How the Neverending Epstein News Affects Survivors
Looking for answers in the annals of hell
On Wednesday, September 3, a group of sexual assault survivors stood in front of millions of people and did something no survivor wants to do.
They told stories about their sexual abuse.1
A “group” of them makes it sound like a smallish gathering.
There were a hundred of them.
Trigger warnings: Raw language, discussion of sexual assault
Regarding Epstein, one of them said, with other survivors behind her listening and nodding their heads, “His biggest brag forever was that he was very good friends with Donald Trump:”
Jeffrey and Ghislaine were always very vocal about their friends, famous and powerful friends, and his biggest brag forever was that he was very good friends with Donald Trump. he had an 8x10 framed picture of him on his desk.
One survivor after another took to the podium to defend their honor and tell the world about the Trump/Epstein axis of assault.
While they were speaking, Trump ordered the Air Force to drown out their voices with low-flying jets.
The survivors soldiered on.
As usual, most of the endless talk about Epstein revolves around how it affects Trump. No surprise there.
Most of the press avoids the uncomfortable discussion about how it affects survivors.
How do survivors of sexual abuse feel about these daily reminders?
Survivor Jess Michaels:2
“For 27 years, I thought I was the only one that Jeffrey Epstein raped. I believed I was alone, and I was kept silent by the shame that was inside me and by the fear outside in the world.”
A couple of years ago, this question of survival prompted me to look up the name of the police officer who was sort of my “overseer” as I grew up in my south Chicago suburban neighborhood. I wondered if I should look for answers to questions that I’ve allowed to be buried for decades.
I won’t go deep into those here. I appreciate my readers, but some of the things that happened to me as a kid are nobody’s business but mine. I’ll only say that growing up, I was that cute kid everyone pointed to in a crowd of other kids. I was that handsome little fella. Some would say, “a target.”
When we’re kids, we’re not taught how to deal with that.
I didn’t have the wherewithal or knowledge or the experience to react to someone saying, “Oh, you have such beautiful blue eyes” with the words, “Fuck you.”
The local cop I speak of became a one-man wrecking crew of sorts to some adults in the area who did some very bad things. I was never privy to the details. I was young, about eight or nine, and much of my childhood memory was wiped away (I know — uh-oh, right?).
He kept a faithful eye on the kids. He drove by frequently to see how we were doing when we played kickball in the street or kick-the-can in someone’s yard.
You see, back in those days, kids played outside.
Some of the harder-nosed kids were annoyed by these visits, but the visits were short and friendly. Most of us knew that there was some weird shit going on in the area. We were glad to see him, but also glad he only stayed for a minute or two.
When I checked in on him, I found out that he eventually became the police chief. That seems about right. He was doing community policing before anyone had heard the term.
Beyond recollecting my old cop buddy, and we were on a first-name basis when I was growing up, the Epstein situation has mostly been making me think about the survivors.
Ever since Trump came onto the scene, each survivor has had to retouch their own memories, memories that many would rather not approach.
Survivors have had to deal with a set of personality traits broadcast over the airwaves and the internet that send them anywhere from brief moments of clenched teeth to long periods of depression or worse.
For survivors, every day Trump speaks, acts, or posts is a trigger day. Every survivor knows his mannerisms well, his bullying tactics, his dismissive attitude, his oafish stares, his inappropriate comments about women and young girls, his mocking ways, his utter lack of human awareness.
They recognize the leer because they’ve experienced it directly. The emptiness of his eyes is a beacon to a survivor’s past best left to a trusted therapist.
When survivors heard him on videotape hit on preteen girls3 on an escalator, many had to revisit moments with their own predators.
Not because they wanted to. It was forced upon them because the media, in 2016, knowingly, willingly, and even enthusiastically gave a predator room to roam.
It still does.
The media’s profound silence in the face of multiple sexual assault accusations, including one adjudicated successfully against him in civil court thanks to the relentless determination of one bold survivor, E. Jean Carroll, led to his becoming president.
The media was, and is, an enabler of predators.
The damage isn’t limited to survivors. Trump’s impact during the last ten years has burrowed into every layer of society. The internet and personal stories passed along through word of mouth describe an entire society changed and riven by mistrust.
People have grown more leery of intimate relationships than ever. Business deals can no longer rely on a handshake, and often are unable to achieve legitimacy even through signed contracts.
Neighbors look upon each other suspiciously. If you bring cookies to a new neighbor, you’re as likely to get shot as you are to receive a thanking, appreciative smile.
