http://goo.gl/7AoSwE
I bought the cane. I bought wrist guards and knee supports, too. I’d been on social assistance for nearly a decade. They should’ve reimbursed me for these purchases, but I dropped the receipt on the floor and went to bed. I woke up with yet another migraine and, too weak and slow to get to the bathroom, I rolled over and puked on the receipt. I imagined bringing it to the disability office anyway, a small form of revenge, a demand to see my illness and honor it. But it felt futile—I knew they wouldn’t see me. I was crazy and I was in pain. I’d been told directly and indirectly that I was making it up, exaggerating. I wasn’t sick, I was lazy. I didn’t need support, I was manipulative and attention-seeking.
A few months later, a tarot reader warned me of the danger of holding my cane as a sword and shield. She wanted it to be my wand. She lived with chronic illness, too, and had been through a similar process: a mysterious illness, no cause or treatment known, no name fully agreed upon; a series of symptoms, diagnoses, tests, baffled doctors. Lost time stuck in bed; mistaken for hungover or drunk in public. She told me not to disguise my pain, nor pretend to be less sick to appease others.
I have complex trauma. Complex trauma, or c-PTSD, is a response to prolonged, repetitive, and cumulative trauma. Folks often develop complex trauma as a response to childhood abuse or neglect, poverty, relentless invalidation, interpersonal harm and intergenerational trauma, and systemic oppression.
Common symptoms include but are not limited to: unstable or fragmented sense of self; dissociation; emotional dysregulation and self-destructive behaviours; chronic feelings of shame, guilt, and worthlessness; difficulty trusting others or oneself; volatile and inconsistent relationships and friendships; and suicidal ideation. Many folks with complex trauma, like myself, also develop severe and debilitating illnesses, such as fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, multiple chemical sensitivities, and chronic migraines.
Many traumatized queers also struggle with addiction and alcoholism (I’m currently five years sober, and it has not been easy). Other diagnoses under the umbrella of complex trauma are borderline personality disorder, dissociative identity disorder, and developmental trauma disorder.