We Need Heroes Right Now.

Thank God for E. Jean! (And Those Who Stood Behind Her. And All Who Step Forward to Share Their Stories)

Over the weekend, I went on a road trip to Philadelphia. Riding shotgun was the hilarious, audacious E. Jean Carroll, reading her audiobook, Not My Type: One Woman v. A President. The subtitle alone grabbed me (whoops—I won’t say grabbed me, because then you can’t help but think of Trump’s hideous brag)—rather, it got me. Because It turns out one woman can do a lot…a thought that comforts me during this hellscape-of-a-political time.

I didn’t rush to buy the book, because I’d followed the trial and didn’t yet know I was craving a rehash. This was anything but a rehash. Listening to her tell her story— and give her own spin on the court transcripts—brought me to laughter, stomach knots, wonder, and tears. She and her defense team are freaking heroes! Who else has stood up to Trump?!

“I don’t care if they shoot me,” Carroll recently wrote on instagram. “I’ve lived a fabulous life. If you’re frightened, you can’t do anything.”

Yes. And wow.

Sprinkled throughout the book are delights like an aside where she details her daily routine as she’s going through the trial (to take Benadryl for sleep or not? On one hand, it can cause forgetfulness. On the other hand, lack of sleep causes forgetfulness). She tells us about the routines of famous people throughout history, like Queen Elizabeth, who had buttered toast and jam every morning for breakfast. I, too, am fascinated by people’s daily routines.

She refers to one of Trump’s lawyers, Alina Habba as Alina Habba, Esquire, going into elaborate detail about her outfits and her hair that rises and falls like one of those Crissy dolls from the 70s.

One of the more upsetting things was Trump’s defense attorney Joe Tacopina’s obsession with why E. Jean Carroll didn’t scream when Trump attacked her. (After a lifetime of hearing, “Children should be seen and not heard,” now you want us to scream?!—my thoughts, not hers).

The irony was, the Trump team’s entire defense was that the case was a hoax. That she made the whole thing up, cribbing from an episode of Law and Order. In the Carroll team’s summation, her attorney said: If the Trump team’s defense is that she made the whole thing up, then why are you dwelling on whether she screamed or not?

Trump’s lawyers tried to paint a picture of the ideal rape victim, and Carroll’s team called them out on it. As in: an ideal rape victim screams. An ideal rape victim reports it to the police immediately. An ideal rape victim looks appealing to the rapist. (“She’s not my type,” Trump said dismissively, looking at the 79-year-old E. Jean, who looks pretty amazing, if you ask me). Jesus. If you want to feel sick to your stomach, read the granular definitions of rape and assault the jury must use in their decision (written, as E. Jean points out, by men).

Carroll’s team also brought in an expert on trauma named Dr Leslie Lebowitz, who dispelled the myth that victims should fight back, explaining how victims often freeze and/or dissociate during and after an attack. The old fight/flight/freeze or fawn.

Like the best memoirs do, this made me think back to my own life, and how I, too, froze when I was sexually harassed or assaulted.

The first time it happened I was eight or nine. Walking at an outdoor mall with my friend, Denise, licking an ice cream cone from Baskin Robbins. Wearing a tank top. A middle aged man walking toward us plunged his hand down my tank top, onto my bare boobs (which were nonexistent at the time) and back out, then walked on by. I froze, just stood there for a few minutes, ice cream dripping, before I realized what had happened. My friend and I stared at each other. I may have muttered, “Pervert,” But weakly, and only to her. No one else heard, or saw. It would have been too embarrassing to tell an adult. And he was long gone.

Another time, in my early twenties, I worked as a waitress in a Swiss cafe. I was in the kitchen, carrying a heavy tray, when one of the head waiters, a man probably thirty years older than me, rapidly stuck his hand in and out of my blouse, grabbing my breast. I froze. My face grew hot. I may have said, “Gross!” But then I carried on, delivering my tray of food to the customer. I didn’t want to make a scene.

A few times, men pressed into me on the subway. Each time, I froze and said nothing, just prayed for my stop to come sooner. I didn’t want to scream. What if it was an accidental pressing? I didn’t want to call attention to myself. Or anger the man. I didn’t want to get stabbed or punched or attacked in some way.

E. Jean Carroll’s freezing during the attack makes total sense to me.

Carroll’s book reminded me again that the unexamined life is not worth living. After Trump attacked her, E. Jean Carroll tells how she wanted to just sweep the whole incident under the rug. To smile and move on and never speak of it again. But buried trauma will not stay buried. She smiled, but she could no longer be intimate with anyone.

Somatic practitioners explain how animals shake themselves off after a traumatic event, thereby clearing it from their bodies right away so they can regain their strength.

By finally processing her experience, making meaning of it and fighting back (even if it was years after the incident), E. Jean Carroll seems to have finally shaken that horrendous monster off her back.

Not only has she helped herself, she’s made other people not feel so alone in this shitshow of a world. It made me really think hard about my own freeze responses and not feel so much shame about the times I didn’t fight back.

It’s a cliche, but it’s so true: the personal will always be political. It would be nice if we could just shake ourselves like the animals do, but we humans need to connect: by talking, writing in our journal or writing a book and sharing it with the public. Whatever works.

In a Substack post titled “Memoir is a Mirror,” publisher, podcaster and memoir teacher Brooke Warner, discusses the wild range of reactions to Elizabeth Gilbert’s controversial memoir, All The Way to the River. She writes: “I’m singularly obsessed with memoir for its window into the psyche, and that obsession extends into these cultural moments of fallout, too. Memoir shows us the full range of human experience and expression. The writing of it and the receiving of it tell us so much about ourselves.”

I tend to feel ashamed by my “navel gazing.” No more. I’m going to continue to share my vulnerable moments. And I hope others will get something out of it. And I hope, if you want, you’ll share yours, too.