I didn't know this week would have this effect on me. Can anyone relate?

[Grasswire2]

132. I have never been physically attacked/assaulted.

And for that I am grateful.

But I was deeply, viscerally triggered by Kavanaugh's angry, emotional bullying yesterday. My husband was a pathological narcissist and an alcoholic. I married him in college and was subjected to emotional battering for twenty years. For so many years I told myself if I would only try harder, he would be happy. Not understanding that he was happiest making me miserable.

This affected my children, too. Our oldest son was emotionally and sometimes physically abused by him. That son married a woman who emotionally battered him. Our younger son just fled a deeply abusive marriage; floods of tears and deep pain followed. Our daughter was deeply triggered this week as well for experiences that have come to the forefront of her memory. She is a UUA minister, and therefore the caretaker/counselor of the wounded people in her parish. So, so much pain.

It was Kavanaugh's manner and expressions that affected me most. I spent so many years wondering what my husband would be furious about that day, and what he might do that moment. A knot in my stomach every day. And when Kavanaugh contorted his face and yelled and showed evidence of alcohol abuse...... well, it has been unspeakable.

Broken lives, broken hearts, seared hippocampus. World without end, amen.

How did such a monster get so close to this position of power?