I won’t hide it from you, readers: since Election Day, fighting the seemingly relentless flow of bad news and poor judgment from the incoming administration is a challenge. I’m relieved that the first Attorney General nominee, who I consider inappropriate for many reasons, withdrew his name. If only this had happened six years ago, when political events caused a traumatic experience from my past to surface. PTSD. An experience from 1973 re-emerged in the fall of 2018, during the confirmation process of a Supreme Court Justice nominee, accused of sexually assaulting a girl at a party when he was seventeen.

 

I don’t want you to talk about this.

 

I understand that, Lily, but vulnerable people are being hurt already by proposals of those who take charge of the presidency on January 20. We need to start talking now.

 

Can I go to my room for this one?

 

That’s probably a good idea, 9. But I want you to remember what Mom and Dad told us about how we treat other people. Remember what they said about the kids that people were mean to in school?

 

That we should be nice to them?

 

That’s part of it.

 

To defend the underdog.

 

Yes, Lily, that’s the rest. And that’s the part I’m writing about today.

 

Can I go now? It sounds like you’re going to talk a lot.

 

Yes, 9, you’re excused. Lily, you can go, too, if you want to, but I want you to understand that when other people do bad things to you it is not your fault. Even if you’re scared that no one will believe you, and if people do believe you they will blame you for what happened, it’s not your fault.

 

Will you be okay out here by yourself?

 

Pretty sure I will be, and thanks so much for asking.

Okay, here’s what happened. When I was thirteen, a year younger than Lily is now, I was sexually assaulted by a sixteen year old boy that I really liked and trusted. This happened at a party where there were no adults, lots of kids that I knew, and drinking. I was not drinking. And when this boy started doing things to me, I was shocked. I didn’t understand. The only information I’d received about sex was that stupid movie they showed girls in fifth grade about periods and sanitary pads.

 

The boy had me in a strong hold. I don’t even remember how I got away from him, but it was before the really bad thing could happen. And after that. . .

 

Forty-five years of silence. I told absolutely no one, not my sister or my friends or my parents or any boyfriends, not even husbands. The fear and shame stayed buried in me. It’s not like I thought about it compulsively, or every day, or even frequently, but when the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings were broadcast, the past shot up to the surface and poleaxed me.

 

The testimony of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who considered it her duty to come forward and tell the Judiciary Committee about her experience of being sexually assaulted by the nominee when she was fifteen, rang true to my own experience with sexual assault. And yet, many on the Judiciary Committee, composed of United States Senators, sought to discredit her testimony. She had already spent weeks living in hotels with her family, terrorized out of their home by threats of violence and even death from people who didn’t want her to testify. People who prefer to keep the reality of sexual assault in the dark. Six years later, Dr. Blasey Ford still lives in an environment of fear; security is still required to try to assure her safety. Even though Kavanaugh was confirmed, the hate and violence continues.

 

Yes, it can happen here. In retrospect, my fears of talking about sexual assault seem completely justified. Even now, I wonder if I’m going to be attacked for writing this blog.

 

Returning to 2018:

 

My husband, who has since passed away, couldn’t help but notice something was wrong. So I told him. 45 years later I told someone what had happened. But it took a while to articulate what I was feeling. At age 58, for three days in the fall of 2018 I was deathly afraid to leave the house, knew with certainty that strangers out in public would somehow know, just by looking at me, about that terrible thing that had happened. They’d ridicule me, spit on me, shove me- -men, especially. Even at that long remove of years, my response was deep, visceral, and raw.

 

From an unattributed online source:  PTSD symptoms usually appear soon after trauma. For most people, these symptoms go away on their own within the first few weeks and months after the trauma. For some, the symptoms can last for many years, especially if they go untreated.

 

The Kavanaugh hearings were the trigger that set off this horrific response in me. I am by nature a resilient and optimistic person and did recover, but it was a hard re-entry to being in public again. At first, I could only stand in place and watch people pass by on the street. Oh. They don’t seem to hate and despise me. They don’t seem to know.

 

What 9, Lily and I talked about earlier- -about being nice to the kids that people are mean to, and defending the underdog- -it’s something we all need to address with an incoming administration that sets a tone of cruelty and threats. I fear for immigrants, both documented and undocumented. I fear for LGBTQ+ friends, especially those who remember first-hand the fight for equal rights, and the slurs, discrimination, hate and violence they experienced during that process. I fear for people with disabilities who have been openly mocked by the president-elect. I fear for those who are not Christians, and also for Catholics that many regard as not being Christian. I fear for People of Color. I fear for all women.

 

Bullying is not strength. Ridicule is not power. Destruction is not governance. These evils must not be normalized, not permitted to take root.

 

Those mean kids are coming. We all need to push back by defending the rights we still possess, taking care of each other, and doing what we can to manage our fears, up to and including PTSD.