Women's March on Washington, Part 2

Somewhere West of D.C., in Virginia

So here we are. We're all in the van, on our way to the march. We picked up Christi's brother, Dan, in Columbus yesterday, while stopping for lunch. It was completely last minute, but we're thrilled to have a man with us to march for women's rights! 

The car smells like Sharpie. We're writing vital information on our arms. Names, dates of birth, emergency contacts, the number for the National Lawyer's Guild Inaugural Jail Support Line. I also put down that I have Asthma, PTSD, my most important medication information, and, in caps, across the middle of my arm, "I AM AUTISTIC." Damn, I must be crazy. A diagnosed high functioning Autistic person in a giant march, with the possibility of arrest, gassing, violence, etc. I don't think that will happen, but there are no guarantees. 

Traffic is dense, and we keep passing busses. My guess is, they're all going to the march. Over a thousand busses are coming from all over the country, filled with women, driving all day and all night to make a statement in the nation's capitol. Aside from the busses, traffic is surprisingly heavy for 7:45 on a Saturday morning, even if it is the day after the inauguration. 

We're all really excited in the car, even though we're making plans for worst-case scenarios. The fact that we were able to come from four states, from similarly repressed, patriarchal backgrounds, to stand up for what we believe in, is enthralling to us. We don't know what we're walking into. There was violence yesterday, though word is that it was from an anarchist group who was planning this long before the election, and we don't know if it's calmed down or not. But we do know why we're here. Why we're marching. Because we're standing up for the marginalized. For the poor and the non-white, and the female and the disabled. We're standing up for justice. For the right of women not to be assaulted. For the right of women to be believed when they are. For the right of women not to be slut shamed. For the right of the LGBTQ+ community to just...be. So regardless of the outcome, we know we're here on the side of the right. We're making our voiced heard. So many have come before us doing this same thing. Honestly, so what if I get hurt or arrested or anything else? So did MLK and Alice Paul, and yet they both stood firm and made things change. What's the point of me teaching history if I'm not willing to participate in it? What's the good of me praising the activists of yore if I'm not willing to become one when my own time demands it?

I'm here. I will march. I will speak. Come what may. 

Women's March on Washington, Part 1

Central Indiana, 1/20/2017

So here we are, on the road. Christi, Mandy, and I are all in Christi's van, driving east on I-70 through the slight drizzle. It's a typical mid-winter rainy January morning in the lower Midwest: mid-40s, brown, and flat. It seems appropriate for the day and our mood.

However, we're also excited. You know, we make an interesting group, the three of us. Mandy is a 22 year old recent college graduate from Arkansas, Christi is a 31 year old homeschool mother of 3 from Rhode Island, and I am an Autistic, chronically ill historian/telecom project manager from Ohio. What we all have in common, is that we were all homeschooled and raised as girls in patriarchal, fundamentalist Christian families, that all at least flirted with fundamentalist cults. Mine was the only family that every fully joined a fundamentalist Christian cult (a story told in other places). But we were all raised to be meek and subservient girls, always to be under the authority of a father or a husband. To be the mother of a quiver full of children. To not follow our own dreams, ideas, wishes, or even beliefs. We were, essentially, raised to be clones. We were taught that we were put here on earth to serve the men in our lives and raise children. We were also taught extreme modesty to the point of objectification.

We have all broken away from that. We all believe in the equality of women. We are human beings. Therefore, our rights should be equal. And that includes our rights to not have other people harass or assault us, because of our bodies. It includes our rights to follow our own path. It includes our rights to earn a living and shape policy and just...live. And the incoming president is a direct threat to these rights. For us, for our children, for all women and children in this country, especially those who are also not white. Who, like me, are disabled. For those who are LGBTQ+. For those who are not from Christian backgrounds. All three of us have experienced repression due to our gender that fits better with past eras of American history than the time in which we were raised. And for us to be traveling to march for women's rights in our nation's capitol, that's something we couldn't even have dreamed of doing in the past.

