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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsFascinating Jared Yates Sexton thread (20 tweets) on Trump's mental illness
Last edited Fri May 24, 2019, 10:52 AM - Edit history (1)
It starts here:
Link to tweet
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See reply 3 below for text of the entire thread, thanks to rurallib and ThreadReaderApp.com.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1131905458413953024.html
RT Atlanta
(2,517 posts)Really interesting perspective on abuse and what he sees in donnie t and his treatment of anyone/everyone around him.
DENVERPOPS
(8,900 posts)I swear, every single time I see Trump and his minions going on and on defensively about what someone has said against him, I think: Hit a nerve, huh!!!!!!
My other thought at the same time is an old quote (shakespeare??): "Me thinks thou doth protest too much"
This defense of his temper tantrum and all his sycophants singing his accolades reminds me of the video of him in a cabinet meeting and everyone at the table, one by one, had to shower him with their praises........it was truly nauseating.......
RT Atlanta
(2,517 posts)that cabinet meeting example of the group fellation you mention was straight out of kim jong whatever's political theater and his group of 'yes' men.
FM123
(10,054 posts)This one really stood out because so many mornings we Americans wake up wondering what kind of crazy that so-called president is going to be up to today...
It makes me sad to see the country resemble the abusive households of my youth. Every day we worry what mood the president will be in, whether it's a bad day or if we'll just be left alone. I've talked to other survivors and the memories are visceral, palpable.
Grasswire2
(13,575 posts)The first week we were married he picked a fight with me and called me a "dumb broad" -- I was so young and naive I didn't even know what that was, but knew it was something bad. I packed up the sterling silver and went home to my mom, on the bus. She sent me back to him. And every day for twenty years I had that knot in my stomach. That "what will he be mad about today?" knot.
FM123
(10,054 posts)that kind of cruelty & manipulation that only a narcissist can inflict.
rurallib
(62,492 posts)Someone tell me if we can't and I will delete.
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I've written about this extensively in my new book The Man They Wanted Me To Be, but it's really important to get this out: Trump's behavior with Pelosi completely reflects the cycle of abuse that myself and other survivors have endured. 1/
amazon.com/gp/product/164
It's a really unpleasant thing to endure and it brings up some very awful memories from my childhood, where I was systematically physically and emotionally abused by insecure and unwell men. Unfortunately, the president is an insecure and unwell man, the Abuser-in-Chief. 2/
The cycle is very simple. When an insecure man is threatened, he'll lash out. This can be verbally or physically. It can be a dressing down, a verbal tirade, the throwing of things, or a beating. Then, after it's over, he'll try and make good or question the abusee's reality. 3/
Trump calling Pelosi "crazy" yesterday was really, really triggering. I've seen, time and again, abusive men calling the women they abuse crazy, calling into question what they endured, what I watched happen. It's almost as bad as the actual abuse because it fractures reality. 4/
Trump having his staff corroborate his version of events is something that happens all the time. I've been made to corroborate events I knew to be false simply because I was a frightened and intimidated child. It was...jarring to watch it happen on the national stage 5/
How this happens is pretty complicated and a lot to process. It begins with childhood, where men are systematically abused themselves in an effort to "toughen them up." By telling boys they can't have emotions they're actually being emotionally abused in the process. 6/
The message that's being sent though is that anyone who has emotions, in this case women, are irrational. That means that men own rationality and reality and that anytime a woman questions your reality she's being "crazy" or irrational, which is what happened with Pelosi. 7/
As I chronicle in THE MAN THEY WANTED ME TO BE, traditional masculinity is a lie. Nobody can repress their emotions. But they can pretend and pretend until eventually men develop what's called alexithymia, which is a terrible emotional condition where they lose ability. 8/
With alexithymia men lose the ability to understand their own emotions, they lose the ability to understand other's emotions, which leads to them being "crazy" or "irrational." They often lose the frame for their own emotional outbursts and ability to understand their actions. 9/
