I realize my last couple of posts have been dark and depressing, but there’s no sugarcoating the fact that what Trump is doing to Americans is abuse.

I began this blog three years ago as a way to talk about the narcissistic abuse I was forced to undergo at the hands of my parents (mostly my mother) and my ex-husband, after I finally found the wherewithal to leave him for good.

Starting this blog gave me an outlet to write about my abuse, and doing so proved extremely therapeutic for me.  In time, I was able to purge all the anger and rage, and the person I was meant to be was slowly revealed to me.  I also found out that I was not such a loser and a bad person after all, and that what happened to me was not my fault.    I realize that I had been lied to for years.   I grieved those wasted years, but at the same time felt grateful that I still had some left to grow into the person God meant for me to be.

With a boost in self esteem, I gained the courage to look inside myself — at the ways I was holding myself back because I was so afraid of everything.   I entered therapy.  I became much more spiritual and developed a real faith in God for the first time.   I began to take small risks and make better choices.   I can honestly say that had I not been able to start this blog, I doubt I would have come as far as I have.  God gave me the ability to write so that I could tell my story, and in the process, heal not only myself, but also help others who had suffered similar experiences.

Until Trump became president, I shied away from writing about politics or religion, because they are such divisive topics and I didn’t want to run off anyone who might have different politics or religious beliefs than I do.   But Trump’s presidency has infected my peace of mind and threatened my recovery, because he is so triggering and toxic, especially to those of us who are already familiar with the destructive effects malignant narcissists and sociopaths have on our souls.

So just like I did with the abusers in my personal life, I also need to write about Trump and the insidious and dangerous ways he threatens my (and many others’) mental and spiritual health.

The truth is, the man absolutely terrifies me. His vision for America terrifies me even more, since in his dystopian vision, I’m an expendable “loser”:  a financially challenged (I don’t want to say poor) older woman without a husband, who is also an intellectual and a dissenter (he hates both), morally and in every other way opposed to everything he and the powerful people who surround him stand for.

So here are ten ways Trump’s policies and his vision for America shake me to my core with terror and dread.

Child labor during the Gilded Age.

1. Repealing the ACA.  This is #1 for me because it directly affects me and could cause me to die early and suffer horribly.    I have been unable to obtain healthcare through a job, and certainly can’t afford to buy it on my own, so I am dependent upon the ACA in order to have health insurance.  And at my age — closing in on 60 — the prospect of losing my only access to healthcare is absolutely terrifying, especially if I should develop a chronic illness that an emergency room can’t treat, such a cancer.

2. Losing my savings.   I have a very small nest egg that if I should become seriously ill and need hospitalization, I will lose (and it still won’t even make a dent in the astronomical medical bills I no doubt will receive).   Unless I publish a book and it becomes a bestseller, or win the lottery (which I don’t play), I have very little chance at my age of ever being able to earn enough to invest in any meaningful way.

3. No Social Security and Medicare.   I am getting close to retirement age, but it’s still some years away, and by the way things are going, I don’t expect that either social security or Medicare will still be around in my old age.    Being a fairly low wage earner (I’m not at poverty level but I don’t qualify as middle class either),  I have not been able to save for retirement (except for the small nest egg I mentioned above).  I don’t work for an employer who offers a 401K or any retirement benefits.  And forget about a pension.  Hardly anyone gets those anymore.   Since I am a single woman, it looks like my only option when I can no longer work is to move in with one of my children, and with all the financial struggles they have been having (Millennials have inherited an economy that forces many of them to live at home until well into their 20s and 30s), I’m not at all sure they will be able to support me in my old age (and it would kill me to place that burden on them anyway).  As for medical care, if the ACA is gone,  it looks like I will have to go without healthcare altogether if Medicare is gone too.    Since more states are legalizing pot though, maybe it will be legal in my state by then and I can just smoke weed all day to ward off any physical pain.

