Every Woman’s Narcissist Ex is About to Become President

My grandpa once tried to get out of a speeding ticket by asking if he could take a lie detector test. “You’ll see! I ain’t lyin’!” But he never took that test or got out of this ticket he definitely deserved because believing you didn’t speed doesn’t mean jack when a cop’s scanner clearly says you did.

Trump thinks a lot like my grandpa. Only Trump seems a million times more delusional. And dangerous.

I’m pretty sure my grandpa was a narcissist. A potbellied, hilarious one with ears that stuck out like Dumbo and a laugh like Santa Claus, but a narcissist, nonetheless. I think we can all agree Trump is one too. But Trump is a whole different brand of narcissist than my sweet, delusional grandpa. Trump takes it to a whoooole new level. And he’s definitely the most narcissisty narcissist we’ve ever seen in the White House.

So far at least.

I’ve dealt with a handful of Trumps in my life, both male and female versions, so I’ve learned the hard way that it’s generally best to avoid them completely whenever possible. But sometimes you can’t steer clear or get away from the male Trumps, especially as a woman, because a lot of Trumpy men have power over women like me and the other 150 million or so of us who are living in a country that only has Congressional representation of 19% and whose laws and police forces and judicial systems don’t protect us all that well. Whether it’s physical power, financial power, legal power, or emotional and sexual power (because OOPS! you accidentally fell in love with a terrifying man before you realized he was just that), it really doesn’t matter. Dealing closely with male Trumps usually means living in a perpetual state of fear and mind fuckery.

And only a couple days from now, the actual Trump will be our dad, basically.

If you watched Trump’s press conference last week (or have witnessed pretty much anything he’s done, tweeted, or said in the last year), you’re probably exhausted already, aren’t you? Like, you can’t even figure out which thing to be most upset about anymore because every morning you wake up to a whole new batch of crazy on Facebook. The other day, I actually caught myself dreaming of the good old days of yesteryear when I’d get bent out of shape over silly things like that rapey Brock Turner dude. And his unapologetic dad. And the douchey judge. But at least I knew he’d never affect me personally. I mean, I’m probably not gonna find myself swimming in a pool near him anytime soon, so whatevs.

But we’re all affected personally by Trump. And we can’t disengage from him even if we want to. He’s been invading our homes, our offices, anywhere we use our phones—pretty much every safe space that exists— for over a year now and he’s only getting started. Those bulbous lips of his spout hateful garbage in our faces all day, every day because the news is obsessed with him and we can’t just not watch TV or check FB ever again. I try to ignore him, but there’s just no escaping. If you’re a man, I hear ya bro. It sucks. If you’re a woman though (and you didn’t get brainwashed into thinking Hilary was a vicious @#*$ far worse than Trump) you’re probably beyond terrified right now.

I hear ya sister.

Since November 9th, almost every liberal-ish woman I know has been a total fucking mess. I’m not sure about the Republican ones. My Mom seems just fine! And since the average conservative woman doesn’t usually surround herself with the likes of loud and proud liberal sluts (sorry, I mean “sex positive” females) like me, I won’t speak on their behalf. But the Democratic ones I know or meet along the way are losing their goddamn minds right now. And, after listening to their stories, I think I’ve finally figured out why.

Every single one of them has had a Trump in her life at some point in time.

A Trump who had a shit ton of power over her. Maybe her boyfriend was a Trump, her boss was a Trump, her dad was a Trump. Someone like him made her feel unsafe and/or insane for a significant amount of time. Only now this narcissistic ghost of our collective pasts just got elected (by Russia lol!) to be our president and will be a part of all our futures.

Now, if you haven’t actually had a man like this in your life before, let me give you a little taste of what it’s like.

My ex was my Trump. And boy was he Trumpy! So much so that I can’t listen to Trump speak anymore. It’s hard to even read articles with direct quotes of his or to see a screen grab of his winey-ass “not fair!” tweets without thinking of my ex’s perpetual-victimhood mindset. Nowadays I try to keep up with Trump’s shenanigans via a reliable news source that summarizes his crazy. But sometimes I take the bait and watch him talk and then I immediately want to buy one of those Trump piñatas and beat the shit out of it with a broom.

It’s been only one year, you guys.

My ex spoke exactly the way Trump does too. Non-sensical tangents that deflect off him, blame someone else, threaten whoever, make fun of anyone, or straight up gaslight you. Trump has never once admitted anything he’s done is wrong, and I’m sure he never will. Trump-style narcissists don’t do that. They’re sick like that and I don’t even think they can help it. They have an excuse for literally everything and, just like the harmless narcissists like my grandpa, they hand-to-god believe the lies they tell themselves. It doesn’t matter that we have a tape of Trump making fun of a disabled reporter. He denies it anyways. And makes us feel crazy for accusing him of doing things he actually did. That’s classic gaslighting right there, and every woman I know has either worked for or lived with or dated a gaslighter. So Trump is basically the collective reincarnation of the sickest men we’ve ever known, and now he’s THE most powerful man in the world.