For me, there's another element to it, though. Because of a combination of circumstances and health/neurological/mental health issues, this is the first time in my life I'm able to support myself. As I was on the plane last night, I realized something: This is the first time in my life I have paid for my own plane ticket. I've simply never had the money before. I've always depended on someone else- usually my parents- to pay for my ticket. But not this time. When I heard about the march, I asked Christi to come with me, and I bought a plane ticket on the spot, even emptying out my paltry savings to do so. Money well spent, in my opinion. I'm paying my own share of the condo we're renting too, as well as gas. This whole trip, I'm paying for. Me. Myself. Not with help from my parents, not with the use of Christmas or birthday money, me. Granted, we were able to do it cheap, but it's still a huge deal for me.

I'll stop there for now, I've been a little rambly. But more posts will come, and I hope you will follow the saga on here, as we sojourn to our nation's capitol to make a bold stand for what is right and just. 

La La Land

Spoilers ahead. Massive ones. You've been warned.

The English language fails to provide adequate vocabulary with which to describe the depth and breadth of my thoughts and emotions at the moment. I went to see La La Land expecting to see a good movie with good music and a modern on-screen couple that rivals classic on-screen couples such as Bergman and Tracy, Astaire and Rogers, Bogart and Bacall, and I got so. much. more. What I got was the single most accurate portrayal of life I have ever seen. The movie captured the highs, the lows, the fantasies, the romanticisms, the poetry, the indescribable ecstacy, and the gut-wrenching agony of that journey we call life.

Very few movies have made me cry. Even fewer have made me cry for reasons other than my in-depth knowledge of African American history. But this, this movie got me. Life rarely goes according to plan. Sometimes, that's a good thing, sometimes it's not. Sometimes, it's a horrible thing that leads to something good. Sometimes, it leads us away from one good thing to another good thing. Sometimes, that second good thing is better than the first one, and sometimes, it's not. Sometimes, it's just...another good thing.

In the last few minutes of the movie, we see Mia's (Emma Stone's character) life as it became after she rose to fame. She was clearly very happily married, with a small child. But she wasn't married to Sebastian (Ryan Gosling's character). They'd never had a big breakup, life just took them in different directions, and they both followed their dreams. Mia and her husband went out one night, and instead of fighting traffic to go to a play, they pulled off the interstate to have dinner instead. While walking back to their car, they heard music playing in a club, and decided to go in. They sat down, and Mia very quickly realized, this was Sebastian's nightclub. He had finally done it. He'd realized his dream, and it was a hit. While on the stage, he saw Mia, and his entire demeanor changed. He started playing one of their songs they used to sing together, as Mia watched, sadly. The music itself was brilliant, as we saw how Sebastian thought through how he could have done things differently. Differently in a way that would have put him and Mia together. How he could have been less selfish when they first met. How he could have dropped everything and gone with Mia to Paris when she got her big break, and played jazz in nightclubs wherever her acting took her. How they could have wound up married, with a child, and happened into that nightclub together that night, instead of her and her husband. And it was clear, Mia was thinking something along those lines as well. While she was extremely happy with her life, her husband, and her child, that didn't stop her from being sad for the life she didn't have with Sebastian.

A few years ago, I wouldn't have known what to do with that whole idea. I would have struggled with Mia's emotions, as though it were marital infidelity. But the reality is, life isn't that black and white. Sure, had she done anything to act on any of that, it would have been very, very wrong. But as it was, it was simply...real. Just because we're happy with how our lives are now, doesn't mean that some part of us doesn't mourn what could have been. We don't have to recite cliches like, "everything happens for a reason," or pretend that how things turned out is better than how things could have turned out. Maybe that's true, but also, very possibly, maybe it's not. Maybe another possible outcome could have been every bit as good as how things are. Different, but just as good. And recognizing that, and finding that it makes us sad on occasion is absolutely okay. In fact, I think perhaps it's even healthy. It's an acknowledgement of how life actually is. It's not necessarily a series of better or worse choices, of better or worse outcomes, of happier or sadder. It can be, and of course, at times it absolutely will be. But sometimes, it just...is. Sometimes, it's simply one choice over another equally valid choice with an equally good outcome.

Shortly before this end sequence, Mia auditioned for what became her breakout role, and the casting director asked her to simply tell a story. In true musical form, the story turned into a song. In this case, a song about Mia's actress aunt. Never in my life has a song so strongly resonated with me before. And that's coming from someone who is a musician above and beyond anything else. I am a musician before I'm a historian. Music speaks to me in a way that nothing else ever could. And this song spoke to me more than any other ever has. The refrain goes:

                                                                  "Here's to the ones

who dream

Foolish, as it may seem;

Here's to the hearts 

that ache,

Here's to the mess

we make."

