The Best Words

Words.Words.Words.

Trump must have the best ones — held hostage under Trump Tower —  because I sure don’t got ‘ em. Not lately, anyway. I’ve had angry words. Frustrated words. Major depressive words. Anxious and frightened words. But where are my clear-sighted words? My poetic words? My witty words? The words that come from whatever that place is that I call “me”?

Since the election, words have baffled me. My words are my Voice. They are my way of communicating my experience to the outside world. I feel my anxiety rising and my heart beating faster simply thinking of using my words and my voice. This is who I am, dammit! I’m a writer. I process my experience through writing. So where is my voice? Where are my words?

And it is Him. The Deplorable One. Trump. This Election has been and still is the reliving of a trauma. It really began with the “grab them by the pussy” comment. How could any woman accept this sort of speech, when not a day passes that we can truly feel “secure in our own bodies,” as Michelle Obama described it? For every woman who has ever been ogled, groped, silenced or passed over, victims of unwanted advances, abuse and trauma, that comment shredded old wounds open. Of course, the true horror is that some women argued vehemently in defence of the remark, and even embraced it!

Are they suffering some form of Stockholm Syndrome? A legion of Patty Hearsts?

And now that IT happened, it’s worse. Women scold me daily for my assertiveness, for my apparently blasphemous notion that “women’s rights are human rights” as Hillary Clinton said, or because she said it. But there is another side as well. And that is I’ve rediscovered the value and comfort of speaking and sharing with other women. It’s a sisterhood that I once had, but lost. I lost it to an abusive husband. To someone who reminded me with every action and word that I had no value, and my words and wants were less than worthless: they were laughable. Someone who cut me off from any companionship that might comfort or lift me up. A relationship in which I had no control, no voice.

Staring down a Trump Presidency seems to me like my abuser, my torturer, has become President of everything. I’m right back in those worst moments. And it has shut me down. But realizing that other women felt the same has been a revelation! I am not alone! And these women are struggling right along with me. We can listen to each other. Support each other. Help each other find our hard won voices again. To find our words.

This is why I feel that men, with certain exceptions, cannot possibly understand how I feel this moment. How I have been feeling. If you’re a white, straight, gentile male it will never be the gut punch it is to me. You may hate Trump, disagree with him on everything, and even think he will bring on WW III, Fallout and The Walking Dead all at once, but you must have lived through some sort of abuse to get it as a straight white guy. And even there you have me beat. You are still a man and benefit from status and privilege that brings. One day you may have come home and socked your abusive father. But I don’t know if women are even supposed to do that. It makes us damaged, crazy chicks. And gloating over our shitty ex’s failures just doesn’t feel like something women can do freely or with as much glee as men speak of their “psycho bitch” ex.

That’s how it seems to me. These are my words. I don’t want or need male input on this. My experiences, my feelings, my words do not require your permission, endorsement, approval or comment. These are my words. This is my voice. I’m taking my words back. Writing this piece was scary and hard. This isn’t the sort of thing I eagerly share. Some will say I’m playing the “victim card” or the “woman card.”  And honestly, if you feel that way, you really do have the Trump card now. At least I have my voice. I have my words. These are my experiences. They don’t need your understanding. They just want the right to exist.

I have my words again.

Post script: To my sisters, let’s help each other and find solidarity in each other. Please feel free to contact me through this site (see below), or Facebook Messenger if you are interested in brainstorming and creating with me a group of like-minded women, a sisterhood of support, sharing, of laughter, joy and awesome.

Check out my Instagram! There are pictures of things I like and hate! 😊

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