Age Progression

There was one other time I saw him again.

It did not dawn on me at first that it could be him.

All I remember was driving up to a taqueria on Mission Street and jumping out of the car only to see an old man flipping me off.  There a haggard old man sat next to a rusty metal table flipping me off.  I dashed over to Steve on the other side of the car to warn him about what had just happened.

“We have to go,” I whispered.  I then blurted out what I had witnessed.

Steve took immediate action and confronted the man instead.  He questioned him over and over as to why he did this to me.  Threw in an assortment of swear words that were only met with a bowed head.  Then a mere nod.  A very smug nod at that.

I just wanted to get out of there.  But we went inside and told the staff what had happened. And again we were met with silence.  At this point, I think the staff was more scared of us than of him.  They thought we were the ones becoming unhinged.

Yet it still did not dawn on me that it could be him.  The man I coined The Bad Man.  I never did like to say his name.

We abruptly left and skirted quickly back to the safety of our car.  And then it hit me.  I looked back through the smudged windshield and figured it all out.

The startling images flashed before me like a scene out of CSI.

I zeroed in on the hands I suddenly remembered so vividly.  These huge hands.  Those huge fists.  These huge hands he use to bash my head into a wall.  Those huge fists he use to bash into my head.

There he was all cloaked in leather from head to toe.  Just like he used to wear as he swaggered around town both on and off his motorcycle.  

And there were his Vacant Eyes.  Devoid of any feeling. Any kindness. Any compassion.  

No amount of Age Progression could hide these truths.

There he was in all of His Abusive Glory.  

Flipping me off twelve years later.

In front of a taqueria.

He always wanted to have the last word.

Uncensored

Vicious: The End of An Abusive Relationship is Never Clean

It began and ended exactly the same way.  Triggers.  Flashbacks.  High Anxiety.

The Post Traumatic Stress of Donald J. Trump.

We never thought he would win.

I remember dancing around the office on Election Night just imagining the first woman president.  Even though a lot of us were rooting for Bernie in the Primaries, we still were ecstatic.  This was history-making.

Some ladies wore colorful pantsuits In Solidarity.  I wrote giddily on Facebook that if Hillary won, Steve was going to buy me a purple pantsuit and a Rachel Maddow haircut the next day.  

When Steve turned to me half way through Election Night, and said, “Robin, he’s winning,” I knew it was over.  There would be no First Female President.  No Historical Moment.  No Purple Pantsuits.  No Rachel Maddow Haircuit.  No dancing at work the next day.

Instead there would be A Wave of Fear for the next four years.

A Sleepless Night full of flashbacks and nightmares of the man who reminded me of Donald Trump.

We all knew it would end this way in absolute total chaos.  The End of An Abusive Relationship is Never Clean.

I absolutely lost it when I saw live footage of a police officer being chased and cornered in a hallway by twenty rioters.  I flashed back to my abuser chasing me down hallways, cornering me in rooms, banging my head on walls.

I ran out of the room, screaming and sobbing hysterically.  I thought they were going to kill him on live T.V.   I have been shaking ever since.

I am not going to watch the Inauguration tomorrow.  Instead, I am going to meditate and pray that our new president and vice president will not be assassinated; that there will not be mass violence; that the Trump supporters will back off, surrender, and finally accept the results of the election.

The last four years had taken its toll on me.  From the flashbacks and nightmares of my abuser on Election Night to my sheer terror watching the Insurrection unfold, I am Tired. Weary.  Anxious.  And Achingly Sad.

Four Years of Lies.

Four Years of Hate.

Four Years of Crazy-Making.

Four Years of Gaslighting.

Distorting reality, denying reality, an alternative reality they both wanted me to believe.

My abuser was a lot like Trump ~ from A Smooth-Talking Salesman to A Man Full of Rage, the similarities were endless.  I stopped using Twitter during the Trump Era.  His angry Tweets reminded me of my abusers’s vicious emails and voicemails ~ all saved and documented in case I ever needed them for the police.

But I could never really get away from Donald Trump’s viciousness.  Twitter would send me emails highlighting his Tweets, and the nightly news posted screenshots every night.  It seemed like I always knew what he was doing no matter what time of day.  I always knew how he was lashing out. The World was talking about Donald Trump.

It took four years to get away from my abuser, and it took four years of my nightmare of Donald Trump to finally end.

The mocking, the finger-pointing, the blaming, the shaming.

The degradation of women, the physically-challenged, the immigrants and asylum seekers, the people of color and different faiths. 

These are my last four years.

Today, I saw a glimmer of hope.  A man shedding a tear over leaving his homestate.  Our New President.  He reminded me of my father in that moment. A man not afraid to shed a tear.

Hope and Faith got me through my four years of domestic violence. 

Hope and Faith got me through my four years of the Trump Presidency. 

The flashbacks will lessen, and the nightmares will turn to dreams.