The Same Chains
Surviving child abuse and US government oppression
Content warning: Child abuse, spanking. 🔞 Not for anyone under 18.
Dear readers,
If you're a survivor of child abuse, you know it's no easy feat to learn how to heal from that trauma. If you're not a survivor of child abuse, well, I'm a little jealous that your parents are trustworthy and supportive. That being said, I wanted to share a little bit about how the connection between surviving an oppressive regime and surviving an abusive childhood has been on my mind often in recent weeks.
If you don't already know, I'm the oldest child of six, homeschooled my entire life from preschool through high school in a right-wing conservative Christian household. I'm AFAB and so in a traditional home being the oldest daughter meant being a third parent, being my mother's ego boost, my father's theological protege, and generally a babysitter. That's the setup for what I'm about to share.
Growing up in conservative right-wing Christianity
Our household was a strict one. My mother had to manage six children and homeschool all of us in different grades and educational levels, so she managed to do that by keeping us all on a tight schedule. It would look something this:
6:30am — Wake up, personal prayer
7:15am — Breakfast
7:30am — Family Bible
8am — Math
9am — English
10am — Science (putting it lightly… It was more like pseudoscience.)
She had every hour of our life mapped out, and had a chore chart besides that sat on the fridge, our ominous law we must live by. Often I'd make my father breakfast and make his lunch before he left for work. This started when I was 9 years old, and my mother was on bedrest with the fifth child.
The most discouraging part of this schedule to me was the hypocrisy my mother embodied from an early age. She would leave the four oldest of us children at the kitchen table to study our various books alone, while she was on AOL Instant Messenger or the phone with her friends in California. She had zero interest in educating us beyond the subject of English, which she always loved and excelled in. And so she would let us put on little plays we wrote ourselves, and memorize poetry and recite it for her, and all manner of performances that made her feel good about her efforts in the education of her children.
Though my mother was hands-off when she didn't feel like parenting or educating, she was very hands-on when it came to our media intake. Any book we wanted to read had to be read by her beforehand. Any friend and their family, met and vetted. Any new toy, approved. Any new TV show or movie had to be evaluated.
I got in trouble at 13 at a sleepover for watching The Princess Diaries. What a heinous atrocity I had committed! And what was the punishment? Corporal of course, I was to be spanked once for each of my years with a rubber spatula on my bare ass, bent over my parents' bed by my mother.
We lived in a proverbial prison. Albeit, quite a privileged one. But the word "gay" was not to be said or questioned. It was clear early on that my role as a woman in the world was to give birth to many children, submit to my husband, and stay at home. I was trained for over a decade in the art of parenting, cooking, and housekeeping, despite the fact that I was just a little girl. There was no room for anything else. "Sacrifice it all for the family," I was told, "For the Lord." And as a child, I had no other choice but to believe what I was told.
Parallels to present day
It took me years of anguish and boundary-setting to escape what Child Protective Services should have intervened in. And yet here we are in the United States, and there are millions of Americans pushing and shoving the rest of the populace towards a precipice of national Christo-fascist control. It's an ugly thing to watch, and I have seen the signs since 2014 when our current dicktater first started his campaigning.
With the loss of our abortion healthcare rights, amongst other things, it's felt like a personal controlled attack to get us back to this traditional right-wing world. Women have only been able to vote for 105 years in the USA (Since 1920). That is honestly not that long in the scope of human history. It's discomfiting to see the government turning the clock back, and staging itself to promote a world where there's no room for non-binary people, women are at home getting raped and pregnant, and white men are in the workforce controlling the narrative, society, and the government.
It feels very shitty and generally terrible that the government is behaving in the same way that my mother and father did when I was a child.
Things the US government and my abusive parents have in common
Knowledge restriction and indoctrination: The same way my parents restricted access to any ideas that didn't align with their beliefs, Trump's government began erasing LGBTQIA+ Americans from official .gov websites. Conservative states ban books on LGBTQIA+ healthcare, identity, and healing.
Corporal punishment: If the police don't like what you're doing, or if the government doesn't approve of your politics, you'll be disappeared. This is an especially dangerous arena for immigrants and Black and Brown Americans right now. Racism is rampant. My parents did the same thing. Anger or disobedience could be the motivation. All we knew was, the pain was coming.
Gaslighting of personal experience: My parents love to gaslight, they have always loved to gaslight. "But that's not how it happened!" "You just can't remember properly because you were a child." "No, you're remembering wrong." The US government does the same thing. They pay for and feed media that pushes lying narratives about immigrants, trans people, and gay people all over the nation.
These are just the top three commonalities. There are even more.
Next steps
I'll be honest with you, friends. I work for an international company and I don't feel safe here in the USA anymore. I want to move away to a safe place, and offer a place to land for my friends who want to escape also. It will take saving up, and I can't do it right away, but it feels like the right plan. I'll keep you updated on all of that, since I need to talk to my job and do more research first.
When I was 19 years old, my father and I were in conflict. On a Friday he said to me, "Do XYZ or get out by Monday." and right there in that moment, with a steel-coated heart, I said, "OK. I'm leaving then." I turned around and went to my room to pack my stuff. The United States of America feels the same to me in 2025. Like the government, my father, my MAGA brother, my super WASP-y Christian sister married to a Trump voter, and all of the people that voted for Trump, are saying, "Become straight and become a woman, or get out." And I'm just not going to sacrifice who I am at 36, anymore than I wanted to at 19.
This is a very rambly and personal blog. If you've come this far, I appreciate you reading. Moving past a traumatic childhood is not a short journey. I'm not sure it's one that ever ends, honestly. But I do know one thing. No LGBTQIA+ or non-binary person can heal in the USA while the government is actively trying to erase our identities. Something must be done.
With a beating heart and a heavy soul,
Much love always,
Alexandra
Up next on Wednesday 🌹
A romantic caper that starts a cannabis dispensary and ends on my couch while House of the Dragon plays. Join me for a jaunty tale of a 48-hour whirlwind of sex, music, and a super hot musician with abs! - AS