Will They Ever Believe Us? Women In Crisis (Ford, Snopes, and proof that when you fact check- no nude pictures of her or grandpa in the CIA even exist-links here)

I know I haven’t written in a while (I feel like I am writing a letter to an old friend) I have had a couple of losses over the last two years (My cat of 22 years last year, and the woman who was like a mother to me in July.)  It has been a couple of heartbreaking years for me, and I have retreated somewhat, coping however I could. (I actually have a project in the works...that's another reason... I will post it when I'm done with it...I'm excited to share it with you!)

But I can’t stay silent right now.

This has been a hard week for many of we women who have been through abuse (and those that identify as such or otherwise) I am triggered all over again.

When Trump ended up in power, it felt like it was a slap in the face to every woman in this country. I was shocked and disgusted and triggered by this...I felt like I had been betrayed.
Those familiar feelings are all coming back and I have had numerous PTSD attacks all over again...I thought I had moved past this.

To have Kavanaugh speak to women the way he did (Not to mention like every abuser I’ve ever known throwing the question a woman is asking right back in a woman’s face who is a woman of power ...feeling like he was trying to discredit her to when he was the one on trial not her) He spoke with such contempt that he brought up a rage in me that I haven’t felt since Trump came into power. I have dealt with men like this too often in my life... I KNOW men like this, and I cannot stuff these feelings down. I don't know what to do with it.

I want to scream from the rooftops... does ANYONE hear the pleas of centuries of women put down by men in power???

I want them to HEAR us damn it!

I have been beaten, groped, attacked, and grabbed at so many times I can’t even count, and I came out of it.

How many more times do we have to rise up and say ENOUGH till things CHANGE?

WHEN are we women going to stop being re-victimized like this when there are men like this out there, and men right behind them actually PROTECTING them?

Have you noticed how this seems to always happen when there is a male abuser? (Lindsey Graham I am looking at you)

Woman, at the least, we need to stand together instead of attacking each other- I almost wonder if this is by design (men getting us to turn against each other) Damn right it is!

I saw an incredible show of solidarity at the Women’s march in Seattle- I will never forget it- I have seen what happens when women pull together. We need to push like HELL for change. Because from what I have seen right now...it hasn’t. It’s just going to get worse if we don’t do something about this “good ol boy” mentality of the so called “leaders” of our country..

This week as I went about my shopping for food, I just sensed this unspoken rage in women around me.

From a woman at the cash register checking out my food- I just mentioned what a hard week it was with everything going on, and she erupted into “I can’t believe this Kavanaugh guy on the stand! He’s obviously guilty!  All the screaming and crying...if a woman acted like this they would say she was too emotional for the job! And if he did what he did…” I got into it with her and by the time I walked out of there my heart was racing and I was just hit by the unfairness of it all.

To a woman who is the greeter at a store “ I just can’t believe they don’t kick him out” (Kavanaugh)

Which got me to thinking of the guy that handed me a screw in high school and tried to get me to say “I want to screw” in front of a bunch of guys..., to the guy who handed me a fireman with a “fire hose” giving  it to me as a “gift’ in front of everyone in ceramics class, all the guys snickering away.

To the football player in high school in that same class who sat down, told me to look down at his pants (he had red leather pants on, I guess to impress people... weirdo) I was like “what???” and he was like, I’m getting hard” I had no idea what he was talking about until I asked around with my girl friends.  so I was like “I don’t see anything” not knowing what the hell he was talking about.

Which got me to thinking about the time A guy tried to stick a drumstick up my vagina (even though I had rolled up pants on in 90 degree weather…) https://songsofaletheia.blogspot.com/2015/07/teach-your-children-well-not-boys-will.html

To the guy that was a friends brother spying on me when I was in the shower and another day when his mother asked him to drive me home, him driving me to the potato farms instead (With me hugging the door)  and telling me that he wouldn’t drive me home unless I made out with him, me refusing and jumping out the door before he could stop me...home was more than a few miles away but there was no way in hell he was going to get his way. (He apologized and ended up driving me home, but I hugged the door all the way.) I told my friend later,(it was her brother) she didn’t believe me. 

I never told his mother though. I should have. Strangely it didn’t even occur to me to until today. I don’t know why. 

Would she have believed me either? Did he try that with anyone else? 

Did any women get raped because of him...did he try to get their consent too? I’ll never know. 

