I know I am not alone. So many others like myself are awake with the same fears, repetitions of the same terrors. All uniquely customized to match our individual stories, made-to-order horrors just for us.
The gay couple watching as their house is burned down.
The Muslim woman attacked in the street as her hijab is ripped off and called a terrorist.
The unarmed black man kneeling as he faces a loaded gun.
The woman reliving her sexual assaults again and again.
As a multiple sexual assault survivor who every day has to tell myself that I deserve better, that This is not okay, that Things will get better, I have to admit that that mantra sounds especially hollow today.
Half of the country doesn't think that I do.
Half of the country thinks that this is just fine.
Half of the country doesn't think that there's a problem in the first place.
When the party of "family values" elects a man who openly admits to sexually assaulting women, who brags about wanting to have sex with his daughter, who has decades of recorded, flagrantly sexist comments, then I don't want your family values. If that's what your family looks like, then I want no part of it.
