PTSD, Resistance, and Hope in a Pandemic
Having PTSD is not something that I meant to become a part of my identity. It is not the center of who I am, but a visitor that is with me every day. I call it a visitor because I let it in the door these days. It can stay for coffee as long as it behaves. For a long time, I kept my trauma locked away, existing in a partially catatonic state. When my emotions felt too overpowering, I would go numb, either by an intentional lack of emotional availability to the people who I love and who love me, or with the help of a bottle. I am still unaware of whether this was something I was doing consciously or not—most likely it was both. I would check myself into a hospital or find myself in the ICU, tubes protruding from a vein in my arm. I thought that I was not competent enough to face the outside world, and so I tried to escape it. After an improper diagnosis by a medical professional who hardly spent more than thirty minutes with me, I folded into myself and ignored my trauma, which I later found out was the center of my illness. The abuse I endured is where the darkest parts of me lie—these parts of myself were not something I asked for and yet they were given to me by someone who took my sanity in exchange. It was a long time before I did not blame myself for what happened. I routinely remind myself that it was not the fault of my own or anything that exists within me, but of the person, or rather, people who abused me.
Every day at 7pm …, my neighbors clap for the health care workers, and I think of my roommate, a hospital employee, and call to her to listen to the erupting music on the street as I move into Warrior One. I think I'll remember this uproar of applause, years later…
Living with PTSD during the coronavirus pandemic in New York City—a place that has been a deeply affected casualty of the COVID-19 virus—has been extremely difficult. The way I have survived the past few years since I re-entered the world as a “functioning” person is by keeping busy. I go to therapy, take care of myself, eat well, and stomp the pavement so hard that my pain is relatable to a noisy neighbor, intermittently interrupting me with their music or shouting matches, rather than an all-encompassing part of myself that sits with me all day. When we had been asked to stay inside for an indefinite duration, I found myself washing the dishes and thinking of my trauma, falling asleep late and for short stretches of time. When I did sleep, there were nightmares. I told myself to write it out, and I have, but placing the words on the page sometimes makes me feel bad because I cannot leave to complete the goals that I tell myself I will achieve to make it better. Facetiming with my therapist has been helpful and I try to see my friends, if only through a Zoom screen. I attend the virtual yoga classes of the studios from the various neighborhoods I have lived in as if I am there—In my mind, I will leave class and head to the doughnut shop on the corner of Bushwick Avenue or walk down the line of brownstones in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, or I will close the computer screen and think of these places, as if they only exist in the past. Every day at 7pm when I am usually practicing Vinyasa, my neighbors clap for the health care workers, and I think of my roommate, a hospital employee, and call to her to listen to the erupting music on the street as I move into Warrior One. I think I'll remember this uproar of applause, years later, this memory of the dimming light through my bedroom window moving in with the damp air. I walk through Jackie Robinson Park, my mask warm against my cheeks, and look at the greenery as if it were painted, unreal—a gallery for those who choose to look up from their phones. My partner hugs me and I feel the warmth of his body nurturing my pain as if his touch is a medication. It will dull the ache but I will have to face the trauma myself to make it better. I feel that the best way to soothe the crisis within myself is to talk about it.
There is an administration who won’t flinch in pain…if we die…
It is important to acknowledge that we are living during, as many have called it, an “unprecedented” time. There are no laws in place to reasonably handle this pandemic. There is an administration who won’t flinch in pain—at least until the camera moves from their faces—if we die since it has become very clear through constant anti-mask propaganda and lack of accountability that we are merely tools to bolster the economy. Rather than supporting and feeding the people who are unemployed for no other reason than a faulty economic system that has proven to be unsustainable during an international health crisis, they’ll insist that it’s time to pull up the bootstraps we can no longer lift, due to exhaustion and lost dreams. Our healthcare system is flawed and cannot handle the volume of the patients the virus plagues. The local officials, including the improperly celebrated Governor Cuomo, and the constantly remorseful, but overwhelmingly useless Bill de Blasio, will fund a police force that murders innocent people (say his name: ERIC GARNER, and every other individual who can no longer speak for themselves), pretend to move funds from these militant tools of terror—that have already proven to be dangerous to local New York City residents—and then claim that there is absolutely no more funding to help the homeless who have lived on these streets for years, to the fund public education system that is largely made up of people of color, to give aid to the people who have lost their livelihoods from a situation that was beyond their control. Those who survive the pandemic will have trouble paying their bills which will translate into having trouble surviving. During this time, I think back to a debt collector who harassed me by writing to and calling my employer for an unpaid hospital bill (one that was improperly sent as the medical biller never contacted my insurance) from the few days I spent in the ICU after my final suicide attempt. I cannot express how sorry I feel for those who will have to deal with these impatient sharks in the aftermath of this medical catastrophe and how disgusted I am to live in a country that boasts freedom while using its citizens as instruments for revenue and victims of control. I take a step back from my mat and breathe. My Warrior One moves into the streets to protest for the lives of my neighbors.As we march through the streets of Harlem, I see the elderly cheering from their fire escapes. Longtime residents come into the streets with us to talk about how police brutality and racism within this country has affected their entire lives. As we flood the West Side Highway, our masks tight against our faces like armor, those blocked in traffic leave their cars to cheer under the beating sun. The sun does not wield its hot fists like the police who come to break up our protest. We watch as they lie on television about how they are simply protecting the public and the leaders of our country pump out laws to pad the pockets of the prison-industrial complex.
The thoughts we have during this time are unprecedented, as well as the actions we take to soothe them. Usually during episodes of flashback or panic attacks we would lean on others for support, take comfort in human touch, talk through our problems with those who are standing a little steadier than we are at the moment. But at this time, we are all a bit off balance and if the one whose shoulder we would usually lean on is not physically there, it is normal to feel as if we are missing something. It is okay to tell your body that you cannot complete every task as you normally would. It is okay if you are having trouble sleeping—or perhaps it is not okay at that very moment, but it will be okay when the anxiety subsides, and it will. This feeling is only temporary. I turn on the tea pot and find calm in the warm water as it slides down my throat, while I contemplate our collective loss. It is okay to feel grief if you have lost someone and you might feel it more now, even for someone from the past, without the distraction of the moving parts of your regular life. It is natural to feel that our lives will not be the same as they were before. I am almost certain that, for all of us, our lives will be forever altered. But it does not mean that we must stop healing now, because the little things in our days—connecting with friends, appreciating our own personal worlds, hearing a cheer for hope from the street and using the pavement as a support for our stomping, angry feet—are all parts of our journey to finally finding peace—and justice.