As I listened to it, I thought about how heartbreakingly beautiful those lyrics are, and how true. I have often thought that the reason life is so hard is because we somehow have this notion that it shouldn't be. That families should love each other, that relationships should work out, that famines and bankruptcies and wars shouldn't happen. We have this picture of a better world in our heads. Maybe, as C.S. Lewis suggests, it's because we were made for Heaven. Maybe, it's just an evolved concept to keep humanity from completely devolving into monsters that blow us all to oblivion. Or, at least, to keep that from happening sooner than it otherwise could. Whatever the reason, much of the beauty in life comes from those who dream. The ones people told were, in fact, foolish for feeling so deeply and dreaming so big. I spent two years as a music major, and then wound up with a literature minor and a history major, all of which involved a lot of study of art. While many works of art, regardless of the medium, are enduring and meaningful from literally every era of artistic production, it seems to me as though the Romantic Era speaks more to us still, and on a deeper level, than any of the others. The Romantics were the dreamers. They were the fools wearing their hearts on their sleeves, demanding that life be better, daring to feel and daring to believe in something grand and wonderful. The Chopins and the Byrons and the Wordsworths. Like Mia's aunt in the movie, many of them died young, some because of a lack of medical technology at the time, and some due to the risky living that can often accompany those who dream. Of course, not all dreamers make such messes. But humanity does. Sometimes, we make our own messes. Sometimes, other people make them for us. But daring to dream deeply means that at some point, our hearts are going to feel that, and ache. The song continues:

"She told me:

A bit of madness is key,

To give us the color to see,

Who knows where it will lead us?

And that's why they need us.

So bring on the rebels,

The ripples from pebbles,

The painters, the poets, the plays,

And here's to the fools who dream,

Crazy as they may seem,

Here's to the hearts that break,

Here's to the mess we make."

There's so much truth in there. It does take a little insanity to allow us to dream. For us to dare to envision something else, for us to take those leaps, having no idea where those leaps will lead us. And yes, society needs the dreamers. It needs the visionaries. It needs those it often calls crazy. Because from where else would our inspiration come? It comes from the Van Goghs and the Debusseys and the Longfellows. Those who see the world in vivid colors, who hear haunting melodies, and who dare to hear the melodies of the Christmas bells in the midst of a war that pits brother against brother. It comes from the rebels. Those who dare to make something better. Those who rebel against convention or against abusive authorities, taking things into their own hands, gritting their teeth, leaping, and doing their best to make sure things turn out better as a result. 

But what really resonated with me, more than any other part of that song, and more than anything else in the movie, was "Here's to the hearts that break; here's to the mess we make." Those lines, going through my head while Sebastian was envisioning how life could have been different for him, how he could have had Mia, were what made me cry. It's no secret that my heart has been broken many times. Truly, deeply broken. It has been broken by my siblings, by my parents who were supposed to protect me but instead badly abused me, by my hands falling apart and forcing me to move away from music as a career, and by someone I loved more than anyone else who said he would stand by me and love me and support me, and instead, tossed me aside, lied to our friends, gaslighted me, and more. I have had my heart so badly broken, I wound up in the hospital. Barely more than a year ago, I had no will to live. I have spent the bigger part of my life wishing I had never been born. I'm not in a place yet where I can decisively say I'd choose to be born, if I was given the choice. I don't know. 

But here's what I do know:

I look around me, and where I am isn't bad. In fact, where I am is pretty damn good. I have a good job, I can support myself, I am in an amazing relationship, I live in what is basically my dream apartment, I live in exactly the city and state I want to live in, and in general, life is good right now. It's also still pretty raw from the last half of 2015. I think it'll take me a while before I don't have such emotional reactions to everything (and I'm not just talking the end of the relationship...everything). But I do know I'm a much stronger person than I was before. I'm even more Dauntless, even more a warrior. And, in some ways, even more a rebel. I'm less afraid to be who I am, rather than who society tells me I'm supposed to be. I'm less afraid to openly acknowledge the things some say I should hide: my Autism, my PTSD, my chronic depression, my life as a cult survivor, etc. And yet, with that increased strength, my ability to dream has not been damaged. I still dream. I still dream of a life with someone I love. I still dream of having a career as a therapist specializing in PTSD and cult recovery. I still dream of reaching out and touching peoples' lives. That's my whole reason for this blog. And I know that in the last couple months, I have managed to reach quite literally hundreds of people with my blog posts, and impact them positively. The reason I have this blog, is because of some giant human-made messes, and a shattered heart, mended, and shattered again. In fact, the reason I'm living where I am, in the relationship I'm in, and have the current dreams that I have, is because of all of that. The more I'm broken, and the more messes in which I'm entangled, the bigger my dreams become. In reality, the more my dreams are shattered, the bigger they get. 

