me, anxiety allowed me to paralyze my own life because I was sure that everyone hated me already for any number of reasons. The reasons why it became this way are numerous, but one of them is sexual abuse.
I am triggered by Donald Trump.
What is interesting to me is that if I were to tell someone that I was triggered by Donald Trump, they would tell me about emails or ISIS or Benghazi or pantsuits or whatever the hell thing that they justify for their support of his campaign. They'd tell me about lies. They'd assume that because I said I was triggered by Donald Trump, that I supported the political binary of this country. They would think that they know me and my political belief system as a Liberal. They'd tell me that Bill Clinton had an affair. They'd tell me that Michelle Obama liked rappers or Beyonce wearing revealing clothes...or whatever the fuck else people say.
They'd tell me that men talk about women like that all of the time. And, when I say "they," I mean women. Women would tell me that men talk about other women like this all of the time.
Other women would say that it is not a big deal that someone said they would grab them...because everyone else does it.
I roll these thoughts around in my head a lot when I see yet another post from someone that I didn't manage to unfollow yet. I roll these thoughts around in my head about how I didn't tell anyone about my abuse until years after it was over, because I knew they wouldn't find it alarming. Because I knew that no one would see it with the alarm that my heart felt as that teenager that had no idea what a healthy relationship was. I roll these thoughts around in my head when I think about the seventeen year old that had to make a choice that would relegate her to a life pre-choice and post-choice...that would change the way that she viewed everything forever. I roll these thoughts around in my head and think about scenarios where I would have the audacity to tell someone that has been abused that is okay that this happened...because Beyonce wears revealing clothes...and rappers talk about sex...and Michelle Obama thinks that its okay - because I read an article that Mike Huckabee posted.
One thing that is so absent from the rhetoric about Trump defenders is their omission of the idea of consent in its truest sense. Not emotional manipulation as a form of consent. Not some senator's shaded meaning of rape...but actual consent. I do not consent to the President of the country where I was born treating women this way whether it is ten years ago or ten minutes ago. The rest of the politics aside, this is no puffed-up braggadocio - this is my life. This is the life of the women that post their fears on a message board...looking for something, ANYTHING...that will allow them to breathe through the same news stories over and over...that recount the things that were said and the very clear intent of a man that has never been told no by a woman - whether by choice or fear.
This is the first time that I can put my finger on an event that has triggered me. Since then, there was an instance where I was approached by a man in a store who was panhandling. I was alone in a more secluded area and after it was over...I thought about the repercussions of that event. That he could've followed me to my car or tailed me to my house or any number of things. I thought about that interaction in a way that wasn't, "I can handle myself," but rather in a way that said, "There is a candidate for the President of the United States that thinks that it is okay to grab women. There are people that are not mentally well. These people can manifest their own unstable notions that if he says it is okay, then it is okay. This has happened in other instances where misguided and unstable souls feel compelled to carry out political agendas with violence. This could happen to me while I am in the store. This could happen to me when I am anywhere." And that sense of loss of my own power, in any amount, is alarming. And now more work needs to be done to regain that sense of power and
"alright-ness."
But it's okay, right? Because other guys say this kind of stuff all the time.
Someone wrote today, "This isn't a political discussion, but do you feel like this election is triggering you?" I thought that that was a very interesting thing to think about. That aside from the political beliefs that you hold, the candidates, the coverage, the ads, the rhetoric...is it triggering? Only women responded about being sexual abuse survivors, or having domineering and abusive fathers with narcissistic behavioral patterns. They responded with how they cope and how they feel. And amazingly, it didn't get nasty about beliefs, candidates names weren't mentioned and no one offered anything other than complete support and genuine care and concern. It was amazing and beautiful.
And then, I realized that the rest of the world is not as safe as this space.
