Personal/Political

I was sitting on my porch with a dear friend of mine the night of the election. We were just realizing that Hillary might not win, something we had both taken for granted.  We were pretty bummed about Clinton as our next president, but could that many people actually have voted for Trump? He was really bad!  “I feel like were are kids.” I said to her.  “And Trump and Hillary are…our abusive parents.” She started laughing hysterically. Not at me, but with me. Not like haha, hilarious, but haha frighteningly hilarious and a little bit true.

Just a few days before the election, I was visiting my dad. He’s a Trump supporter, not because he agrees with the worst of Trump’s bigoted rhetoric, but because he likes what Trump represents to the establishment. He’s the disciplinarian and the businessman. The patriarch.

Our government really does need some discipline. The Left just points to the corruption on the right, the right points to the corruption on the left, but neither has a problem turning a blind eye to the corruption among their own ranks. Everyone believes they’re the good guys and those others are the bad guys, but we fail to realize that that dichotomy only exists because we make it that way. “But they’re worse that we are!” Shut up.   

My father abused me. He shut me down. He silenced me. I could not say a word against his without being put in my “place.” My father identifies with patriarchy. My father values money and power. He values hierarchal relations as defined by the bible.  His job was to hold the power, to discipline, make sure I accepted the hierarchical formation of my family, the world and the heavens.

A few days before the election, I was speaking to my therapist about my trip to my dad’s, including some quietly vindictive things I did against him, just little things, but things I knew would upset him.  I was acting out, still struggling with his abuse and lack of love and kindness. I have recently begun the hard work it will take to reclaim my voice that was snuffed out by my father and also to learn to not need or want him in my life.  

Trump is the embodiment of my abusive father and his values, the negative side of the Patriarch archetype. It’s like there’s this sort of double struggle going on, inner and outer, with the abusive patriarch. My personal struggle is merged with the public/political struggle.

I was checking in with another friend yesterday. And I started telling her about how I have my proverbial boxing gloves on and am ready to take this patriarchy on...and how Trump is the embodiment of my abusive father. She told me she felt exactly the same, how he embodied her abusers from when she was a child and how this election was super triggering, a sort of re-traumatization, for her.

Is this what all these people, those who have been abused and oppressed, people who have little social and political power, are going through? Is he the Face of Abuse? Is that why so many are falling apart? Well, I think it is, at least a little.

Our human condition seems to require that we hit rock bottom before we change. When it hurts more to stay the same than it does to change, that is when we are able to muster the energy it takes to do that work. I am not sure how far our bottom is, but maybe, just maybe, this is it? I hope so.    

As for our abusive mom, Hillary? That’s another story. But in a nutshell, Trump is our abusive dad, Hillary was supposed to protect us but she just made us more confused. And us minions are their wily teenagers who have had enough of dad’s shit and we are disgusted and disappointed at mom for being complicit and not protecting us. Or something like that.