Powerless

POWERLESS

Wherein the Wicked Witch Confesses to Being a Coward

    In recent months I have been told how pointless being concerned about politics is.  I have heard thinking people say things I disagree with on an idealistic and principled level.  I have heard friends say things that have hurt, albeit unintentionally.  Despite maintaining an even fairness in responses and maintaining the guidelines of my beloved Church of Satan, I never felt I was compromising my values or ethics.

     In the last 48 hours I have felt, for the first time in my life, like those who told me it doesn't matter, were right.  I feel defeated.  Kavanaugh is just the symptom.  His winning a seat on the Court, to me, and to anyone who values a woman's right to control her body, is tragic, but not emotionally or legally insurmountable.  It would normally be the kind of challenge I would relish.  I'd don a cape, swoop in and die on the hill for my belief, a la Anne Frank, that people are basically good.

    Like most of my compatriots I do a lot of joking about "triggers."  I am opposed, at a fundamental level,to the notion that anyone can control your psyche with words.  That said, I also must contend with a rather unpleasant montage of personal and family issues that are leaving me on emotionally shaky footing.  In other words, I can't be sure if I was already fucked to the point of breaking, or whether recent events have just knocked me down.  I do know I started crying a while ago and now I can't stop.

     In a truly cowardly way I have used a victim I know to attack many of the #Me, too 's champions for taking NDA money.  I don't regret the attack.  Taking money without prosecuting or suing is wrong, because it allows the abusers more victims.  I regret that I lack the courage to tell my story, and have allowed others for 40 years to identify as survivors while I kept my mouth shut..

     Because I am not a "survivor."  My attack changed me forever.  I never "worked through it," or used it for the betterment of a movement, or even to console friends that they weren't alone.  And I'm not done being a pussy, either.  Maybe the night terrors I've endured for 40 years have become a part of me.  Maybe my needs, to know everything about psychology, sociology, interpersonal dynamics, and even espionage, are all big fat fronts to avoid.  I'm not going to share, even now.  I can't.

    Regardless of that, watching our President, accused of 19 incidents and probably the most vocal pussy grabber who voices his incest fetish in the history of ever, ridicule a victim--well, despite no surprise, still felt like a punch in the gut.  Listening to one rich, white, old, puke after another talk about this "poor man" has made me....not mad.  I'm past mad.  I'm.....deflated, defeated, and lost.

     I remember that as a kid I thought by the year 2000 we'd all be the Jetson's.  After my attack when I was barely 15, I was certain that feminism, that men abusing women, would certainly be done before I kicked the bucket, and my granddaughters, if not my daughters, would be safe.  I was wrong about the Jetson's and I am wrong about sexual assault.  The actions/voices  of my government has proved to me that we will never be safe.  The repugnant women telling their daughters that being groped is no big deal are the powerful collaborators for the abusers of the future.  How can you fight against other women?

     I don't understand.  Doesn't everyone have a Mother, a Sister, a Wife, a Daughter, a Friend who is female?  How can it be right, politically or socially, to mock those who have suffered so much?  Is it solipsism or sexism or straight up psychopathy en masse?  All the research in the world doesn't answer those questions when every voice that controls everything from the speed limit, to whether we go to war, to the amount of taxes you pay, tells you that you don't matter.  Your pain is negated for another great man to ascend 

     We must watch out for our sons lest the evil women make false accusations.

     Eve ate from the tree of knowledge and we all suffer for that original sin.

     I'd like to end this by saying I'll come out swinging, like I always do.  I think, though, that is a lie.  I never dreamed my country would behave this way, and I am certain I don't understand the rules, anymore.  I want to find the deepest hole, and crawl in it with my shame, and cowardice, and regret.  I don't want to watch another generation suffer, and for the first time, in an awful long time, I feel powerless.