Member-only story
Every Line is a Scream
Abuse, Art, and, Alchemy
My new therapist asks me why I’m seeing her.
“Because I have PTSD, and I want to be normal again,” I say.
She asks what the symptoms of my PTSD are.
“Nightmares.”
She asks how often I have nightmares.
“Every night.”
She asks what other symptoms I have.
“Insomnia.”
“Do you think you stay awake because you are afraid to fall asleep?” she asks.
“Yes.”
She asks what else.
“Disassociation.”
She asks how often I’m disassociated.
“Almost all of the time.”
“Are you disassociated now?”
“Yes,” I say.
My parents have an electric fence around their garden to keep the deer out, but the deer are starving, and once they get into the garden — once they taste a tomato — they will endure the shock of the electric fence again and again to get back to that sweetness. Well-intentioned neighbors feed the deer apples to spare them the fence, but the deer can’t digest the sugar, so they starve even more.
