Why Some of Us Can't Just Vote Blue Again
Some of us know what it's like to be abandoned.
Before we get into it, here's my story:
Some people experience trauma, and others are born into it. We're steeped in it. On my very first day on this earth, someone scarred me. I mean that in the most literal sense. Someone cut me with something, and now three decades later it's the first thing people notice. I have scars from my childhood, too, literal and physical, burn marks and memories of stitches. "You were so careless as a toddler," my mom used to say. "You poured scalding coffee on yourself. You put your hand on the stove. One time, you jumped straight into the fireplace."
It was only until becoming a parent myself that I truly understood something: No, you're not supposed to let a 2-year-old pour scalding hot coffee on themselves and jump headfirst into fireplaces.
Now I understand the reason I was allowed to run around the house all day injuring myself is because my mom was battling the early stages of paranoid schizophrenia, an illness that would later convince her that I…