Watching Donald Trump, it's not hard to imagine he suffers from alexithymia. Obviously he doesn't understand his own outbursts and has no frame for the things he says and does. When he's questioned he lashes out. In this case, maybe he believed he was calm, but he's lost. 10/
When men behave this way, those around them only have a few options. You either submit to their worldview or face vicious abuse. You see men around Trump who kowtow in fear constantly. That's part of this cycle. With Pelosi, unfortunately, Trump isn't going to stop. 11/
As part of socialization men are taught the only acceptable expressions are anger and violence. What we're seeing with Trump is all his range of emotions. Pelosi challenged him and so he lashed out. He questioned her sanity and has even promoted fake videos to prove his point 12/
To anyone who's been abused, Trump is the embodiment of this cycle. He brags incessantly while he's obviously pathetically insecure. Anyone who even dares question him is ostracized and attacked, belittled because he's afraid. He's really, really pathetic. 13/
It makes me sad to see the country resemble the abusive households of my youth. Every day we worry what mood the president will be in, whether it's a bad day or if we'll just be left alone. I've talked to other survivors and the memories are visceral, palpable. 14/
Yesterday, as I heard him line up staff to back up his twisted memories, I felt like I was four years old all over again, an angry and dangerous man lording over me and demanding loyalty or else promising violence. You don't shake that, and unfortunately that's where we are. 15/
The truth is, Trump is unwell. Mentally, yes, but emotionally it's undeniable. He's the embodiment of toxic masculinity and is so far gone there's no reaching him. This is an abusive relationship, an abusive situation we're living through, and he simply knows no other way 16/
We're going to keep seeing this cycle repeat itself until he's out of office and we're going to be living with the ghosts of it. Survivors of abuse carry their abuse with them the rest of their lives. I certainly do, and to get better you have to recognize the abuse as abuse. 17/
Listening to shows last night call it maneuvering just hid the true nature of this. It isn't politics, it's personal, one-on-one abuse, and if we don't recognize it we're not going to escape it or understand it. There are many, many layers to this and simplifying worsens it. 18/
A large reason why Trump enjoys the devotion he does is because the people supporting him are locked into unhealthy cycles of abuse. They've been victims too and they become locked in with his abuse. It happens all the time. And to get past it we must recognize it. 19/
In the meantime, as a survivor of abuse, I can tell you this: reach out to anyone you know who is a survivor. These are really, really trying times that reawaken the scars of abuse. Everyday the president perpetuates a new dose of abuse and it takes a powerful toll. 20/20
highplainsdem
(49,139 posts)JudyM
(29,294 posts)lunatica
(53,410 posts)My abuser was my husband and its a long story like it is for every abused person. Suffice it to say you live in a constant state of hyper vigilance, forever ready to throw your arms up in the only way you can protect yourself. Sometimes relieved that the abuse was only verbal that day. Its exhausting, dehumanizing, and it leaves you with PTSD, wondering if and when the abuse will go too far.
rurallib
(62,492 posts)I had an acquaintance who went through this. When I met her she had long since left her husband, but the memory was so bad that she burst into tears when our conversation turned to talk of spousal abuse.
Until the moment she started crying I had no idea she had been abused. She expressed the very same descriptions that you list.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)You describe it perfectly. It did make me a lot stronger and tougher though. People who know me are invariably surprised that I was ever victimized. It took work to get strong from it though.
SammyWinstonJack
(44,130 posts)lunatica
(53,410 posts)It was my baby son who gave me the strength to escape. I grew up in Mexico as a US citizen. It was my home but I left it to come to the US to get away from him. I was much more protected here by laws even though this was back in the 1970s.
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)It explains perfectly why he triggers me so much.
Delmette2.0
(4,178 posts)Unfortunately the last few years of my adulthood caring for a parent. Granted not nearly as bad, but it seems to start with low self-esteem and their own childhood abuse.
