Call Me a Bleeding Heart Liberal, but I Will Always Keep Trying to Help (Even When I Get Burned)

When I was driving into work on Tuesday morning, the day after Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, I decided that I'd give my students a King quote for their quickwrite. The one I chose was:

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

I projected the quote onto the screen and had my students write about it for eight minutes, then we had a discussion. It became an incredibly deep discussion, which is always exciting when you're a teacher. As we were wrapping up and transitioning to Romeo and Juliet, one of my students asked where the quote came from.

When I told them, one of them noted, "Oh, Martin Luther King ... so THAT's why you chose it."

It was ... and it wasn't.

Let's face it, America is going to change when Donald Trump becomes president. Trump's candidacy and election have scarred me deeply on a personal level, and I spend far more time thinking about unhappy things than I should.

During that drive to work (it's about forty minutes), I got thinking about the people that say, "Invite a Syrian refugee to stay with you!" or "Why don't you pay higher taxes if that's how you feel?" I know people that say these things. I even like some of these people.

But I don't understand them.

Why? Because I have an inherent need to help, to fix, to make life better for others. My mother used to tear her hair out over it (I once gave away a brand new and evidently very expensive jacket to a child on the bus that had no jacket and lived in a very poor neighborhood); she referred to me as "a social worker", and it was not meant as a compliment.

I understand my mom's frustration now, since I have tried desperately to help people before and gotten burned badly as a result. The student I lent $100 and never got back (I no longer loan students money as a result). My abusive alcoholic ex-husband. You know, the usual suspects.

There are a couple of recent attempted random acts of kindness, however, that have gone shockingly awry. Those are the ones that keep me up, those strangers that myself and my family went way out on a limb for, and we ended up feeling guilty and sort of like the bad guy.

This summer, a woman and her three children moved in across the street. We noticed immediately that she was always hollering at her kids, even yelling swears and epithets like, "I'm going to kill you!", but a DCYF report was pointless unless we had "video evidence". It upset all of us, needless to say.

One summer day, when it was 98 degrees and humid (which, in New Hampshire, is unbearable and, if you're me, means you're not leaving the air conditioner for anything), I was watching out the window as this woman tried to move a couch into her house. It wasn't going well, and her kids were running into the traffic, throwing rocks at her to impede her progress, and poking a dead bird with a stick. She finally sat down on the couch, put her head in her hands, and started sobbing.

I called down to Jeff and told him that I was going to go try to help her get her house inside. Being more suited for this duty (and well aware of how pleasant I am after three minutes in the heat), Jeff volunteered to go in my place.

Long story short, we were soon babysitting the kids every Monday night while their mother went to visit her ex-boyfriend in jail. We'd feed them, keep them from hurting each other, and try to teach them some manners and control. In return, they would break our kids' toys and throw epic, loud battles when it was time for them to go home.

Once school started, the thankless babysitting gig got to be too much for us, so she stopped asking after we said no once (I think one of our kids was legitimately sick). It was honestly something of a relief, although it made us all sad that the kids were stuck getting screamed at all the time.

Anyway, over Christmas vacation, I got a text from her out of the clear blue sky asking if we could watch the kids for two consecutive days from 8-5:30.

I said no.

No reply, no "Thanks anyway", no "Thank you for all the times you did watch them", nothing.

That stung.

The other situation involved a guy that wanders around neighborhoods asking to do odd jobs for cash. I was petrified of him, but Jeff would hire him to mow the lawn or something. It got to the point where he was doing bigger jobs, but he was also coming over ALL THE TIME trying to find jobs to do so we'd pay him.

It got out of control when he was injured in an accident, and we felt bad for him and fronted him money that we couldn't afford to front. He then came and did the agreed-upon work, but he wanted to be paid for it. It got very ugly, and he spent a lot of time begging Jeff to hire him again.

He said no.

So even bleeding heart liberals have a breaking point, I guess. Being taken advantage of and used isn't pleasant ...

However, I would rather live a hundred scenarios like these then not try at all. You see, I know that the few times mine hand has gotten burned for reaching out and trying to help, memorable and painful as they are, is both a warning and an affirmation.

I could stop trying to help people in need. Yeah, those people going on and on about the Syrian refugees when we have people in need of help right here--I don't see them stepping up. I did, and I'm not sorry. If my fatal flaw is a desire to help others, then so be it.

I would rather help other people genuinely and at their level of need than sit around looking down at them.

It was easy to look down on the screaming and incompetent mother, the would-be handyman who we suspect fell off the opiate wagon after being put on painkillers following his accident. I'm not proud; I looked down on both of them, both before and when I was trying to help them. This is not something I'm proud of, but I'm being completely honest here.

I take pride in being a good person, one who helps others in times of need, but there is a part of me that knows that pride is dark and ugly and perhaps influences how some situations end up. Who knows?