At the end of the day, my life would be wildly different today, had my first major dream been shattered when I was three years old, and had the same series of broken hearts and shattered dreams and man-made messes not followed. Would my life be better? Maybe. Or, maybe, as in the movie, it would just be different. And I think recognizing and even somewhat mourning the path not taken is part of how we can fully appreciate how things actually are, and the significance of choices and events in our lives. 

So yes, I think I will always say, "Here's to the hearts that break, here's to the mess we make."

Christmas Present

I began writing this Christmas morning, but didn't get it finished until later. This is the first in a series of a few catch-up posts to come:

This morning, my blog post from last Christmas popped up on my Facebook. I showed Andy and had him read it, but I couldn't bear to read it myself. Just the memory of how much pain I was in made me feel like I was going to burst into sobs again. It was so dark. So cold. So sad. I was with friends who had already become family, and Christmas with them was as amazing as it possibly could have been under the circumstances. All I could do was push back the sobs, and hope with all my strength that next year would be better.

This year, I was supposed to go home to Ohio for Christmas, but with the very unexpected, heavily disappointing, and triggering election results, I just couldn't do it. Which resulted with me working from the car via my phone's hotspot, while Andy drove my car up to his family's in Casper, Wyoming. I've met his family before- well, most of them- and I like them and feel as comfortable with them as I can at this point, which is good. But I've never spent the holidays with a significant other's family before, with the exception of Easter with Z's family, but Easter isn't nearly as tense as Christmas can be.

Christmas has always been rough for me, despite being my favorite holiday. But with a brother dead, and a sister out of my life, it's been difficult. And this is the second Christmas in a row I've spent away from my parents. Before last year, I'd never had Christmas anywhere but Cincinnati with my parents and family. Last year, I thought I'd be back there this year. But my world turned upside-down with the results of the election on November 8th, and with Ohio going to Trump, I couldn't bring myself to go back there so soon. Ohio has always felt like home to me. It's felt safe. It doesn't feel safe to me now. I detailed this in my last 10-part series, so feel free to catch up on that if you've missed it. As a result, I found myself realizing that I would be missing my second consecutive Christmas at home.

So instead, here I am, in Andy's childhood home, surrounded by people I've known less than a year, celebrating Christmas. In many ways, it's good, but in other ways, it's its own special kind of stressful. But it also feels...right. Being here, spending Christmas with Andy and his family, it feels like I should be here. Andy has become my family. This is likely the first of many Christmases with him.

Last night, Andy and I went to Mass with his parents. Of course, since I spent my childhood in the Catholic Church, going to Mass always kind of feels like going home (aside from the really odd changes recently made to some of the responses...dude...). The priest gave a homily that sounded surprisingly Protestant in nature and even theology. I don't know many Evangelicals who would take issue with anything he said. He talked about how God loved us so much, that one night, two thousand years ago, He sent his only son to save a fallen world, lost in sin. He talked about a very personal- and personable- God. One who cares for the well-being of every single human being. At one point, he said, "You are each here tonight because God specifically wanted you here tonight, and because He loves you." Which, for one thing, was such a non-Catholic thing to say I had to remind myself I was, in fact, in a Catholic church, and for another, was definitely not said in a way that implied that God didn't love anyone who wasn't there right then. He said it in such a way that I actually responded in my head, "What an amazing thought. If only it were true."

While many of my readers, who are devout Christians, will read that and find it sad, to some extent, I actually find it to be proof of significant healing on my part. Instead of being triggered by the homily, and triggered by the idea that I was there because God wanted me there, I was able to appreciate it as a lovely thought, rather than a threatening one. The very ability to just see it, and process it though my own worldview, is evidence of incredible healing in regards to my PTSD.