Thank you for your post.
UniteFightBack
(8,231 posts)Solly Mack
(90,803 posts)Kurt V.
(5,624 posts)FakeNoose
(32,917 posts)However I believe that Nancy Pelosi is not allowing herself to be abused, nor will she be a victim of Chump's mental/emotional problems.
For Speaker Pelosi this isn't a personal dilemma, but she is required to tread carefully through this landmine field. When she says "I'm praying for the President of the United States" I think people get it. This is more than just a Constitutional exercise and there's a lot more at stake than "How do we undo this mess?"
Know what folks? I'm praying for Speaker Pelosi.
cp
(6,681 posts)He's describing a deep psychological truth that affects all of us. We look forward to the day that our psyches no longer have to deal with the daily poison of the orange bloat. Little by little, day by day, we take our lives back and heal.
gademocrat7
(10,690 posts)Very informative.
radical noodle
(8,020 posts)I see him in trump all the time. It's tough to watch.
certainot
(9,090 posts)he's learned to compensate for incapacitating fear and insecurity with denial and rationalization, like limbaugh
where numbers are done reproductive urges stimulate greed - more bigger faster.....
where logic is done sex energy wants finality, premature conclusion, certainty. in a complicated world people with severe sowb freak out unless they can escape into their own reality or someone else's reality, like a religion
most right handed people have some sowb because 90% of the population is right handed and after humans began delaying the age of reproduction a few thousand years ago (for some) most learned sex with the sword and hammer hand, especially the males.
nothing is certain and the need for it creates anxiety and fear. humans use order, control, religion, simplification, etc to reduce uncertainty and create certainty, such as with binary value systems - yes no, right wrong, black white, etc resulting in racism, nationalism, etc. authoritarianism is measured with the uncertainty avoidance index, or UAI. the irrational need for certainty is a defining characteristic of authoritarianism.
women have less sowb in general due mainly to anatomical differences and the disparity causes men to view women as sources of uncertainty to be controlled, maybe even feared, resulting in institutionalized misogyny and paternalism, etc
trump got it bad and there might be a genetic aspect. he may have reached a point of paralyzing fear and learned to create certainty on his own as opposed to getting it from religion, etc. in that scenario he makes up a lie or triggers emotion with racism for eg, and logic has learned to automatically rationalize it by connecting to the starved right side, releasing sex energy that finally escapes to the pleasure centers.
certainty is the currency of power. his followers have bad cases of sowb too. his ability to simplify and reduce the complex and infinite helps them control the uncertainty, rationalize the certainty, and ease the fear. chaos makes him more attractive to him.
that's the secret of authoritarian power.
zonkers
(5,865 posts)nolabear
(42,009 posts)I think 45 might have a little thought about his emotional outbursts but not much. He has such a deep narcissistic problem that he only sees things as they relate to him. If they serve him, good. If not, evil. And it can spin on a dime. He couldn't care less about anyone else's reasons, desires, fears, etc. except in how they can serve his need to be "great." Everything feeds that maw. He'll say anything and do anything, and it's so far from what a normal human being thinks and feels that we are perpetually knocked off our pins. And that harms us, and serves him well.
Yes, he absolutely gaslights. He's a classic abuser. He glides along on the surface of what makes us human like a shark glides through the water, only focused on what he can glean. The rest of the GOP are like the remora, grabbing up the bits he leaves and clinging to him, letting his trajectory replace theirs as long as they can feed too.
I think this is going to come to a very bad end for him and for all those little clinging remora. And I come as close as I ever come to praying that we become coherent enough to starve him and stop him before there's not enough left of us to recover.
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)Children of chaotic abusive homes learn to do the same behavior, as a rule.
trump's narcissism, his insatiable need for approval, did not develop in a void.
nolabear
(42,009 posts)She apparently just had no interest. Id feel bad for him but I cant afford to.