I have written before about sexual abuse. I have written before about not feeling the need to fraternize with survivors in abuse support groups as a part of my emotional recovery. I have written about what has happened to me and how I moved on with my life - sort of. I don't live in a perpetual state of victimization. I don't know why that is: whether it is the work that I have done, the way that my mind works, or both. Probably that last one. The residual effect of abuse, for me, is the tremendous amount of work that I need to do with self-worth. That is a life long study of all of the 2304820348 reasons that I am fantastic and why everyone should be thrilled to hang out with me.
And they should...because it is true.
I do not readily use the term, "triggered," and think it is because I rarely feel triggered. I have learned a lot of ways to cope with things that have happened and not to relate them to my own trauma because I have learned that the world is not about me. In so many ways, anxiety makes a person so insanely self-centered or something - so sure that every glance, every word, every motion, and every feeling is about them and the myriad of things that have happened in their lives. At least, it did for me. This is different from PTSD, which is something that I do not have and something that I do not make light of at all. For me, anxiety allowed me to paralyze my own life because I was sure that everyone hated me already for any number of reasons. The reasons why it became this way are numerous, but one of them is sexual abuse.
I am triggered by Donald Trump.
What is interesting to me is that if I were to tell someone that I was triggered by Donald Trump, they would tell me about emails or ISIS or Benghazi or pantsuits or whatever the hell thing that they justify for their support of his campaign. They'd tell me about lies. They'd assume that because I said I was triggered by Donald Trump, that I supported the political binary of this country. They would think that they know me and my political belief system as a Liberal. They'd tell me that Bill Clinton had an affair. They'd tell me that Michelle Obama liked rappers or Beyonce wearing revealing clothes...or whatever the fuck else people say.
They'd tell me that men talk about women like that all of the time. And, when I say "they," I mean women. Women would tell me that men talk about other women like this all of the time.
Other women would say that it is not a big deal that someone said they would grab them...because everyone else does it.
I roll these thoughts around in my head a lot when I see yet another post from someone that I didn't manage to unfollow yet. I roll these thoughts around in my head about how I didn't tell anyone about my abuse until years after it was over, because I knew they wouldn't find it alarming. Because I knew that no one would see it with the alarm that my heart felt as that teenager that had no idea what a healthy relationship was. I roll these thoughts around in my head when I think about the seventeen year old that had to make a choice that would relegate her to a life pre-choice and post-choice...that would change the way that she viewed everything forever. I roll these thoughts around in my head and think about scenarios where I would have the audacity to tell someone that has been abused that is okay that this happened...because Beyonce wears revealing clothes...and rappers talk about sex...and Michelle Obama thinks that its okay - because I read an article that Mike Huckabee posted.
One thing that is so absent from the rhetoric about Trump defenders is their omission of the idea of consent in its truest sense. Not emotional manipulation as a form of consent. Not some senator's shaded meaning of rape...but actual consent. I do not consent to the President of the country where I was born treating women this way whether it is ten years ago or ten minutes ago. The rest of the politics aside, this is no puffed-up braggadocio - this is my life. This is the life of the women that post their fears on a message board...looking for something, ANYTHING...that will allow them to breathe through the same news stories over and over...that recount the things that were said and the very clear intent of a man that has never been told no by a woman - whether by choice or fear.
This is the first time that I can put my finger on an event that has triggered me. Since then, there was an instance where I was approached by a man in a store who was panhandling. I was alone in a more secluded area and after it was over...I thought about the repercussions of that event. That he could've followed me to my car or tailed me to my house or any number of things. I thought about that interaction in a way that wasn't, "I can handle myself," but rather in a way that said, "There is a candidate for the President of the United States that thinks that it is okay to grab women. There are people that are not mentally well. These people can manifest their own unstable notions that if he says it is okay, then it is okay. This has happened in other instances where misguided and unstable souls feel compelled to carry out political agendas with violence. This could happen to me while I am in the store. This could happen to me when I am anywhere." And that sense of loss of my own power, in any amount, is alarming. And now more work needs to be done to regain that sense of power and "alright-ness."
But it's okay, right? Because other guys say this kind of stuff all the time.
!
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