Children who were eight years old when Trump first descended his gold escalator have now been exposed to Trump's brand of morality for ten years.
These kids are now eighteen years old. Do some math around either side of those numbers, then think about the generational damage being done to ethics, decency, and grace. Their heroes are people like Andrew Tate.
The well is poisoned.
Combine that with the million or so people he killed during the first pandemic (there will be another), which resulted in quarantining most of these kids in their bedrooms alone with their social media, and it’s jarring.
And people are acting weird.
You see it, I see it.
I could leave examples of well-meaning people acting weird, but I don’t need to. You know these people. You’ve seen the behavior patterns.
I hear it a lot from friends: “When did people start acting so nuts?” they ask.
The crazy train isn’t just the wild crew in the White House. It’s everywhere.
But it hits survivors the hardest. They’re the ones who need to fight the urge to cower and instead discover the courage to stand in front of millions of Americans to tell their story.
Most folks want the Epstein files redacted. They don’t want details.
I don’t blame them. And they needn’t worry. Most survivors have no desire to share what happened to them.
There’s a feeling a survivor gets, though, whenever she hears Trump speak. She can’t listen to that voice. She tunes out whatever medium is broadcasting it.
She’s had to do this for ten years.
Ten.
Listening to that voice is like hearing the hounds of hell screaming into your room.
For ten years, survivors have had to work the gauntlet laid out by the media’s fascination with a serial predator whose joy comes from doing things like mocking the disabled.
Imagine, if you will, a murderer who has killed a loved one.
He visits you every day in your living room. He’s guarded by an army. He’s guarded by government soldiers.
He’s even guarded by media cameras and media anchors who declare in their silken voices, “Do not challenge this man. He is here for the duration. You have no say. We will never scrutinize his behavior.”
You want to tune him out, but he walks into your kitchen and throws things and yells at the kids and kicks your dog. Then he sits down on the couch next to you and denies everything, like predators everywhere.
He tells your daughter to sit on his lap. He insists on it, glaring at the cameras, challenging them to scrutinize, but the people behind the cameras seem only eager for more, dollar signs rolling vertically down their eyes.
He has been doing these kinds of things for ten years, lying with almost every utterance, and making up stories about everyone around him like he is being paid to do so, because he is.
We pay him billions to do so.
And he’s never happy. Never. Nothing makes him laugh. He never expresses satisfaction. He never admits to wrongdoing. He’s never apologized to anyone in his life.
Predators don’t apologize.
His predation is so extreme that the ultimate explanation is that he has no soul. It is likely that when he dies, nothing will move on from his body to another realm because that’s all he is: a mass of flesh and bones with a semi-functioning lizard brain.
Where to extend his forked, blackened tongue next is this brain’s only true function. He does not possess that still, soft voice within that preaches restraint.
There is no concern for where his soul might go upon his death because there is no soul to concern ourselves with. Survivors have seen this up close. They recognize it instantly. They recognized it ten years ago, the moment they encountered his dark presence behind the worshiping cameras.
And they have lived with the knowledge ever since.
The reason even more survivors don’t beat the drum over finding out the truth about Epstein is that they know it doesn’t matter. The world’s ultimate predator will keep batting away the threats with the help of a massive crew of enablers, many of whom are or have been engaged in the same behavior at home.
The only people who don’t see his predatory nature are the lucky few who’ve never encountered a predator, or who have been predators themselves.
All survivors know this.
This is what they live with every day.
The hundred women who appeared in front of those cameras on that day, as the predator-in-chief tried to drown out their voices with Air Force jets, are the most courageous people in America.
They are the hundred-strong wrecking crew who are on the verge of bringing down the darkest presidency in history.
They deserve a statue: The Hundred Women Statue.
They deserve the truth.
They deserve victory. And so do you.
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Footnotes
Guardian staff reporter. 2016. “Trump Makes Inappropriate Remarks about Young Girl – Video.” The Guardian. The Guardian. October 13, 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2016/oct/13/trump-makes-inappropriate-remarks-about-10-year-old-girl-video.
They could be the Time Magazine Person of the Year!
I cross-posted an explanation for Trump's election that I haven't seen anywhere else, that strikes me as being right on:
The Little Discussed Secret to Trump's Ruination of America
NEAL GABLER
FAREWELL, AMERICA
https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/cp/172043194
The trigger I'm feeling is on the weapon that wipes out predators. They are not fit to walk among us.
I don't know anyone who hasn't been interfered with by predators - even predators that also experienced being assaulted in their youth. It was imprinted on them. It's the poison that keeps on giving.