Admittedly I woke up in a bit of bad mood this morning. The day seemed it would be another
rain-soaked drizzlier like so many others before it. I was already fighting
fatigue and a blooming foulness when I signed on to yahoo news and saw the
headline about our President mocking Christine Blasey Ford. In some ways perhaps I was already primed to
have a bad reaction, I’m not sure.
Normally I avoid clinking on political links that seem overtly sensationalized
but, perhaps because I had myself been so recently triggered by Ms Ford’s
testimony, I went ahead and did it this morning.
The US political machine, and Trump supporters near and dear
to me, often try to convince me that the liberal media loves to malign and
misquote him. I have to tell you that
the unfavorable opinions I have come to hold about our President are not due to
watching a biased news channel or listening to democratic senators take him to
task over policies and principles. No,
my opinions are formed exclusively and concretely by the words I hear coming
from his own mouth. They are formed by his personal actions, by his arrogance, and
by this, a seemingly default knee jerk reaction to rally his base and choose
his own political agenda and fragile ego over common decency and respect.
I understand that he is supporting his nominee. I will even allow that he feels an attack on
his nomination is perceived as yet another attack on him and his administration
by the Democrats and their political agenda. I will also concede that politics
are always at play especially in the high stakes arena of the Supreme Court
appointees. However, what kind of human being doesn’t watch Ms. Ford’s
compelling testimony and not acknowledge that indeed, something traumatic
happened to her? What kind of person sits
through her account, unmoved? What kind
of father, son, brother, husband…ignores her obvious discomfort and distress at
recalling the details on an event that had so clear and profound effect on her
life? What kind of leader ignores the
pain of woman’s assault and questions her credibility to garner cheers on a
public podium for political gain?
There are many details Ms. Ford does not remember, this is
true statement. It is the details she does recall though that tear and wound. She can remember some details with disturbing
clarity – the hand over her mouth, the feeling of being over powered, the
laughter. These are the details she can never forget. These are the memories
that haunt her, lie in wait for her in the dark. These are the details that had to be dealt
with professional help and dedication. These
are the details that rise up in therapy like unwelcomed intruders. These are the details she had to work hard to
move past, to move on.
This is how it is with sexual assault. We might not remember
exact dates, we may be foggy on the timeline but we won’t ever forget some
things. Some details will come back over and over again, even when we have
never tried harder to pretend something didn’t happen. Some memories can always reside with us, buried
long ago with our shame and our fear, only to be unwittenly triggered by the
testimony of others.
I could not tell you the date of my assault, even the day of
the week. I’m also a little foggy on the events leading up to it. I might have
had certainly had a drink myself. To
this day, I’m not 100% sure how the situation so quickly morphed outside my
control. However, I can tell you what I remember with startling, visceral clarity.
I can tell you how
the fear started. It was a slow burn in
my gut that blossomed into a panic that rattled against my ribcage when I realized
he was stronger than me and I could not get out from under him. I can tell you
how he tasted of stale cigarettes and popcorn and the way my fingers got
tangled in his blonde curls as I struggled against his advances. I can recall
the way he turned into a stranger, his body taunt and unyielding, driven by one
need. I remember the way I disappeared under him,
became a non-person with no voice and no power of objection. He failed to hear or see me as anything other
than a vessel to pour his rage and grief into. I remember the abrupt release,
the dismissal and the almost immediate snoring that ripped through the room as
I scrambled for my clothes. I can
remember the pain of it, a brutal rawness I nursed for days after and the numbing
fear that something inside me had been tore beyond repair.
I don’t remember the walk back to my own room, only that I
felt wrapped in a heavy blanket of shame with the hot whispers and his excited
keening playing in my head and my burning ears like an obscene soundtrack. I remember the self-loathing and the shame,
the guilt I placed on my own shoulders for being naïve and foolish. I remember wanting to forget everything. I had
never wanted anything to disappear more than those minutes of my life.
The reality of assault that President Trump doesn’t seem to understand
is that the details you fail to recall do not erase those you can. The fact
that you can’t remember dates or times, or the minutes leading up to an event,
do not render that event untrue, they do not disqualify the experience as
having happened. I don’t know if Mr. Kavanaugh is the one who assaulted Ms.
Ford, but she seems to 100% believe he was.
I can tell you first hand, the decades don’t erase the face of an
assailant. I can tell you, someone absolutely
hurt that woman. I don’t need her to tell me how she got to that place to know
someone assaulted her there or that she was alone and she was afraid. I don’t need the time or the date to know
that someone robbed her that summer of something she can never get back. My
heart breaks for the details she can never forget and there is nothing
political about a victim’s pain…ever.
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