Surviving an Abusive Country?

Most of you who have read my blogs or novels will know that I spent many years working as a prison chaplain in the US during the late 70s and early 80s. I was most affected by the three years I worked in a women’s prison in North Carolina. I would venture to say that the vast majority of women behind bars came from backgrounds of domestic violence and sexual abuse. Often their only « crime » was doing away with their abuser. (Read my novel, Doing Time.)

It’s a sad and well-known fact that women who have been abused, if they escape the relationship, very often they find their way into the hands of another abuser. I can never forget telling a young woman, who had been abused by her father, partner, etc, that I had never hit or abused a woman. She cocked her head as though to get a better look at this bizarre man who didn’t abuse women. That’s all she and her fellow inmates had known. I have often reflected that if I accomplished nothing else as a chaplain, I simply presented and spent time with women as a non-threatening male.

Now let’s widen the lens: what about abusive countries? I grew up in the US, the son of a US Marine, and was once described as an « all-American boy »(!). But then the civil rights protests became a part of daily life, and Vietnam loomed. I was white, so I had my privileges regarding the law and lunch counters, but ‘Nam was different. My country was quite content to sacrifice its sons on the altar of national and presidential pride. I managed to avoid the draft by going « off the grid »; which caused a major rift between my father and me, and took years to heal. (Read, No Good Deed) But it was clear to me the US government and Department of Defense cared not one iota for their young people. And so I left the US and, apart from a few years, have lived as an émigré, first in England and now in France.

Now that there is a new(ish) abuser in the White House, for whom the citizenry and the constitution mean nothing, I have received numerous enquiries from people about leaving the US. Many of them remind me of that young woman in prison who found it hard to believe that it was possible to live without abuse…read: lies, corruption, threats to other countries—including allies! The subtext seems to be: « Can I really live a decent life abroad or is it just easier to stay with the guns, racism, sexism et al? » Maybe it’s more existential: « Who will I be when I’m no longer a threatened species in the American ecosystem? » Well, I and numerous other expats are living proof that it’s possible.

My wife and I moved briefly back to the US in 2016, right at the end of Obama’s time in office. I, mistakenly, had hoped that America had changed. It had, but for the worse! Trump came in trying to rid the US of Obama’s legacy, no matter the price paid by the average American. He encouraged militias and even the KKK to « liberate their states », I.e. overthrow legally elected state governments. We felt somewhat like Jews in 1930s Germany. « Does Hitler really mean what he says and what he wrote in Mein Kampf or is it mere rhetoric? » Read: « Does Trump really intend to enact everything in Project 2025? » Well duh. There’s only one way to find out. We got out.