So today, I sit here on the couch and watch the snow fall and pile up into the perfectly quintessential "white Christmas." And I am able to appreciate the stark contrast between my most recent Christmas Past, and my Christmas Present. Last Christmas was one to just bear as best I could. This one...well, perhaps I don't feel it to its fullest extent, but there is something that rings true as I watch the snow and the lines of Christmas carols swirl through my head...all is calm, all is bright. 

Musings on Death

Most of you heard about the warehouse fire in California a few weeks ago. Many of you know that one of my family members, Micah Danemayer, was there performing, and died. Micah was the 28 year old son of my cousin, Chris. I'm one of the youngest cousins in the huge brood of Reynolds grandkids, and Chris is one of the oldest. As a result, Chris was grown and gone before I was really even born. He and his wife raised their kids in the Boston area, and we were in Cincinnati, so I very rarely saw them. But we were very close to Chris's parents, Aunt Mary and Uncle Bob. Aunt Mary is one of my dad's older sisters, and she pretty much raised him. She got him through school, where he struggled greatly, likely with undiagnosed learning disabilities- in the 1940s and 50s. She took care of him when he was sick, and generally taught him just about everything he knows about life. Or so my dad says. Aunt Mary and Uncle Bob were my brother's godparents, and we saw them a lot. A LOT. Their middle son, Tony, never left the area, and I knew him well when I was a kid.

Most of you also know that the very next weekend, my cousin Katie's son, Jason, was killed in a bad car accident. Katie is the second child of my dad's oldest sister, Pat, who is the sister just ahead of Aunt Mary in birth order. Jason was 35, yes, two years older than I am. That's what happens when you're the second youngest of a million grandkids, and the several oldest are married and gone by the time you're born. Your cousins have a few kids older than you. I think there are only 3 or 4 of those. I don't think I'd ever met Jason, nor did I know much about him at all. We weren't as close to Aunt Pat's family when I was a kid. Jason had two little girls- 4 and not quite 2- and a fiance who he'd been with for nearly a decade, and ran his electrical business with. He died in the middle of the night, when he and an employee were driving on 275 in Northern Kentucky. A semi driver fell asleep, and barreled into Jason's truck. Jason died on impact, and in a freak twist, his employee survived, because he wasn't wearing his seatbelt. He was immediately thrown through the windshield, and landed on the grassy hillside where their truck had been pushed. He was treated for non-life-threatening injuries, and released from the hospital the same day. Had he been wearing his seatbelt, he likely would have also died on impact. The last I heard, the truck driver was being held on charges of involuntary manslaughter.

These two deaths left our family reeling. Never before had we had two freak deaths of young people in such a short period of time- just over a week apart. Of all of the grandkids, only three have died young: my brother, my cousin Sue, and my cousin Janet. My brother's death was a shock. We had no idea it was coming, and he was only 19. Sue was in her late 40s or early 50s, and had died of a very rare blood disease she'd had since birth. She actually lived much longer than anyone thought she would. Janet's life had been really hard, and she wound up dying in her 40s, of liver failure. That wasn't a huge shock though, either. We did have one other cousin's kid die a few months ago- Jessica, who was actually Janet's daughter. She was about 20, and grew up in Florida, mostly raised by her grandparents, my dad's second oldest brother, Jim, and his wife, Lois. While her death was sudden, it wasn't a shock. She had a chronic heart condition that was fairly unpredictable. She could have lived decades longer, or she could have died sooner. She was able to live a fairly normal life. I actually had met Jessica when she was a little girl, and we visited my aunt and uncle in Florida. She was a happy, sweet kid. Hers didn't hit me so hard, because of two things: 1. He heard condition, 2. Her mom is already gone, and I never met her dad, nor do I know anything about him.

When Micah died, I felt a punch in the gut, immediately worrying about his parents, Chris and Pam. My mom had called Chris, because, well, Mom knows what it's like to lose a young adult son. She said Chris was as well as he could be. They hadn't found Micah's body yet, but they knew he was dead. I felt like I couldn't breathe. I've been in the family where the kid dies. I've watched my parents grieve. I have walked that Hell, and I have watched that Hell. And it's overwhelming. To think of people I know, people I love, and people who share the same bloodline as me going through that stirs up a kind of grief in me that's hard to explain. The same thing happened when Jason died. Well, that, on top of, "What the HECK is happening right now?!"

