Thanks For The Flashback, Donald!

Some have called last night's debate "depressing".

It left me in too much shock to be depressed.  The last time I felt that way about an event in which I was not personally involved was on 11 September 2001.

Perhaps I will be depressed about it later.  That is, after living through the trauma I feel is coming over me.  

It started, I now realize, when Donald got just a little too close to Hillary.  That, in and of itself, was scary enough.  But the expression on his face:  Tell me it isn't that of a stalker!

That, and the way he paced around--and his body language and overall demeanor--practically spelled "abuser".

I know.  I was having flashbacks.  Everything gesture, every word of his, was a threat and would have been even if he hadn't thundered that he would put her in jail if he became President.

Abusers do that, a lot:  They make threats.  Just like Dominick threatened to destroy my life--and nearly did--after I told him I wanted no more to do with him.  I'm sure that if he reads this, he will threaten me again.  Or, perhaps, he won't even give me such a warning, and he will go ahead and do something to make my life hell.  As it is, I have recurring health problems as a result of his abuse and harassment. 

There was the e-mail in which he said that "living in a cardboard box will seem like paradise" unless I gave in to his demands.  And the one in which he bragged that he could tell everyone that I had sex with my students, and with children, and "everyone will believe it and not you because they know your (sic) a pervert" and a "completely worthless human being" who "did nothing to make my life better"

Funny that he was calling me a worthless pervert, and claiming I did nothing to enhance his life--before, and after, he begged me to stay with him.  And that he used to call me at all hours to complain about how people treated him, how they imputed all manner of sexual crimes to him, because of his sexuality--or, at least, the way they perceived it--after saying, the day before, that all I ever did "was listen" to him.  "Big deal!" he exclaimed.

Then when I brought him to court, he said the threats he made were "just talk" and "only words".  Hmm...How many abusers have said that?  "I didn't mean it," he whined.  But if he "didn't mean it", why did he?  Why did he say or do those things?  When I asked him that, he made more threats and claimed that I did worse, that other people did worse.  When, in another incident, I called him on his racism, he sent an e-mail to a bunch of people saying that he saw the white robe and hood in my closet the last time he was in my apartment.

Well, all right, Donald at least said "I apologize" before saying Bill did worse things and Hillary has hate in her heart and started the very lie (about Obama's birthplace) he spent years propagating.  That's more than Dominick ever did.  But both of them did the something else abusers are always doing:  blaming their own words and actions on the victim.  It's a clever way for perpetrators to portray themselves as victims without seeming to.

In short, The Donald is a petty, vicious bully, just like most abusers.  Just like Dominick.

Hey, Donald, thanks for the flashbacks.  I'm going to send you the bill from my therapist.  Oh, right:  You're going to make me pay for it.  Just like Dominick said I would pay.

I hear he's looking for a job.  Do you need anybody to help you on your campaign? Oh, right:  I caused him to be unemployed.  He couldn't have said it any better.

At least all he wanted to be was a cop.  Donald wants to be Abuser In Chief, I mean President.

Moving Through (And, Hopefully,Beyond) The Ruins

It was bound to happen, I guess.

A new friend of mine lives in the same neighborhood as Dominick.  On Saturday, I rode out there.  Really, unless I ride around the world and enter the back door (which is a temptation), there isn't another way to get there from my place.  Besides, if he could "pass through" my neighborhood and call to say, "I'm coming over now"--as he did several times before I took him to court--I can pass through his neighborhood if I'm minding my own business.

Anyway, you can probably guess what happened next.  I was a couple of blocks from the friend's house when a red SUV pulled up behind me.  A voice taunted me through the window, "Are you coming to visit me?"

Has he learned anything?  I could tell, just from the tone of his voice, that he is as arrogant, presumptuous, disrespectful and abusive as he ever was.  In other words, he's the same thug--coward--that he was when he slandered me to my employer, co-workers and other people, and when he called and texted me 11,518 times in two years after I said I didn't want him around me anymore.

After the things he did, there's simply no way I can have him anywhere near me.  Perhaps I'm supposed to be more forgiving, but I can't be.  I take that back:  I don't want to be.  He takes forgiveness, or anything that isn't retaliation, as a license to escalate his harassment and abuse. 

In short, I not only don't believe he's changed; I don't believe that he ever will change.  As long as he can continue living in the house in which he's lived since the day he was born, he'll have no reason to take responsibility for himself.  In his mind, no matter how he behaves, other people are wrong in the ways they respond to him.  Anyone who tries to hold him accountable for his words and actions is being "unfair"; anybody who tries more than once is an enemy who must be retaliated against.

In short, he hasn't grown up, and probably never will.  So, when he made his mock-invitation from his grandmother's van, I ignored him.  All I can do is to move through--and, hopefully, beyond--the wreckage he left in my life.

Love Sick--Or Sick Of Lovers?

Sometimes it seems that half of the TV shows and movies in this world are about people falling in love, trying to find love or who can’t decide between would-be lovers. 

I’m thinking about that as I can’t get Bob Dylan’s “Love Sick” out of my head.  A few nights ago, someone played it on the radio.  I hadn’t heard it in a long time. At the time it came out, I actually liked the music better than the lyrics—a feeling I don’t normally have about a Bob Dylan song.  But now the lyrics—or, more precisely the sentiment—resonates more now than it did circa 1997.

Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I’m now about the same age he was when he made that song. More to the point, though, I simply have no desire, right now, to get involved in anything resembling a “love”—or, more precisely, romantic or sexual—relationship.  I don’t even feel that I want anything more than friendship from anybody, and there really aren’t that many people from whom I actually want it.

A few people have suggested that I lack confidence in myself and, by extension, in my ability to attract anyone I’d want, let alone anyone who can give me a nurturing, fulfilling relationship.  That might be part of the answer: I don’t feel very attractive right now and I’m still learning what kind of a woman I am, and am going to, be.  Others, including one priest in my church, have said that I’m afraid to open myself again.  They’re right:  Being sensitive and vulnerable has led me to not merely pain but, at times, outright ruin.

Plus, to be perfectly honest, I don’t miss the intimacy—to the degree that I experienced it—in the relationships I’ve had.  I don’t miss having to listen to two-hour-long monologues from a self-absorbed man-child who’s never lived anywhere but the house in which he was born or raised, or the abuse to which he subjected me whenever I told him what he didn’t want to hear.  I don’t miss the accusations, the slander, the expectations that I will be available for sex or whatever else the other person wants.  For that matter, I don’t really miss sex.  

I have to wonder, though, how much of what I’m feeling actually has to do with the experiences I’ve had in relationships.  I know that many people say their libidos wane when they get to be my age, or they just get tired of a lot of other things in their lives.  I also know that, in the old days, one of the costs of gender-reassignment surgery—apart from money—was the loss of physical sensation in that area.  That has not been a problem for me.  The electricity is working, so to speak.  So is the plumbing, if you will.  But, to extend that metaphor, the bedroom is empty and I don’t feel the same urgency that other people seem to feel about filling it.