When I wrote an article just over a week ago now, about my apolitical stance when it comes to voting, I received some pretty harsh comments on Facebook about it. One person suggested my stance on voting probably came from a life of privilege, while another flat out said they had zero respect for me on the subject, and yet still another agreed with them both. Sadly, it seemed as if my true intention of that article got overlooked and was replaced with judgments and character assassination. Regrettably, none of them really knew the truest story behind why I am the way I am when it comes to politics, because I didn’t write about it. But I decided to today.
I grew up in a family that was filled with a normalcy of chaos, confusion, alcoholism, regular attempts at suicide, and wondering what bomb might drop next within it. I walked on eggshells more than not. Whether Ronald Reagan or George Bush was President back then, never changed any of the craziness in my household one bit. My parents remained imbalanced, unhealthy, addicted-ladled individuals, regardless of who was in what political position. Politics just wasn’t something taught or learned in my household, it just wasn’t something we ever talked about. But screaming, rage, throwing things, silence, and guilt trips were. All the years of my youth were spent in fear of my parents and what might happen next in my household. So, who was President or Vice President or Governor or Senator or Congressman didn’t matter, because I lived in fear of what was right in my own home. And none of those political people were ever going to change any of that hell of existence.
When I became of legal voting age, I had already succumbed to alcohol and drug addiction to calm the terrible voices from my youth and to ease the pain of how I was raised, which not only included the craziness from within my childhood home, but also outside of it from having been molested by a coach on one of the teams I had been on, and of having constantly been bullied my entire youth. There was no politics or leadership out there in the world that would have changed a single thing in all the PTSD I was living with. When I finally sobered from alcohol and drugs, those demons continued to live on and on and on, no matter what I did to try to stifle them. I went from counselor to counselor and tried medication after medication to suppress those terrible voices. Politics didn’t matter to me, because I was still in survival mode, even as an adult, trying to free myself from all my inner turmoil, which by then included a father’s suicide and a mother’s tragic drunken fall down the stairs. So, who was going to be in political office became unimportant because my energy was fully invested in trying to free myself from all the mental and emotional pain I constantly lived with. I had to fight hard just to keep going, to not take my life, and to not give up on myself. At the core, I spent every bit of my energy just trying to free myself from those terrible voices from my past, voices that weren’t ever going to be removed by any President or any political leader.
Frankly, living in the hell I’ve lived in, with the lack of appropriate upbringing, with all the PTSD I’ve experienced, and now with all the physical pain I’ve continued to endure, I’m a walking miracle for even still being alive. So, choosing not to invest any of my energy in this long-standing Democrat versus Republican battle or in this never-ending fight for this right or that right isn’t because I’m ignorant or don’t care. It’s because I’ve been spending my entire life just trying to simply survive in a world that’s constantly been tossed upside down from things outside of my control, things that Donald Trump nor Joe Biden nor any President nor any political person will ever be able to change.
The only person that can change any of those things is me. That’s why I continue to choose to focus my energy on that, so I don’t kill myself from all the PTSD I’ve had to fight through in my life just to keep going. And it’s also why I continue to choose to focus whatever energy remains in helping those people in this world who too have been traumatized like I have, whose lives aren’t going to get any better just because of whomever is in some political office. People like those dying of addiction. People like those who’ve been severely abused. People like those who’ve come from broken homes. People who’ve never known what it feels like to be truly loved unconditionally. It is people like us whose lives NEVER change no matter who gets in any seat of political power.
So, maybe now, my critics of my apolitical stance in life may understand a little better why I truly am this way at my core. But if you still don’t, and you still find yourself judging me right now, know I love you unconditionally anyway and don’t judge you for feeling the way you do about me. Just know that when we all stop judging each other for our individual stances in life and start unconditionally loving each other a lot more, maybe we won’t care so much about who becomes our next President, because our next President will simply be a reflection of the unconditional love we already have for each other…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