Then, on top of all of that, deaths like these tend to dredge up my own grief. It often lies dormant, for years at a time, even, But then, things like this pop up, and yep, there it is again. It never really goes away. You just get better at dealing with it. Every single birthday and Christmas, and minor event no longer bring it all up. Even every death anniversary. May 28th has never passed without me noticing, but they don't all catch me in the gut. Sure, huge things- significant weddings, graduations, etc get me. But those, we know are coming. Those, I can prepare for. But sudden deaths like these? They catch me off guard, and hit me with so many different kinds of grief, it's hard to even fully process.

Today marks 3 weeks since Micah died, and Sunday will mark 2 weeks since Jason died. Thankfully, we got through last weekend with no deaths in the family. Things have settled a bit for us, and for me. I should be able to celebrate Christmas and the New Year without being overwhelmed too much by all of this. But it's funny how death can hit us in ways we don't always expect. I guess, though, that's partly how we gain our appreciation for life.

A Personal Plea- Part 10

Over the last two weeks, I have poured my heart and soul into these posts. I have talked about things I have never talked about before. Extremely personal and painful things. Some posts have been harder to write than others. At times, I have had to pause for a few days to figure out how to proceed. But no longer. Here I am, at the end. And perhaps this is the most personal and revealing of all my posts. Here I am, ready to tie together the last nine posts with my thoughts and feelings regarding the recent election of Donald Trump. I hope that it helps make clear my specific issues. This may get raw.

In the first three posts, I talked about my year of ongoing sexual harassment and assault. I talked about how it affected me, and my body image. How, instead of defending me, and sending a clear message to my abusers that sexual harassment and assault are never okay, the school ultimately sided with the boys and their parents. It wasn't looked at as unacceptable behavior. It was largely dismissed, and I was left to continue in my own shame, as my abusers continued on, and got bolder as time wore on. Granted, the school never knew about the assault, but why would they? I was already treated like a problem. Why should I think they would treat assault any differently?

The night before the election, I had my first PTSD dream about my sexual abuse at school in well over a decade. It's important to note that at this time, I didn't think there was any way Trump was going to win, so it's not like I was actually worried or afraid. At least, not on a conscious level. But I still had a dream that I was back at that school. Those five boys were abusing me again, and when I went to report it, the principal was Donald Trump. Instead of doing anything about it, he told me, "boys will be boys," and that this was normal behavior. If I didn't like it, I should either shut up or find a new school. And then he joined in. As I watched the election returns the next night, and he gained more ground, I could feel the panic attacks building inside of me. The next morning, I had to call into work, because I'd had 2 panic attacks before 8am, and I would have 4 more before the day was out. Never in my life have I ever had six panic attacks in a single day.

I felt incredibly unsafe and unprotected. Not only had the nation elected a self-admitted sexual abuser to the office of President, but they had also elected someone who is an abuser in many other ways as well. In ATI, I got a lot of crap from those who were supposed to protect and support me. My mom would tell me to go to my room and not come out until God had changed my heart and shown me the error of my ways. Whenever I would bring that up (she did it often), she would straight up deny ever having said something like that. She would never do that. And yet, I knew she did. When I would reach the point of desperation, and feel like I couldn't deal with Mom's abuse anymore and ask to talk to Dad about it, she would insist on being there, and then flat out deny everything I said, or else deny any wrongdoing. I felt like I couldn't breathe. Many people I had contact with in our church, and in ATI had those exact same patterns. The gaslighting was so intense I often wondered if I wasn't just entirely detached from reality. Not only that, but with any accusation against me by an authority, I had to prove myself innocent, or I would be treated as guilty, and punished accordingly. If something went wrong at home, I was often my mother's scapegoat. Obviously, I had done something wrong. Even when they were proven wrong, none of my authorities (with the exception of my father) ever really admitted to any wrongdoing. It was all justified, sidestepped, or flat out denied.

