The Abuser Has Two Faces

I am not going to tell you who you should vote for, since I have no idea what issues are most important to you. I will, however, suggest how you should vote. You should vote with an attitude of love and hope, just as you should do all things with an attitude of love and hope. For love and hope grow stronger and spreads to others the more we practice it, just as fear and hatred tends to spread like some contagious disease.

If you vote with hate and fear as your motivations, you will create a system that furthers hate and fear, it really is that simple. If you believe that you cannot support either of the major party candidates in a spirit of love and hopefulness, then walk away from the system because the system does not offer the solutions you or society needs. When we can no longer bring the better angels of our nature into the voting booth with us, it is the system that is broken. And when the system is broken, working within the parameters of that system is supporting that system. To support either of the two-party candidates is to support the two-party system. That is what we’ve been doing for generations now and it has led us to where we are now. There is no logical reason to assume it will be different this time, that voting for the lesser of two evils will bring about the change we really need. It will at best delay the inevitable, permitting all that is wrong to become further entrenched.

Of course, if you are comfortable with the situation as it is, then there is no problem. If you believe that the vote you cast will make for a better tomorrow, by all means do so. But if you vote in fear of what will happen should you not do as you are told by those who know better than you, then you are not behaving as an autonomous adult in touch with your human potential and ability. You are alienated from what makes you a truly independent and powerful human being. You are, in fact, behaving like an abuse victim.

It is a trap nobody expects to fall into. One day you suddenly realize you are reacting in fear all of the time. You feel helpless and you feel stupid and you feel like a bad person no matter what you do. You find yourself timidly acquiescing in hopes of receiving the lesser punishment, hope to deal with the less threatening face of the abuser, but his abusive behavior will continue as long as you continue to play the abuser’s game. If you ever want to break out of that prison, that box that has Democrats as the left wall, Republicans as the right wall, a front wall that has the corporate media as your window to the world, and the ever present wall of fear at your back, you will have to refuse the parameters that have been set for you. You cannot permit yourself to give into the fear and the hatred. You have to have faith that there is something better and transcend the walls that have you imprisoned. You must trust in others and in yourself.

We have lost faith in our fellow humans and in ourselves, handing over that faith instead to institutions and figures of authority. To abusers. We see all too clearly our shortcomings and do not permit ourselves to see what we as individuals and a society are capable of. We give our inalienable rights away to abusers who promise to make things better and always end up making things worse. Why else would we vote the way we do except that we let ourselves see the worst in others and in ourselves? We fear true democracy, afraid that we will have to make real decisions. Why else would we tolerate the political advertising that pollutes our airwaves and our souls and allow ourselves to believe there is no better way? There is a better way but it is up to us to find it.

That’s the way abusers work, by getting us to stop seeing any beauty or goodness in life. For them it is about keeping you in a constant state of fear and uncertainty. But if you are ever going to make things better, you will have to walk away from the games, the threats, the controlling behavior. You must first see yourself as more than helpless if you wish to be something more than a mere extension of the abuser.

An abuser has two faces. A victim of abuse always tries to curry favor with the more peaceful side of the abuser so that he or she doesn’t have to face the violent side. Donald Trump is the ugly, violent side of the abuser. Hillary Clinton is the side that says: “I’m sorry I hit you, baby, it won’t happen again. I love you. I know I voted for that war in Iraq and I was for all those trade agreements that took your job, but I changed.” Of course the implied threat is that if you don’t deal with the Hillary side of things, the Trump side is going to bang your head against the wall.

It takes courage to leave an abuser, courage and a plan. For too long you have convinced yourself that if you just go along with him you can make him change. You constantly compromise what you feel is right so that you don’t displease him. Then the violence occurs, followed by the apologies and the promise that it will never happen again.

But he won’t change, he will never change. The abuser has you in his power and power is the one thing he loves more than anything. He will never really love you, he will merely seek to control and possess you. This is a sad reality that most victims of abuse are slow to realize because they cannot imagine anyone is actually capable of thinking this way. But this I promise, he will never change and it is up to you to get out from under him.

In the meantime he will cut you off from everyone who tries to tell you he’s no good for you. He will cut you off from your family and friends, anyone who is not within his thrall. He will make you feel utterly helpless and at the same time blame you for everything that goes wrong. “I lost because you didn’t support me enough. You didn’t believe in me. I wanted to pass a health-care bill that would cover everyone but everyone is out to get me.”

The abuser wants to make you feel ignorant, that he has all the answers and you better not try to question him. He will tell you the most absurd lies imaginable, and he will demand that you believe him. He wants to make you feel helpless to do anything on your own to make things better. He wants you to believe that you are worthless without him and that you are lucky to have him.

The abuser wants you to see one of his two faces as the real one. He wants you to think that if you love him enough that the other, uglier face, will just go away. But it has kept getting uglier, hasn’t it? The violence more intense and often. Some day you’re going to have to realize exactly who it is your dealing with. It’s time to start working on your courage and your exit strategy, because he is never going to change. It’s time to reach out to all of those who he said was bad for you, time to start making connections with the outside world again. They may be Republicans or Democrats, but they’re abuse victims just like you. And we all need to be strong and support each other if we’re going to ever be free.

I might not have all the answers—I suspect nobody is that smart—but I know the kind of fertile soil from which a healthy society grows, and it is rich in love and hope. Nothing good will come of hatred and fear. If that is all you have within you, stay away from a polling station. No, that is not good enough. That is the abuser in me talking. Instead, find the love and hope that is in you and find a way to make a positive difference. You’ve been inside the box too long.