I have gone somewhat dark here and on social media ever since Christina Blasey Ford came forward. As a survivor of multiple incidents of rape, sexual assault, and other physical violence during my first 19 years, and more so, as a survivor of a few court situations that stick with me all these years later, I make the decision to pull back during these periods in which together we must witness these public humiliations.
I can’t be there for her, or do anything for her. If I could, I would never retreat thusly, but this time I don’t have to “hear it all again,” or hear those other voices, the accusers, the prosecutors, the….
Everything triggers “it.” Everything makes “it” come back. Every conversation, even supportive ones, even the productive ones we’ve been having these past few years, trigger “it.”
Through the decades I’ve done much work, both as a volunteer, and in my former professional career as an educator of students with disabilities, which included many students who had been, or were, assaulted or raped. Since the mid-1980s, I have been the first person many people have come to after a rape or assault, and I have helped bring them to their needed outcome, whether that be medical attention, police involvement, or other choices, and I’ve stopped at least one in-progress sexual assault.
That work, oddly, is the only thing that gave me any sense of peace for many years. Agency. I was “doing” something….
The past decade and a half, for health reasons, I haven’t been able to do so much in the world besides work and take care of my basic needs, and so it’s easier during moments like this to dissolve into a place of unexplainable hurt. Of course one has to carry on. Of course one has to do all the things today one did yesterday. But inside….
And I’m there now. Triggered by everything.
What the Conversations Have Wrought
I have been out about this part of my life in most settings for decades, and my current workplace is no different. I am blessed to work for a sensitive, caring boss. He’s watching the hearings, as are many here (I work in entertainment and we have TVs in every office), but this morning I asked him if I could close his door, and….
Because he knows me, he knows about how even going to jury duty/voir dire sets me off, and as a lawyer, he gets this issue in ways that few others have ever understood, and because of all that….
He closed the door.
He closed the door and told me I don’t have to explain.
He closed the door.
That seems ridiculously small and insignificant, but the fact is, I work for someone who just gets it, and that’s a blessing not many people have, and I don’t know that I’ve ever really had before.
I’ve had prosecutors go after me while testifying and later while I’m in voir dire for jury duty, and the prosecutor’s voice began to trigger me immediately today, the way she has to “do her job” and discredit Dr. Ford, and so I knew I couldn’t sit here and do my (already difficult today) job. I have to resolve a bunch of conflicts today, in addition to those I’ve already resolved. I have my job to do today.
Witness
Dr. Blasey Ford is so incredibly brave today. Any of us who have been through any modicum of this kind of experience know that. How painful it is to hear people mock her for having anxiety on planes going to massively public humiliation sessions but not on planes going to someplace pleasant…
Because they’re still in the mocking phase of non-acceptance of our mutual complex reality.
But you!
And my boss.
And a whole lot of other people….
Thanks to Tarana Burke’s MeToo movement, thanks to all the women, men, and people of all genders, coming forward, building on the voices who spoke up decades ago, with all of this attention tiny cracks are forming in that impenetrable wall that I’ve felt for many decades. You, my boss, and all of these Witnesses to The Humiliation, you’re peering through that impenetrable wall, and that’s how the future may become a tiny bit different than the past has been.
Thank you for all of you bearing witness to Dr. Ford’s bravery today, for seeing her humanity.
I cannot bear to bear witness with you, but I am witnessing you witness her, and I just wanted you to know that this means something to me.
Note: I am unlikely to be able to respond to comments today. I apologize for this, but I’ll still be at work all afternoon, and then there’s also this whole emotion thing…..