Op-Ed: Dear America

Trigger warning: Sexual assault, abuse. Author's note: This piece isn’t enough but it’s a start. I cannot speak to narratives that are not my own. I can only offer my unconditional love and support to any individual whose safety is threatened by this imminent future presidency: female-identifying individuals, POC, LGTBQ+ folks, disabled folks, immigrants, any of us, all of us. I am here and I believe you and I support you.

Dear America,

Ten years ago, my mother and I left Canada to find a new life, to find a safe space away from an abusive man who wreaked havoc on our lives because of his own insecurity, because of his own inability to come to terms with a world that did not give him exactly what he wanted. Today, another man has come to claim that safe space.

America, I’m sorry that your body is no longer sacred, that it is no longer safe. I’m sorry that you believed, as I did for so long, that believing a cruel man’s hollow promises of a far-off better tomorrow is enough to sustain you through a flurry of assault on your being. I’m sorry that you listened when this man whispered in your ear that he heard you, that he would take away what was wrong in the present and replace it with something shiny, new and beautiful. I’m sorry because I know and I have done it. America, I’m sorry your new national father will make you ashamed of your blood.

America, I know what it is to have that man tell you he doesn’t believe the truth of your sexual assault. I know what it is for him to brush aside your anxieties. I know what it is to silence yourself and say that everything was in your head. I know because there is always the possibility that the cycle of abuse could end at any moment, spontaneously. I know what it is to defend a father because a dream of something great could be greater than the present.

I understand how it feels to want to return to something that feels concrete: The rose-colored glasses make a mirage of the past — don’t you wake up every morning thinking that that was it? That it was greater?

There is an attraction to return to an abusive force only because there is a familiarity in it. There is a desire to want to fix something that is so broken that you won’t let yourself see it.

You will wake up, today and everyday, bruised and unrecognizable to yourself, and you will look in the mirror and say, “this will not happen again.” And it will. And it will.

America, I know there are parts of you that feel forgotten. I know there are parts of you that feel unheard, and hearing those unspoken thoughts echoed outside of your own body can be invigorating, it can be blinding, for it is.

America, I know there are parts of you that are so bruised they feel they cannot sustain more. Your bones will reconfigure and they will fuse in new ways, but you will walk.

I will tell you that the only way to escape abuse is to find love, to find community, to find a place where you will not be battered with hate and disgust and shame. I will tell you that this place exists, and it can be hard to find amidst a flurry of pain, but it is there. I promise you can find it.

I will say that closing your eyes will not end this. I will say that playing pretend does not make the reality of now any less scary. I will say that the road to ending the cycle of abuse is hard-fought but it can be won. I will say that fighting is the only way out of the labyrinth.

America, you deserve love. You deserve to be heard. You deserve success.

Please do not run into the arms of a national father who will try to annihilate you. Please hear yourself crying and demand better. Please keep fighting.

This will not destroy you — not completely. And if it does, you will wake up again and again and again until you can leave, until you can heal.

 

Editor’s note: If you would like to send your response or make an op-ed contribution to the Opinion section, please email us at tuftsdailyoped@gmail.com. The Opinion section looks forward to hearing from you.