The Gift of Fear. How Do You Defeat the Ghosts of Evil?

As I watched the January 6th Committee, the ghosts of that day and the year that followed flashed through my mind. The assault that began that day continues to this, replaying itself in my dreams, my waking moments, across the country, and just next door.

I remember watching the towers fall on 9/11. The shock. The fear. The worry for friends. But that day was an assault from beyond the US. Watching the events of January 6th, 2021 unfold in real time was far more terrifying. The barbarians were within the gates, and they were fellow Americans.

What struck me most during Thursday night’s January 6th committee opening statements was Officer Edwards’ testimony. I immediately identified with her because she looks like me. Not physically. I mean her eyes stare like mine. Most people don’t realize that traumatized women do not blubber and weep. Weeping makes you look weak. Crying brings disdain. Instead, we have the hollow look of the veteran with the thousand yard stare.

Watching that woman testify to what she lived through and witnessed on that day — a day she had never trained for or anticipated — a day she should never have been forced to endure sparked flashbacks of my days of fear. Of what I have endured, before January 6th, 2021, and since.

Before my senior year of college, my father died after a long battle with cancer. My world shattered. I wanted to crawl into the grave after him. Living seemed impossible, and death was easy. I chased death for a long time before I had the courage to turn and face life. It came naturally for me to write that journal of an ambivalent Union Soldier. Like Officer Edwards, life had become a war zone.

I had begun trauma therapy by January of 2021. And it was still new and scary. But it was something I needed to do. I also began reading Gavin de Becker’s seminal book The Gift of Fear. De Becker taught me what I wish I had known long before my father’s death, the red flags of violence and abuse. How “sweetness” how gotten women killed and raped, and how listening to their fears and bravery had saved them.

Now, after a year of harassment and being swindled, led on, and used as a punching bag yet again by evil human beings. After abuse reached into my home where I finally had felt safe, after living in a war zone my entire marriage and after. I had developed that stare. I could sense a threat over miles, yards, feet, inches. And I could stare it down.

Yet inside, the pain and brokenness had not disappeared. The anger was still there. It is still here. I want my abusers punished as I want the rioters of January 6th who killed police officers they profess to embrace, and gave Officer Edwards her stare.

There is a reckoning coming. Inside me and without. I don’t know what the result will be. But like so many young people who never should have faced a war zone, I have embraced the warrior I was made to be. And I am reminded of the line in Full Metal Jacket, when Joker asks a helicopter door gunner how he kills women and children. “Easy. You just don’t lead them so much.”

And that is how much pity I have for those who harmed me, who harmed Officer Edwards, who harmed and still mean harm to the innocents of this country, and its fragile democracy. I don’t know if my ex-husband is alive or dead. I don’t care. His death would be a blessing for other women. But I will search down and face the demons that have harmed myself and others, and who do or seek to do harm.

How do you defeat racists, ignorant and evil human beings? Brutes and barbarians without Covid vaccines, type II diabetes, and two brain cells two rub together? Easy. You just don’t feel for them so much.

Save your love for you and yours, for the innocents, for those who never should have experienced the horrors of life. Love your values, hold them tight. Do not become the evil you despise, but fight it with the fear and skills of the warrior you have become.

– JL ✌🏼💚🖖🏼🔥

PS- I have Covid at the moment. I’m fine. All vaxxed up. Stan is negative still.

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