【Secret Tutoring (2018)】

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has opened up about the Capitol riot,Secret Tutoring (2018) and her own experiences with trauma, during a moving Instagram Live on Monday.

Over the course of a 90-minute video, the Congresswoman described her terrifying experience during the riot before hitting out at Republicans for using "the same tactics as abusers" by telling people to move on from what happened when a mob of pro-Trump supporters violently stormed the Capitol, leaving five people dead.

"The reason I'm getting emotional in this moment is because these folks who tell us to move on, that it's not a big deal, that we should forget what's happened, or even telling us to apologize — these are the same tactics as abusers," said Ocasio-Cortez.

"I'm a survivor of sexual assault. And I haven't told many people that in my life. But when we go through trauma, traumas compound on each other. And so whether you had a neglectful parent, or whether you had someone who was verbally abusive, whether you are a survivor of abuse, whether you experienced any sort of trauma in your life — small to large — these episodes can compound on one another."

Ocasio-Cortez went on to describe the shocking events of that day, some of which she had recounted in her first Instagram Live following the riot, from hiding in a bathroom to barricading herself in Representative Katie Porter's office with her staffers and admitting, "I thought I was going to die." It was only later on, as she recounted what she'd been through to Representative Ayanna Pressley, that Ocasio-Cortez realised how traumatizing the experience had been.

"If you have experienced any sort of trauma, just the fact of recognizing that and admitting it is already a huge step, especially in a world where people are constantly trying to tell you that you didn't experience what you experienced, or that you're lying," Ocasio-Cortez said.

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"One of the things that I had heard and that I had remembered people talk about with trauma is tell your story — it's an actual cognitively important thing to do is to tell the story of what happened to you. And then sometimes you just say it a lot, and tell it over and over and over again. And that can be a tool for helping a person with healing in all traumas," she said.

"These folks who are just trying to tell us to move on, are just like, pulling the page, they're using the same tactics of every other abuser, who just tells you to move on. Of that man who touched you inappropriately at work, telling you to move on, are they going to believe you? Or the adult who, you know, if they hurt you, when you were a child, and you grow up, and you confront them about it, and they try to tell you that what happened never happened. Or, you know, the countless people who tell women and non-binary people that they're constantly trying to get attention, just for existing, and just for saying that they exist.

"These are the tactics of abusers. And this is at a point where it's not about the difference of political opinion. This is about just basic humanity."