4. A dystopian future for my children.  Much progress has been made in the past fifty years — civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights, New Deal policies, the EPA and other environmental protections, and many other things that make life bearable and have made America the lively and vibrant place that so many people from other countries (until recently) have wanted to make their permanent home in.   Trump is trying to roll back all these things, and the hardliners in Congress are making progress in removing laws and protections that have made life in America the envy of most of the civilized world.

 A coal miner and his son.

5. Corporate tyranny and authoritarianism.   Trump’s America promises a scary future of corporate tyranny or modern-day feudalism, in which insanely wealthy corporate rulers (freed of having to pay any taxes at all) dictate to the hordes of impoverished, sick, beaten down and broken people enslaved to the “system” and forced to work for almost nothing (the hardliners want to eliminate the minimum wage too) until death takes them, usually at an early age.   I see a future much like the Gilded Age, in which people were treated as disposable chattel by rich robber barons until they finally died of some preventable disease or work injury,  a time when there was no middle class or any hope of escaping a life of poverty and endless toil, when there was no social safety net, no public education, and poor children (which were most of them) were forced to work as soon as they reached the age of 6 or 7 (what we call school age today.

6. The rollback of women’s health. While women’s reproductive rights may not affect me anymore, they do affect my daughter.  I’m afraid she will not have access to healthcare, and given that she has medical problems that might affect her ability to bear children safely or at all (Crohn’s Disease and back problems stemming from an accident she had at 16), that is a problem.   She may need surgery before she can safely have a child, but if she loses her healthcare, she will not be able to have that surgery.  Should she become pregnant, she could die.   If she loses access to healthcare and isn’t married to someone who can provide it for her, she could also go bankrupt from constant uncovered trips to the emergency room to treat the intermittent Crohn’s attacks that plague her periodically.  In addition, she suffers from mental health issues (caused by her father’s abuse) and she takes medication to control bouts of almost suicidal depression.   Should she lose her access to mental health care, who knows what could happen?     If the Christian dominionists have their way, most forms of birth control or medical abortion could be outlawed or made almost impossible to obtain.

7. Increased intolerance toward the “different.”   My son came out as gay at age 17, and in this climate of growing hatred and intolerance toward people that don’t fit the “white, straight, Christian” ideal, coupled with Trump’s empowerment of hate groups and the rise of The Christian Taliban,  I’m afraid he could be attacked by members of a hate group for just being who he is, forced to undergo some sort of traumatic “conversion therapy” that Mike Pence is proposing for gay people, shunned from employment opportunities, or just made to feel like he is “less” for being the person he is.

White supremacists and neo-Nazis march in Charlottesville.

8. An unhealthy and ugly environment.   In Trump’s dystopia, all public lands and national parks would be sold off to huge corporate entities, where they would be destroyed  and pillaged through oil drilling, fracking, coal mining, and built up with even more gated communities for the wealthy ruling class.   The rivers and air would be polluted, and people would die early of preventable illnesses caused by contamination, without even access to healthcare that could treat their symptoms.    The very wealthy have built underground bunkers where they could escape the worst of the environmental ravages.  Roads too would be privatized.  Imagine living in a country where most people are hobbled from free road travel because all roads have become inefficient and expensive toll roads. And I don’t even want to think about the horrors of privatizing air traffic control.

9. Ignorance.  Besides the abolishment of public schools, in Trump’s America there would not be any public libraries or museums either, because all those things are “socialism.”   Everything would be privatized and cost the people money.   The intent is not only to get rid of anything that allows everyone to take part in public life and educate and enrich themselves, it’s also to keep people stupid and ignorant, so they can no longer ask questions or think for themselves.

10. Nuclear war.  All of the above dystopian scenarios may be a moot point should we get into nuclear war with North Korea.  I read one statistic that said there is a 20% probability the entire west coast may be nuked.  Trump probably would love that too, since the states that line the Pacific Ocean are also the bluest of states and we all know how he feels about liberals.

I can only keep hoping and praying none of this happens, and we don’t have to suffer Trumpism too much longer — because it won’t be long before it’s too late to turn back.