My entire life, I have worked incredibly hard to thrive in spite of some fairly serious disabilities. And I have succeeded. I have seen a very clear shift from ableism to inclusivism in the last twenty years. Society has become more and more accepting of those of us with various limitations and challenges. Instead of mocking us, or relegating us to a corner, society has made incredible strides in accepting us, and our differences.

Over the last 12 years, I have closely studied the suffering of the marginalized in the United States and elsewhere. I have seen what happens when the basic rights of people are trampled in favor of the majority. What happens when fear grabs hold of people. Not insignificantly because of my own lifelong experience with gross injustice, I have felt incredibly burdened with justice. With knowing that African Americans and Latinos, women and immigrants, Muslims and Jews, disabled and LGBTQ- the other- are being treated justly. And if not fully justly, at least better than before, with visible efforts to continue improving. I have seen this as a moral imperative. Jesus was clear: Whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me. All of these habitually marginalized groups, of which I am a part, these are the least of these. I don't see it as an option to either protect or not to protect. I understand the abortion argument. If you like, add the unborn to my list of the marginalized.

My struggle here is not a political one. It has absoultely nothing to do with politics. My struggle is a personal one, and a moral one. No, I'm not upset that my candidate lost. I voted for McCain and Romney. I'm used to that. Out of four presidential elections, my candidate has won once, and that was 12 years ago. I have never had an issue with anyone who voted for the "other" candidate. But that was all political.

Dear family and friends who voted for Trump, here is where I address you personally and directly. I am having such a hard time dealing with the fact that you voted for someone who is the spitting image of many of those who have personally abused me. Those who have sexually objectified me, and violated me. Those who have twisted their words and my words to fit their own agenda. Those who would never admit to wrongdoing, or show any kind of remorse for the incredible wrongs they committed against me. Those who gaslighted me to the point that I seriously questioned my own sanity. You voted for the person who is, in one person, in one body, the essence of all of my abusers in one. You voted for the person who has no respect for me, or for what I have been through. You voted for the person who mocks the disabled. All of the things I detailed above about my own experiences, I can give multiple examples of Donald Trump doing exactly those things to other people. Donald Trump is an abuser and a predator, who abuses and preys on people just like me. And you voted for him.

Not only that, but he has proven himself to be a direct threat to African Americans, Latinos, women, immigrants, Muslims, and the LGBTQ community. He has not shown himself to be any friend to the disabled, either. The only marginalized group in this country he has at all promised to protect, is the unborn. Because I see defending the "least of these" as an absolute, non-negotiable moral imperative, I cannot overlook the direct threat he poses to six (at least) of these groups, in favor of defending one. I don't understand how those I respect and love, and those I thought valued all human lives and rights equally, voted for Trump. I do not understand how you could do that. Like I said, this is not about politics for me. Believe me, I could make this about politics. But at the end of the day, I really don't care about that part. This is about protecting the unprotected. This is about making sure that those who have been traditionally marginalized in this country, and in the Western world, do not find themselves back 100 years in safety.

Yes. Those of you who voted for Trump, you voted for the embodiment of my abusers. You voted for someone who poses a direct threat to the vast majority of the marginalized in this nation, and I am having one hell of a time trying to swallow that. I am not someone to throw away relationships. But this is something that is going to take time. If I'm being honest, I don't feel like you're safe for me to be around. I'm on edge when I'm around any of you. And it's going to take me a lot of time to be able to sort things out. Don't question my love for you. I love you all. I do. But I don't know how to be "business as usual" with you.

I hope you all understand my heart in all of this. I hope you understand I'm not trying to shame or accuse. I am telling you how this makes me feel. And how this is causing one of the biggest struggles of my life. I don't even know where to start with this. But here it is. And I hope you can accept this, and have grace for me, and the many, many like me who are in a very similar position. Thank you, for sticking with me through 10 parts. Thank you for listening. I am finished.

A Personal Plea, Part 9

Without fully intending to, I found myself specializing in African American history as an undergrad history major. That's just how things worked out, because that's where my personal interests led me. Growing up in Cincinnati, I had always been keenly aware of the fact that the Underground Railroad had been especially active there. But when I began to actually study it, I discovered it was far more than "active," in Cincinnati. In fact, Cincinnati was THE central hub of the Underground Railroad in the American West. As I wrote in my Master's Thesis, not only was Cincinnati the western center of the UGRR, but it was also a microcosm of the abolition movement, in general. Everything the movement had throughout the entire country, Cincinnati had. These were all things I was incredibly proud of.

