Trump retraumatizes me daily. Am I alone in this or do you feel it too?
I am a survivor of sexual abuse. I consider myself as thriving. I’ve done the work. I’ve healed to the best of my ability. Still, not being triggered and being retraumatized is a lifetime sentence of vigilance.
Survivors of sexual abuse or assault, as one in four of us women are, know this. We learn we need to protect ourselves from being triggered to keep surviving. Triggers follow us through life popping up randomly and unexpectedly. We try to be prepared and often we are not.
I was not prepared for this, for feeling triggered almost daily as I listen, read, and watch former President Trump burn everyone in his path with degradation and lies. This is not about trashing Trump as some of you may think. It’s about the effect he has on me and potentially a quarter of the female population in the US. It’s about survival.
As women who have been abused, we know what happens when we speak up. We are met with disbelief, denial, or outright dismissal. Our abusers dominate and have power over us, belittling, intimidating us, and denying our reality, like this former president with immense power to discredit and influence.
For us survivors, gaslighting isn’t just about disagreement or differing perspectives. It’s an attempt to make us doubt our own mind, to undermine our sense of self, and to manipulate us into believing that what happened never actually occurred. That we are the ones lying. My ex-husband employed this as a tactic too, telling me he didn’t know what I was talking about, and I must be mistaken every time I caught him in a lie. I doubted myself for a long time before the proof of his affair could not be denied.
It’s psychological abuse leaving deep scars and is often more painful than the original abuse itself.
We can recognize them in an instant, gaslighters, our radar is that good. We know to steer clear and put up a protective barrier.
President Donald Trump, gaslighter extraordinaire, triggers and retraumatizes me on a daily basis by telling others their reality is false, by telling and retelling a false narrative. He has been accused and even found liable for sexual assault, yet he consistently denies his actions, going as far as to say he never met his accuser. Watching him lie so blatantly—and watching others support and believe him—feels like a personal assault on my own lived experience. It feels like he’s telling me that my reality isn’t real, just as my abuser once did and still does.
I feel deeply for every other person he is talking about in this way. whether it’s a previous sexual encounter he’s talking about or Haitian immigrants in Ohio. Whenever women’s rights are being denied by male legislators who have the power over to decide what a woman, who has been assaulted, does with her own body. In a hot second I am retraumatized.
Every time I see posts about immigrants raping innocent victims like all immigrants are guilty of being vile, I want to shout about the number of us raped or abused by people we know, people in our own homes. They far outnumbered the propaganda posts about immigrants. Why are we not posting those?
I’ve lived the lies and been made to feel crazy.
When Trump, a man with power and influence, insists that he never met his accuser or that the accusations against him are false, it damages survivors like me. It’s as though he’s not only denying the accusations against him—he’s denying all of us. He’s telling us, “Your experiences don’t matter. Your truth is inconvenient, so I’m going to pretend it doesn’t exist.”
It makes me angry. It makes me feel crazy again. It makes me want to lash out and scream my truth.
This denial is dangerous. It perpetuates a society in which abusers are protected, and victims are silenced. It sends a message to survivors that speaking out will be met with disbelief, ridicule, or even legal action, while the perpetrator walks free, continuing to live without accountability.
Watching this unfold in the national spotlight is a reminder of how deeply ingrained silencing and denial is in our society for victims.
But it’s also a reminder that, no matter how much people in power try to gaslight us, our stories are real. Our experiences matter. And we are not alone.
For the one in four women who have been abused or assaulted, Trump’s gaslighting is a painful reminder of the ways our society fails to believe and support survivors. But it’s also a call to action: to stand together, to amplify each other’s voices, and to refuse to be silenced.
We deserve to be believed. We deserve to have our realities validated. And we deserve a world where those who harm us are held accountable.