My students got talking about King's quote vis a vis being a good and "loving" person and driving out the darkness through that, but they also recognized (and vocalized) that we are all a balance of good and bad.

I can tell you from personal experience, some dark will not allow any late, no matter how brightly you may shine; some people will never allow love to replace hate. It's just the nature of the human beast.

I have always tried to help, particularly the downtrodden, and I will continue to do so no matter the cost.

If that makes me a bleeding heart liberal, so be it.

I am a work in progress, and I will never stop trying.

Dear Trump Supporters: There is No Timeline for Bringing a Sexual Assault to Light

I suppose it was only a matter of time before the victim-shaming started vis a vis Donald Trump's latest debacle (why don't we call it "Pussygate").

I've spent the last week in a state of shock as I heard Trump boast gleefully about his inappropriate behavior with women. I've been distracted, I've been having panic attacks and nightmares, and it's only getting worse.

My feelings are at a fever pitch today as I've read about women coming forward to allege that Trump's "locker room talk" went way beyond words, that he actually did many of the things he boasted of to Billy Bush according to numerous women, including former People magazine writer Natasha Stoynoff. 

And these women are being crucified by Trump supporters, who are making comments about the convenience of the timing, that they are shooting for optimal financial opportunity and publicity, and even one of my Facebook friends writing, "I have a hard time believing women who jump on the bandwagon 15-30 years later." 

I do not talk about the night I was raped. I have written about it here on this blog, where I have a degree of anonymity and privacy, but I still cannot talk about it.

I do not know my rapist's last name. I do not know where he lives. I do not want to know. I have been fortunate, if you want to call it that, to fall into what could best be classified as "date rape by an acquaintance", which means I've never had to see the monster again.

If the man that raped me--Tom--suddenly started running for public office, if his face was all over the news, if he was spreading hatred, I'm still not sure I would have the courage to come forward publicly. Why would I? The statute of limitations on that crime has run out, and any physical evidence is old and probably useless. 

The vast majority of women (and men) who suffer sexual assault are not going to want to make it a public thing. Those that have the strength to do so immediately, you have my utmost respect, by the way. It eats me up sometimes to think that Tom has probably done what he did to me again because I didn't go to the police (or my mother or a rape crisis center) right away when physical evidence existed, and I could have stopped it by reporting it. I didn't have the strength, though, and I hate myself for that. 

Here's what happens in the aftermath of a sexual assault.   

You have to deal with the physical first. My rape was extremely violent, and there are physical ramifications that still exist today. If you're smart, you get tested for STDs ASAP (I was sort of smart...I did get tested, but I did not share my reasons for wanting this testing done with my doctor). 

After that, you try to find your life again. This can take a long time. Sometimes I think I'm still working on it, nearly twenty years later. You crave normalcy and try to avoid at all costs anything that will bring back the rape in your mind.

By the time you get to the point where you're "okay", you do not want to go back down that rabbit hole. Why would you?

And so you live your life. You slowly learn to live and love and trust again. You do the best you can. Some days are better than others, and blah blah blah.

I wrote that I would probably not have the courage to bring Tom's name forward even if he became a public figure, and I meant it. 

There would, however, be one exception: if Tom was caught on a hot mic joking about raping stupid college girls that didn't know enough not to put down their drinks, particularly if he was running for President of the United States, I would come forward. I would share my story, no matter what people might say about me. 

There is no timeline for bringing a sexual assault to light, and I'd wager a guess that about 85% go unreported. However, we all have a line. That would be mine, and if Tom crossed it, if he lied about who he was and what he did to me that long ago night and how he basically ruined my life, I would still feel a moral obligation to speak up, to not let the sleazeball get away with it anymore.

I suspect Natasha Stoynoff knows that line well. 

Although she no longer works for People, the magazine ran her story. In fact, People might well have been the only major publication that would run it as they were no doubt able to match up her story with a timeline of their own. Was Stoynoff a family friend of the Trumps until that day? Did her professional relationship with them change afterwards? Do the details in her story jibe with what the magazine knows?

Well, a magazine that reports on celebrities believed in Natasha Stoynoff enough to run the story, risk alienating Trump as well as other stars, and issue a statement explaining why they ran it. That would really be going out on a limb for a publication company that depends on maintaining good relations with the people they want to interview and report on.

So to all of you muttering about convenient timing and payouts, please just stop. 

Living with the aftermath of a sexual assault is something no amount of money can assuage, and there is no convenient timing, only the right timing for you in your own personal situation.

That Donald Trump brought about this reaction in so many women speaks to how horrible their experiences must have been, how frightened and damaged they were, and how truly deplorable a human being he is.

He brought about the timing--and the collapse of his house of cards--all on his own.