textless:

There is a lot I don’t like to talk about, or think about, ever.  

I have been mostly fine for many years.  I have a job I love, a kind
and supportive family, a safe place to live, and enough money to live
on.  I know exactly how lucky I am.

But the last couple of years have brought some dark shadows to the fore, and this week has made me sick with horror.  Again.

I’m not being flowery or exaggerating for effect.  Every time I see or
hear the news, I feel like throwing up, or screaming, or going to sleep
and not waking up.  I feel the way I felt after the last presidential
election, only 688 days more so.  I feel so sad and angry and betrayed
that I don’t have the words to tell it.  So these miserable, inadequate
words will have to do:

In 1984, when I was in sixth grade, I met a
bad stranger and was sexually assaulted.  I didn’t tell.  That same
year, there were some rumors about me at school.  It was unrelated, but
felt 100% related.  Kids were calling my house at night to tell my
parents I was a whore.  (Amadeeville Whore.  Clever!)  I started
stealing liquor and engaging in some not-so-subtle self-harm.  

In 1986, I started high school a year early, in a new city.  I was
socially awkward, not cute, and 13.  I was so, so happy when an older
boy started paying attention to me.  Shocker, it didn’t turn out to be
good attention.  I was willing to have sex with him, but willing wasn’t
enough.  It was bad in ways I’ll spare you, and went on until he
transferred his interest to my arguably-more-vulnerable best friend a
few months later.

My point is that I’ve been fucking fine for more than 20 years, and now I’m not.

The fact that a significant minority of my fellow Americans went out of
their way to elect a bullying, cruel, congenitally dishonest, willfully
ignorant, mentally unstable sexual predator – the very worst person
they could find – to the most powerful office on earth was pretty
upsetting.  But I consoled myself with the idea that maybe they didn’t
realize just how bad he was.  Maybe they never listened to a single
thing he said, and just voted for change as a generic concept?  Maybe
they were high, or feverish, or possessed?

The last 98 weeks have
disabused me of those notions.  Obviously no horror is too horrible, up
to and including the open acceptance of nazis and the vile, illegal,
unnecessary separation of families at our southern border.  And now the
nomination of a lying, tantruming, wildly partisan, outrageously
anti-choice accused sexual predator for a lifetime appointment to the
Supreme Court.

This week I have read, heard, and seen hundreds of
comments to the effect that even if Judge Kavanaugh assaulted Dr.
Blasey Ford in high school, it shouldn’t matter because he was young.  
Or it was a long time ago.  Or that’s just how young men are.

Are you fucking kidding me?  This stuff matters.

Decent people, decent young men, have never been like that.  I was
young once, and it was the 80s, and I drank to excess, and I did a lot
of stupid things.  I never sexually assaulted anyone.  I guarantee it –
not even once.

I’ve known my husband for more than 30 years,
since he was 18.  Guess who was a kind and respectful person even then?
Yeah, he was.  He never, ever touched anyone without their consent,
because he was and is a decent person.

Since the 2016 election I
have had nightmares and daytime panic attacks that I thought I was done
with.  I have not been able to function normally, though I have been
able to keep it together in public most of the time.  But this week has
pushed me to, and over, the edge.  I can’t stand any more.

If you
have excused or minimized sexual assault this week, fuck you.  If you
have looked the other way because Judge Kavanaugh suits your political
views, fuck you.  And if you think this is some kind of sideshow or
political theater, fuck you twice.

I tend to be pretty private,
and it’s very likely that I will regret putting this up within the hour.
 So it will almost certainly disappear by morning.  If you care even a
little, and you are in the US, please call your senators tomorrow, no
matter their party.  Ask them to do the right thing by making sure Brett
Kavanaugh never, ever becomes a Supreme Court justice.

If you
are a US citizen and not registered to vote, please register tomorrow
and make goddamn sure you vote in November.  Because this travesty of an
administration humiliates and violates every one of us every day, and
we have the responsibility to put a stop to it.

And if you read
this and don’t care, or think I’ve been led astray by Nancy Pelosi, or
whatever, please leave me alone forever.  Thanks.