We Are Many… November Is Coming

I watched the Judiciary Committee hearing yesterday where Dr. Christine Blasey Ford gave testimony regarding the alleged sexual assault she experienced at the hands of a seventeen-year-old boy when she was only fifteen. Like many of us, she didn’t report the attack at the time for any number of reasons no doubt based on fear. Fear of disappointing the trust her parents placed in her to not attend parties where alcohol was present, fear of getting in trouble for all of it. None of it was her fault, yet the responsibility a survivor places on her(him)self is never-ending. It changes us. Forever.

As I listened to Dr. Blasey Ford’s background, I felt a sense of sisterhood, not only because I’m also a survivor but because I too have a degree in psychology. Her tendency to be precise and to teach while presenting her testimony, offering several times her own expert testimony on the chemicals involved in establishing memory within brain function is typical of my own precision.

We need this precision in our lives because on one day, or during our childhood, or during adulthood, we experienced something so demeaning, so terrifying that even if occurring in only one instant, our lives were forever changed. In Dr. Ford’s case, she was able to get away from her attacker and his friend. One wonders if rape had ultimately happened, would they both have taken their turn?

In my own case, I was molested by my father. I have few clear memories, but those that I do have are vivid. When I first spoke to my mother about it, or at least when I remember that I did, I was nine. She didn’t deny it, becoming instead visibly uncomfortable and telling me to never mind.

I was born in Modesto, California, moving to the Los Angeles area when I was a toddler. My memory is spotty from that time although I remember being in the hospital for tonsillitis before moving to Alaska when I was four. The summer before, while still three, we had visited family up there and the next thing I knew, my mother and I were living in Alaska with an uncle awaiting my father’s arrival three month’s later. Prior to the move, I have a vague memory of professional photos being taken of me along with an oil portrait (which I still have) for the purposes of doing television commercials and then poof…we were gone.

After seeing Richard Nixon on the news one evening, my mother told me of an instance where we (my mother, father, and myself) were on an airport tarmac, waiting for Nixon to return. Whenever I asked her about it, all she would say was that Nixon patted me on the head and told my mother to “take her sleepyhead daughter home”. My parents were never openly political, never spoke about politics in our home, nothing. I knew they voted, but that was it. Why were they on the tarmac that night? Why was I there? I asked her if there were others there and she said there was only a handful of people there at the time. Any more questions and I received the standard, never you mind response. I could never get a straight answer out of her about why we were there to meet Nixon of all people in the first place. I’m not sure what any of that was about but whenever I think about it, a wave of terror comes over me that is hard to deal with because I can’t shake the thought that in truth, my parents were there on the tarmac awaiting my arrival.

That’s the thing about survivors. Whether we’re assaulted by a stranger or it’s by someone either in our family or known to our family, there are probably more unanswered questions than there are answered ones which leave us in such a perplexing state. My own abuse lasted until we left Alaska, the final abuse occurring during the move to Oregon. I was forced to drive from Alaska to Oregon with my father while my mother and brother flew down on an airplane. The trip took five days at that time because the Al-Can Highway was still unpaved. One night we stayed in a motel at Destruction Bay. The owner of the motel was visibly concerned when he didn’t have a room with two beds in it, offering a cot for me to sleep on. My father shook his head, telling him that we’ve slept in the same bed before and it would be fine. All while my eyes never left this man, someone who was finally concerned about ME. My safety. That had never happened before.

I had hope for the first time in my life. I have no memory of the remainder of the trip to Oregon after that moment.

The more we hear about pedo-criminality in our world, we know it has to begin somewhere. We’re witnessing more and more politicians and CEOs resigning from their positions, sometimes being prosecuted over sexual harassment or assault claims. Teachers, law enforcement, attorneys, doctors, those in positions of power are no longer safe from their abuse of others. More and more actors are coming out revealing what they’ve experienced and if they’ve been acting since childhood, we’re hearing horrific accounts of what they’ve endured. I may never know whether I was on the fringe of that as a child but with all the unanswered questions I have to wonder why it was that a southern California girl would ever agree to move to Alaska, away from all of her family and friends. Was it to save me or to isolate me further? She passed twenty-three years ago so I’ll never know the answer to that. My abuser went on to live until five years ago when I received notice that he had died.

I was finally safe.

We’ve also heard reports over the years about what happens in sororities and fraternities. Extreme hazing was common and I remember hearing in college about alleged debauchery in Ivy League schools. I remember a friend in high school who was raped during her sixteenth birthday party. Alcohol flowed freely during high school and college. As did abuse. So whether it happens during childhood or later on, it happens. All the time.

Lawmakers, assuming we want to call them that, on the Judiciary Committee objected to the last minute information from Dr. Ford and have indicated that they’re not interested in any more investigations of her claims or claims made by others. But many of these so-called lawmakers attended these elite schools, these elite Ivy League colleges. I have no idea what happened the night that this happened to Dr. Ford all those years ago, but her testimony was compelling and I believe her. I believe her as to who her attackers were because there were actually two of them, whether only one was on top of her or not. There was a spotter, a watcher, an enabler, a co-conspirator. But today, thanks to one Senator on the Judiciary Committee, we’re going to have an opportunity for the FBI to investigate her claims. With luck, they’ll investigate the newest claims as well. They describe an individual who shouldn’t be on the highest court in the land. Time will tell if what the FBI discovers will be enough to stop his appointment to the Supreme Court or if lawmakers will even listen.

I had hope when I heard Dr. Blasey Ford’s testimony. And then I had a little more when Senator Flake acted today. It’s what survivors do, you see, cling to little pieces of hope that someone somewhere will listen to us and believe what we say. We have no ax to grind, only that the truth is known. We engage in magical thinking, believing that truth will win the day, only to see our hopes crushed when those who can make a difference instead turn a blind eye to trauma and abuse so profound, allowing its destructive tentacles to reach into our very government where it seems the focus is on protecting these individuals instead of culling them from the herd.

Extensive predatory behavior has been alleged against and mocked by the current occupant of the White House. I listened yesterday to a contrived and rehearsed collective hissy fit on the part of Republicans on the Judiciary Committee as their female assistant was kicked to curb when it was clear she had uncovered something about the nominee. From that point forward, she was gone, no longer interviewing anyone, and from there the collective hissy fit began.

Until a friend on Twitter posted to turn on the television this morning, any hope that I had yesterday had given way to nothing but anxiety and panic.

So I guess we’ll see what happens next. Survivors are accustomed to holding patterns whether imposed by self or others. The other thing we do is vote.

We are many. November is coming.

Blessed Be