Frank lived a few blocks west of me. He was outside our neighborhood gang but inside our elementary school sphere. Frank was the younger of two brothers. His father worked at one of the tire factories ubiquitous to the Akron, Ohio landscape. Frank was loud and obnoxious.

When Leave It to Beaver first came on television (yes, I’m that old) I  thought they might have modeled Eddie Haskell on Frank. Frank was sweet to everyone’s parents, the picture of deferential respect. My dad saw right through him. Mom did not. Taken by his flattery she would ask, “Why don’t you have Frank come over more often?”

I did not invite Frank over more often because Frank was a bully. I saw his father give him a dressing down in his front yard once, in front of a bunch of us. It was utterly humiliating for poor Frank. Being an Enneagram Two and all, I went to Frank and said, “I’m sorry that happened.” Unfortunately I did not understand it at the time, but I had witnessed his true powerlessness, a truth he could not bear to have anyone witness. While he had always been a bully, from that moment on he reserved a special enmity for me.

No one from my old neighborhood knows what happened to Frank. I’ve searched his surname, a very unusual and supremely unfortunate name that relates to things that occur in a private restroom. I’ve not found him anywhere, but then again, he might have changed his name. I mean, it would have been a good  idea to have done so.

Bullies almost always have sad backstories. Profoundly wounded by life, their ego strength is so weak they spend the rest of their lives knowing no other pathway to power than the denigration and diminishment of others. Narcissistic Personality Disorder is very difficult to treat. When I was in training I was told I would probably never treat someone with NPD because they never go to therapy. Their wounding was so early in life and so profound it is unbearable for them to revisit that original wound.

Our president is a bully. In my opinion, he has narcissistic personality disorder, though I cannot diagnose that with certainty because he is not my client. I lived in New York for 35 years. There was virtually no one in New York City who had any use for him. He was known as a terrible businessman and a wannabe fixated with Page Six of the New York Post, the page with all of the celebrity gossip. When he was chosen for the Apprentice, we all couldn’t believe it.

One of my friends lived near him in Florida. My friend’s daughter and Trump’s daughter Tiffany were friendly acquaintances. My friend’s wife was friends with Trump’s wife at the time, Marla. They had kind things to say about Marla and Tiffany, but not Donald.

But that was then, and here we are now. A grown-up Eddie Haskell as president, with half of the nation following news and social media that hide the truth. My safety is decidedly worse than it was before he was elected. My medical care remains, but my options for providers gets smaller and smaller. I really worry about the six members of my family who are people of color, two of whom were not born in the US, though they have been citizens for over forty years. Based on what we’ve seen in Minneapolis this past week, that doesn’t matter anymore.

When people said Trump was a fascist, I thought they were throwing around a term that was sensational, not true. Now, I believe it is true. With the demolition of norms, the glorification of violence, the creation of “alternate facts” from the highest positions in the land, I’ve lost hope for our nation. With our current Supreme Court and Congress, I see no pathway forward. We are failing the stress test of democracy and I fear it will be too late before most of the country recognizes it.

I’ve never been a pessimist. I have always seen the glass half full, even after I transitioned and lost all of my jobs, my pension, and my friends. Hope has been my stock in trade, but in today’s America, my hope is rapidly diminishing. I keep desperately repeating the words of Emily Dickinson:

Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul

And sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all.