How could we not be losing our minds right now?

My ex blamed the alcohol for him raping me (not a valid excuse, like ever, but okay). When I told him he was a grown-ass man and that it’s not my fault he got that drunk, he said, “Well I wouldn’t have drank so much if you hadn’t been acting like such a whore!” (I dared to speak to my male friends at a wedding, all of whom which were there with their wives). He never admitted to the rape of course. He denied and deflected and tried to make me feel crazy.

Pretty successfully.

When my ex broke my TV (cuz that’s what happens to TVs when you throw them across rooms at women), he blamed me for making him mad and he refused to replace it. When he tried to bite my fingers off and I screamed bloody murder until he unclenched his teeth, he said it was my fault for putting my hand near his mouth. Whenever a man of almost any age came into the restaurant we both worked at, my ex would immediately fire off a text, “That guy wants to fuck you!” No. He was just ordering pizza, honey. Like customers tend to do. “Yes he does! And you clearly do too since you’re talking to him!” Actually, he was telling me he wanted to add bacon to one half of his pizza. Either way, my Trump never believed me. It was as if he honestly didn’t understand how restaurants operate. Or that I might not actually want to screw him over somehow, some way. I’m a victim, victim, victim is the Trump mantra.

I thought I was finally free of men like this. I’ve learned to see the red flags and steer clear pretty successfully the last few years.

Then The Donald entered my life.

And so it begins again. Our new “daddy”—a rich white bro-brah who fears women so much he needs to have power over them—is literally gonna tell us we’re crazy or stupid or liars when we try to stop him. It will be exhausting. It will make us bananas. It will never end until he’s out of office and maybe not even then. It will probably only get worse with time, never better. And even if he does do a piss-poor job at being a dictator or loses ground with republicans, he will continue to suck. In fact, the more defeated he feels, the worse he’s probably gonna get.

Just look at how riled up Meryl Streep made him.

Imagine the whole country turning on him. Scary men get even scarier when they’re desperate. Ask any woman who’s ever tried to break up with one! When I went to the domestic violence shelter for advice on how to get out of that mess I’d found myself in, the first thing they said was, “The closer you get to actually leaving him, the more likely he is to kill you.” Wouldn’t ya know, he did try to kill me!

But at least my ex didn’t have weapons. Or a militarized police force. Or nuclear bombs.

What scares me now is that, unlike before, I can’t just break up with Trump and leave. Even if I could afford to split town and go live somewhere abroad, all my friends and family would still be stuck with him. The whole world is.

So what do we do?

How do we survive this arranged marriage on Friday between us and a sick, scary man who admitted to sexually assaulting women (because he didn’t think there was anything wrong with it, not because he was admitting guilt. Again, true narcissists don’t admit guilt)? How do we combat this man who says racist shit all the time, who wants to take away our health care, who could literally end the life of everyone on the planet one day cuz he’s fiddling with the nuclear codes during one of his temper tantrums?

I really don’t know. I pulled a Forest Gump and just ran from my ex. He never got in trouble with the law, despite my reporting him, but at least he was out of my life for good (unless he reads this and finds me!).

So how do we get this man out of our lives when we’re forced to stay with him?

Well, calling our fucking representatives, the only people who have any legal power to stand up to him, is one place to start. And marching our asses off to show him he’s outnumbered (I’m on my way to D.C. as we speak). And giving money to the people who are organized to fight against him. Anything. Everything. Whatever it takes. We have to do all of it. And it’s gonna be exhausting.

I’m sorry. I wish we were dealing with an easier narcissist, like my cute grandpa. I don’t mind delusional, as long as they’re good people at heart and don’t have lots of power and money.

But we’re not.

The only way I got through my last Trump was to speak up. Silence is the death of us. We’re gonna have to lean on our fellow sisters and brothers, brainstorm with them, make activism a part of every single day (even if it’s just five minutes of calls to our senators), and not let our guards down. Him and his bros are expecting us to stop fighting and lay down and just take it, mostly out of pure exhaustion.

Well I won’t do it. Nothing has broken me yet. I’m not about to let this d-bag be thing that finally does.

Trump may remind us of our former Trumps, but we have a chance to get it right, and sooner, this time. We survived someone like him on an intimate level already before. I have no doubt we can figure out how to survive the reincarnation of him on a different level. But we need each other. That’s all we have. And our lives depend on it.

Let it begin with January 21st.