But as I continued my research, I discovered that there was another side to Cincinnati, and Ohio, in general. An ugly side. A dark side. In fact, the majority of Cincinnati was either ambivalent toward the issue of slavery, or straight up pro-slavery. In the pre-Civil War years, there were a few mass exoduses of African Americans from Cincinnati, usually to Canada. It wasn't a safe place to be, unless the color of your skin was white. There was an active and vocal minority, working against the hate, but most either actively or passively participated in it, much like in Nazi Germany.

As the years progressed, I continued to study American history, and African American history. In many ways, a historian is someone who witnesses history, more than the average person. And I began to realize, the United States is not, nor was it ever, what I was taught it was. Were our Founding Fathers brave? Absolutely. They were brave enough to go against the greatest empire on earth, fight a foolish war, and declare their own independence. But they were not brave enough to do it without slavery. Many of the Founding Fathers were abjectly opposed to slavery. Others, such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Patrick Henry, knew it was morally reprehensible, and yet they were not willing to be inconvenienced to the degree they would be if they both freed their slaves and outlawed slavery. Most other American nations abolished slavery as they gained their independence from their colonial powers. Many African Americans at the time of the Revolution believed this was going to happen here, as well. But it didn't. The Founding Fathers caved to the convenient and the comfortable. Willing to do what was necessary to throw off their own oppressors, but unwilling to make sure ALL in the new United States were likewise free.

I read about the Whiskey Rebellion, and how Washington sent thousands of troops to Western Pennsylvania to subdue a few dozen angry farmers, suspended all due process, and threw them all in jail without a trial. Yes, he cooled off and pardoned them, but still without a trial. So all the jailed farmers received pardons for crimes for which they were never properly tried. Yes, this was George Washington, grossly overstepping his Constitutional rights. Jefferson grossly overstepped his Constitutional rights as well, when he bought all of the Louisiana territory on his own, without Congressional approval. Polk straight up manipulated facts and lied to Congress to get approval to declare war on Mexico, and gain most of what is now the American Southwest, including part of my own new state, Colorado.

I grew up in the years of the "Moral Majority." The "New Right," as it is often termed. I heard my parents and many, many others within the Conservative Republican faction of society, praise the America of yore. They mourned how much modern presidents overstepped Constitutional bounds, praised how past presidents and politicians were "statesmen," and not "politicians." How partisanship was such a new thing. How our Founding Fathers all worked together to do what was right. How 19th century America was so incredibly Godly and noble and respectful to all. How America was so much better in the 1940s and 50s, when God and family were respected. But the more I studied, the more I found out just how much the history I was taught wasn't real. I heard about liberals changing history. I heard about the "revisionist" history the liberal agenda was pushing. But the more I studied, the more I realized, the conservatives amongst whom I was raised were just as guilty of revisionist history as were the fringe liberals I was taught about.

Exactly how Godly can a nation be, which kills and forcibly removes millions of Native Americans, just so they can have access to Southern lands to continue cotton cultivation? Cotton cultivation, which, almost exclusively relied upon the enslavement of four million African Americans? How Godly can a nation be, which enslaves millions of a race, rules that they are not people, which does not allow any protection against rape, torture, or even murder? How Godly can a nation be, which places economic and political stability over the well-being of the "least of these"? How Godly can a nation be, which even after emancipating its slaves, lynches innocent men and women, for nothing more than asking for the paycheck they earned? How Godly can a nation be, which doesn't allow for any legal recognition of the rape of a black female by a white man?

I could go on and on. But my point is, America never was any greater than it is now. Yes, you could argue that abortion is this nation's great stain now. But at the very least, the United States has done no worse than exchanging one evil for another. Until November 8th, minorities, women, people of other religions, immigrants, the disabled, those who are LGBTQ, etc., had never, in the history of this nation, been any safer than they were right then.

I was fed the lies, throughout my entire life, and I dismantled them myself. Please bear with me through my 10th and final post in this series. I will tie everything together from the last 9 parts. All I want, is understanding. All I want is those I know and love to understand my struggle now, and the struggle that will likely remain through the next several months and years. For those of you who have made it this far, thank you. Please, hang in there for one more post.