Empathy and Compassion: The Strengths Are Not Weaknesses

One woman’s plea for common decency in uncertain times

Have you ever felt compelled to tell someone something horrific or perhaps, unnerving? And have you struggled to find the right words to describe the horrific and unnerving things, things which aren’t pleasant and welcoming? Terrible things make for hard and sometimes uncomfortable experiences. No one wants to be told terrible things. Wanting to hear good things is a fact of life.

To understand where I am coming from, here are a few facts from my life:

My mother was violently raped as a teenager and I am the product of that horrible experience. When I was only 4, my Nanna left my grandfather after she found out that he had been molesting me. One of my earliest memories contains an small clip of being forced to touch an old man while showering together. This man walks free today and has never spent more than a night in jail.

When I was 16 years old, I finally confided to my mother that the man who legally adopted me as his daughter when I was 6, had been molesting and raping me off and on over a two-year time span. When he raped me the first time, I was petrified to the point where I laid on my bed motionless and didn’t make any noise while he tore me open. It turned into my coping mechanism: Lie still. Don’t make noise. Pretend like you are sleeping. Maybe he will leave this time. Maybe you’ll forget.

That man is also walking free today and has never spent a night in jail. Did I mention he remarried a woman with little girls and there is not a damn thing I can do? This would be one of those unnerving facts of life I mentioned earlier.

I didn’t see a therapist until I was 31 years old, married, and six classes away from a college degree. Due to the abuse I had suffered and years of personal neglect, I now struggle with mental illnesses that make it more difficult for me to function as an adult. My recovery has been slow. I have good and bad days. I have an excellent support system. I surround myself with those who do not stigmatize people who have experienced trauma.

I’m telling you, dear reader, the unpleasant facts of my life, not because I crave pity. I’m hoping you feel empathy and compassion, two actions that are rather rare nowadays, or so it seems.

Which leads me to our newly elected, President Donald J. Trump.

The day the world listened to the now-famous hot mic clip of Donald Trump proudly proclaiming that he, due to his fame, can grab women by their pussy if he wants, was a difficult day for me. Suddenly, everywhere I looked people were discussing sexual assault. It was especially difficult for me to read comments from women who did not feel negative emotions after listening to the hot mic clip.

And then Trump was elected as our 45th President of the United States. It was like someone punched me in my guts, laughed, and ran away.

As I watched his inauguration, I felt empty, alone, disgusted, and a whole slew of emotions. I wept. I wept not because the democratic party lost this election. I wept not because I admire Hillary Clinton and I desperately wanted her to win. Those are facts, by the way. I wept because the man who placed his hand on two Bibles and promised to unite the country, morphed into my adoptive father, my grandfather, and the man who raped my mother.

Lady Gaga sings, “ ’Til it happens to you, you don’t know how it feels,” in a song describing sexual assault written for the CNN documentary, The Hunting Ground. I agree. However, human beings have the capacity to put themselves hypothetically into another’s shoes and have empathy and compassion when life’s little nuggets of manure are tossed in our direction. Caring for others is not a weakness; it’s a strength. Children seem to be empathetic and compassionate far easier than adults.

January 21st, 2017, I watched as people joined over 600 marches and peaceful public demonstrations held across the globe and for the first time since Trump became President-elect, I didn’t feel alone. I was especially moved by the many women who marched for people like me, a proud liberal American patriot who was sexually abused as a child, who marched regardless if they had experienced abuse. That’s called empathy. That’s called compassion.

In the last 24 hours, I have read many comments from women who feel that the peaceful protests were unnecessary, silly, and/or a complete waste of time. There is one particular Facebook rebuttal that is popping up in comment sections of almost every post about the protests. An open letter penned by susan.speer covers almost all of my thoughts regarding the viral Facebook rebuttal, but I’d like to address Christy the author, briefly and others having similar thoughts and feelings about the Women’s March on D. C.

To those whom believe that they didn’t need the march or any of the other demonstrations over the last several days, are you capable of having empathy and compassion for the women (and men!) who felt as though their voices were not being heard by the incoming administration? If you can feel empathy for the plight of others, even when you’re privileged and personally feel like you are an equal member of society, would you please exercise that wonderful trait?

You see, this isn’t a political matter. It’s a human matter. Everyone should have the ability to say to themselves, “Hey! I’m feeling pretty good about my status in life, but I know others don’t feel the same way, so I’m going to do everything I can to help them because I’m a human with empathy and compassion.”

It’s so simple and it harms no one to feel empathetic and compassionate. And for people like me, it makes all the difference.