Complicated Characters

In my consumption of books, movies, and television, I like strong characters who remind me that human beings are complicated.  They are neither all good nor all bad, having strengths as well as weaknesses.  Until 1997, I had  largely focused on peoples’ good traits and strengths and I viewed their misdeeds as character flaws and weaknesses, often overlooking misdeeds even when I was hurt by them.  In fact, it was in 1997 that a therapist explained to me that I was too accepting of peoples’ bad behavior.  That’s when I began to refine my internal sense of the justice scales.  I realized that a person’s character could lean moral or immoral.  With the passing of Senator John McCain last night, I want to say, “Rest in peace, Senator.  Despite our political differences, it is evident that you lived a life of good moral character and will be remembered and highly esteemed for it.”
I admit that in the past, I have wrongly allowed adults to abuse me without ever holding them accountable for their misdeeds.  I believe it is good that I have been forgiving because today I am free of any bitterness, but I now realize it was wrong of me not to expose their wrongdoing.  I’ve suffered the consequences of their wrong actions, allowing them to continue on while I healed, reinvented myself and redirected my life.  Each time I felt strong, positive, and resilient enough to carry on.  Each time I recognized both the good and the flawed character of my abuser.  I knew I could move on, but I wasn’t so sure about each of them.  I believed I could destroy their lives and careers were I to expose their actions and cause my family pain as well, so I stayed silent.

Perhaps it is my own character flaw (hubris) that made me see each of my abusers, and my family members, as weaker than me.  I knew I had the power to wreck havoc in their lives, but chose not to.  I didn’t consider the reality that not exposing the abuse left others vulnerable to the same abuse I had experienced.  I was short-sighted and naïve.  A wise person once said that the only thing needed for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing.  I did nothing.

The three men who abused me held trusted positions in the community.  All three were middle-aged white men who perhaps saw a black girl as an easy and safe target.  The first was a television producer who lived next door to us when I was ten years old.  The second was a science teacher when I was sixteen.  The third was my boss when I was twenty-seven.   All three men were smart, successful, and kind in many ways.  Each outwardly offered me opportunity for advancement, but they mistreated me in such an inappropriate way that I silently fled, leaving behind friendships, science, and a very lucrative job.  It was through theses experiences and my experience with my own violent alcoholic father who only ever treated me with love and kindness, that I came to understand that human beings are so complicated.  Good and evil can reside within the same body.  Figuring out how to deal with that reality took time and therapy.

It was in therapy that I learned how important it is to hold people accountable for the way they treat me.  Today, I expose any wrongdoing without hesitation because I know that the perpetrator will only continue to harm others if they are allowed to get away with it.  But I’ve also noticed that when wrongdoing is exposed, others in power may say that the perpetrator is really a good person and not hold them accountable. That may be true, but the wrongdoing is also true and must be dealt with.  We’ve are seeing the failure of the Catholic Church on a large scale.  While I no longer run away, I’ve had to talk to a therapist about how to deal with the fact that powerful people are seldom held to account for their wrongdoing.

For too long, we have been covering up or ignoring the corruption, abuse, and misdeeds of the wealthy and powerful, expecting the victims to be silent, to forgive, and to recover if they can.  This collective behavior has given us a president who thinks he can do whatever he wants with impunity.  He calls his convicted friends and neo-Nazis really good people.

I am lucky to be resilient enough to recover from the abuses I’ve suffered and  with the help of good therapy I’ve learned to speak up about wrongdoing, but I wonder about the others whom my silence pre-1997 has likely hurt.  And I wonder when we as a society will begin to hold the wealthy and powerful accountable for their misdeeds?  A lot of women have spoken up about this president, including Stormy Daniels and now Amarosa.  Will Americans and our Congress hold him accountable?