If I wouldn't have gotten out of that truck the way I did, I could have been a another victim. I’ll never know.

I’m glad I’ll never know.

I was so naive...my parents hadn’t taught me anything about sex, and this was in a small mormon town where none of us were educated unless it was by our friends, and I had pretty naive friends too. (I hadn’t had that health class yet either that taught us about male and female anatomy..) .my best friend from high school still laughs at the memory when the word penis was written on the chalkboard.
I immediately said pen-is (like a pen- (you know...the thing you write with) haha

I could go on and on but I’ve said enough and I don’t want to bore you.

Are other women re-living the stories I am with all of this going on around me? I’m betting there are. Old stories that they buried, the same as I did? 

Are many of us being triggered with all this “good ol boy” mentality swirling around us?

Do any of us realize that this is what is happening? (That we are being re-triggered, over and over again..are we re-triggered because there has been no validation or  closure? No justice.) 

Anybody see the cartoon on Lady Justice? Triggering? HELL yes. It makes me want to cry just looking at it.
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2018/09/30/halifax-cartoonists-response-to-kavanaugh-hearing-goes-viral.htmlhttps://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2018/09/30/halifax-cartoonists-response-to-kavanaugh-hearing-goes-viral.html

WHAT are we going to do about this. Nothing?

And all the while as I’m talking to women the old stories of what happened to me play in my head.

I think this is why women everywhere I’m going look the way they do lately. I think we can’t help it.

This shit is triggering.

Maybe I am putting too much into it...but maybe I’m not.

This SO resonated after I posted online the above… someone named Lee  had this posted online after reading words a writer had written (Rebecca Hains)  who had written about Kavanaugh and how it feels like they are “ramming through this man” comparing it to the rape of women... trying to appoint an obviously unstable man to the status of “Justice"...the LAST place he should be.

Lee: " Absolutely accurate. This is the way the men choke the life out of every attempt women make to gain a place of equality alongside the “boys”.
They just raise the ante. 

They yell, threaten, name call, claim they are the victims, and, most importantly, stick together.

Women too often do not stand together when the volume amps up.

Men know this. They count on it. Pray it doesn’t happen this time.

For those who might not know, This pattern of upping the ante to resist women's rights actually has a name and has been studied. It's called "the change back response." It's used by abusers of all kinds and genders when their victim begins self-advocacy and resistance.

It's featured prominently in a book called "The Dance of Anger," in case anyone wants to read it.and based on the principles in the book (and my personal experience as a child abuse survivor), it's virtually guaranteed they will keep using these methods until women repeatedly stick together and prevail.

The cycle gets more brutal each time, though, so be prepared. You can do it, you just have to mean it like you've never meant it before. NEVER back down or you're doomed."

EDIT: A woman who is a greeter at a store who talked to me about Kavanaugh the week before did a 180- she now thinks Ford is lying. She told me that a person she knows showed her 'evidence" of Ford naked at a party"  I went home, researched it...the picture she told me about - its on snopes.com It is FALSE. If she would have just researched it she would know this. I saw those pictures and when I researched it, it was obvious that it wasn't her. People come on! https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/blasey-online-photos/

She also told me that her Grandfather was a CIA operative and that Ford herself taught someone how to use a polygraph and pass...ALSO discounted on Snopes.  https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/christine-blasey-ford-cia/
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/christine-blasey-ford-cia/


This happens SO many times when women come forward. They try to discount the woman in any way possible. Women who are victims are never believed, and if its a high profile man they are accusing, watch out! I am so sad because the just the week before, if I am remembering our conversation right, this lady said something about how so many times women are challenged on every front and men are believed...

She also told me that two other men came forward saying that "they" were the ones who raped Ford, not Kavanaugh. This was put out by Newsweek (and Fox news) Newsweek being the company that was sold for one dollar "in exchange for absorbing Newsweek's considerable financial liabilities" neither one of them are credible news sources.  It hasn't come up in any other story but newsweek
(story here on Newsweek being bought for $1) 
https://www.businessinsider.com/its-official-newsweek-will-be-sold-to-former-stereo-equipment-mogul-sidney-harman-who-reportedly-bid-1-in-excha-2010-8


I just want us to rise up out of all of this madness. These last few years seems like a bad dream and I want to believe that things can change for the better, not the worst. Please help me to believe in us. 

Because I am terrified at the alternative.