Normal People Don’t Know What to Do When They’re Being Gaslit
It Takes A Village to Slay the Monster.
What I notice inside myself as I continue to process the look on Joe Biden’s face while he was being verbally pummeled again and again on the so-called “debate” stage on June 26th is that normal people do not know what to do when they’re being gaslit.
We get paralyzed in the brain. Literally.
I know this from my personal experience of being gaslit for decades and now, ever so slowly, beginning to recover my own mind thanks to a small village of friends sharing their stories of surviving narcissistic abuse, a skilled trauma therapist, a recent facilitated psilocybin journey, and 30 days of sobriety.
It’s nice to wish that normal humans had capabilities most of us don’t have to just stand in the fiery fury of a monster’s breath or turn our backs on it and walk away. But almost nobody has the ability to do either of those things during calculated narcissistic assaults. Our brains aren’t built for it.
All the Monday-morning-quarterbacking going on post-debate in mainstream and social media is simply pitiful. Of course Joe’s staff should have prepared him for a narcissistic conflagration. But they didn’t. And, in all fairness, I could see him struggling over and over not so much to lead as to “win.” To come out on top. To be America’s knight in shining armor. To be the good guy. Such a noble fantasy… Not.
He and the rest of us would have been far better served if he just answered the questions put to him by the so-called moderators. But he didn’t. He kept defending himself. I totally understood his choice. But that didn’t make it any better. He just fueled the fire. He ran out of time defending his reputation before he could talk about what he’s planning to do about the opioid epidemic and abortion and the price of food and everything else we’re suffering with. Especially the suffering of the children.
I know just what that’s like, the running out of time. I spent decades trying to defend myself when narcissists attacked and all I got for it was confused, exhausted, and deeply depressed. Responding in anyway to narcissistic assault only fuels the fire. And it never made me safe from the next attack.
That “presidential debate” on June 26, was nothing short of a mythical battle presented as a televised verbal cage-fight with only the barest pretense of “refereeing.”
What we got to watch was Trump — a fire-breathing dragon hell-bent on destroying everything in his path — pummel a decent human being into confusion and suck the living human vitality out of him.
In case it wasn’t clear to you watching, in these modern days, fire-breathing dragons dress up in blue suits with orange make-up and they use words and tv cameras to burn everything in their path. This dragon has been hard at work for nine long years. At this point in the occupation, utter chaos and sickness pervade the Land.
As I watched the TV-sanctioned abuse, my deepest concern was for the preservation of Joe Biden’s health and well-being. He hadn’t planned for a cage fight. He had planned for a debate.
Watching Joe take the blows, I kept thinking, “He’s not physically capable of being America’s dragon slayer at this age.” He’s an astonishing human being with enormous courage and stamina. But he’s just a man and he has physical and mental human limits. Narcissistic abusers take NO prisoners. They destroy them and then suck the life out of them.
When the assault ended, all I could think was how much I do not want to see the Democratic Party continue to sacrifice Job Biden to the Trump monster like some cartoon or western hero.
It’s true, chaos and sickness blanket the land. The monster only grows stronger daily. It’s been gathering power for nine years now. At this point, the villagers simply cannot continue to cower indoors doom-scrolling, wishing on a star for some super-hero to magically save us.
We, the people, have to come together and drive out this current version of the ancient monster.
The monster’s name is Me-First-and-Scraps-For-You.
This monster is as old as recorded time and it takes no prisoners. It destroys them. There is no “you” left in its path. You are reduced to its food or added to its growing body. This is how it “Makes America Great” and conquered kingdoms of yore. Great big monster gobbles up everything in its path until there’s nothing left but itself to eat.
Confronting this version of the monster is not going to be something that happens in one day or one week between now and November 5. And the weeks after.
I’m certainly willing to witness a miracle happen when a modern day grandfather slays the dragon and sets the people free again. But I don’t think that’s how this works. It could be that the Democratic Party opens the gates for a new leader. But that person is not going to be some new blockbuster solo hero we can put on a pedestal and then petition for favors. Not a chance.
We are ALL going to have to rise up together and drive this poisonous Monster out of our land. There is no “arguing” with it. There is no “reasoning” with it. It only gains power from those who dare to reply to Me-First-and-Scraps-For You. It converts you or it eats you.
The only way out of this cage-fight is to tell the truth.
Our so-called democracy was founded without telling the truth. It was birthed in the seed-bed that grows Me-First-and-Scraps-For-You. This nation was — and still is — living a lie we have never admitted. We don’t have a democracy. We are a bunch of people with roots in many countries who occupy North America but are ruled by special interests. Unless you’re one of the special ones, you’re just plain fodder for its fields. Raw meat for its table. Breakfast.
Putting out the eye of the American Cyclops is going to take us all. Together. At the polls, in our families, in our neighborhoods. In the depths of our own hearts. No arguing, no “correcting,” no blaming, no shaming. Those uses of language just keep us in the cage-fight feeding the Monster or supplying it the fuel it uses to convert us into its flesh.
It’s time to tell the truth. “Me first and scraps for you” is never going to get any of us to some pot o’ gold at the end of our fruitless rainbow “right to pursue happiness” by leaving other living beings and the very Earth beneath our feet out of our game.
Taking on Me-First-And-Scraps-For-You — in a political arena — we are facing the fight of our lifetimes. As the current version of the monster keeps saying, we’re sliding into World War III. It’s true. And the whole planet is at stake.
This is not some TV or movie fantasy. This is real life. We are crossing a rubicon of human consciousness. Or not.
The time is now. And tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow… Otherwise, what the monster keeps chanting — and blaming on anyone who dares to resist it — is going to come true: we will no longer have a country. Much less a planet to live on.
It’s the plain truth that Me-First-and-Scraps-For-You is hell-bent on burning everything down using words and TV cameras and social media and soon the AI poised to pour in through every door, window and crevice.
That’s how it makes breakfast. Have you noticed?
Note: My thoughts here came from a piece published 6/29/24 in Bill McKibbens’ Substack. Read it here: https://open.substack.com/pub/billmckibben/p/give-joe-some-room?r=paedt&utm_medium=ios . Watching the debacle (aka, presidential debate), reading Bill’s piece, and capturing the insights arising as I continue to reflect on my own mobile image (posted above) have taken me deep into my healing process. The image is one I made 7 years ago and shared that day on Facebook and in Instagram. I’m not selling my thoughts here. Take ’em or leave ’em. I just need to tell the truth as I see it since I’m sober today.
