Living With Brain Damage & PTSD: My Journey Ahead
an essay by Daphne
Living With Brain Damage & PTSD: My Journey Ahead
an essay by Daphne
I just got back from a trip to Judkins Park. It was led by a counselor named Elan who I’m working with at an inpatient facility in Central Seattle—who has worked with me. Elan is a little stressful to me. They talk fast and interrupt me. They apologize for it, but they don’t know how to listen very well.
There was another kind man who was with us. He works in the extended stay wing, which I will be transferred to in three days.
Right now, I’m staying in a wing which has very limited options for anything to do. So, I’m planning the many things I have to take care of.
Psychiatric Diagnosis — I’ll Be Fighting a Brain Scan of Some Sort
Job Placement
Shelter/Eventually Housing Solutions
Valid State ID
Legal Help for Parental Visitation Rights
Legal Help for Bankruptcy
Dental Work
Primary Care Physician for Gender Care
Library Card
Humane Society Help for Care Animal — I Want a Cat
Legal Help for Disability Rights Case of Restorative Justice
At the moment, I’m sitting in the lobby where electronics are allowed and considering my options for being let into the intake room where I intend to make my home away from home, just off the lobby, so I can charge my computer and listen to music.
The food here is awful, but the people make up for it. They have a few books which make me want to take a trip to the library, but I’ll need to get approval for any trips out. For these first three days, the only trips I’m allowed are ones of highest medical and psychiatric importance. Unfortunately, it’s the weekend and all of the social offices are closed.
I talk to myself a lot and imagine what others might think of me, hopefully. Much of my time in the little cubicle sleeping area I’ve been assigned is spent laying down, placing hands on my heart and belly, then breathing while I imagine with hope the brighter days which might be ahead if I keep moving forward in faith and kindness.
There are a lot of old friends and family members, along with people who I reached out to before falling this low, who I hope to consider helping me out with healing of my trauma one day. Writing this has me crying. I’m anticipating people I wish to read it having an emotionally impactful recognition. Still, I know that’s not real. Most of the people who have proven to read and follow my work don’t like me.
The book options here are very limited. They have a John Grisham book, they have Hidden Figures, and I chose Master and Commander.
Right off, that book is hard to read because it talks about a maiden of a lady who is appreciated for her bubbly predisposition to take care of men in a non-sexual way. She gets a big hug from the Captain Jack Aubrey when he is assigned his ship the Sophie.
I’m going to muscle through it. Though, I think of one person always when having books open. An old friend of mine named Mary had really liked stories, and it was important to me that I hold onto that first feminine friendship. She has a restraining order on me through the superior court of Washington State for seeking her accomplice during a roughest time. I was abused, and abused some more, in different ways, then abused the plant medicine blue lotus flower. My head got really scrambled and I felt like I needed to talk and see Mary—she helps homeless women and mothers who have suffered abuse.
Everything with feminine nomenclature is triggering to me. Everything with supported feminine expression and womanly friendship is too.
I was afforded none of this after my gender transition. My attempts at finding anything remotely acceptable to my heart in terms of a place to exist as the delicate feminine creature I not only wish—but am not mentally required to be—is a largest part of my trauma.
Too bad I was psychotic. Too bad I didn’t say a thing right. Too bad she didn’t really want a trans friend who was a parent like me.
When my abandonment by family after suffering abuse in my home, and beginning to lose my head from the blue lotus usage, peaked, I was psychotic. I had been smoking weed still, and thinking I could get away with that.
On our walk I introduced myself finally to a scary looking guy who is a part of the wing I’m in now. He looked surprised to hear from me. His name is Donald and his hand was sticky. On the walk he started playing Godsmack on his phone. He took off his shirt and was doing motions like baseball pitches. Donald doesn’t talk much. The other guy was like a metal-head Seattleite, through and through, and he trailed behind.
Judkins Park was really cool. There was an African American culture festival going on that actually looked like something I would enjoy. It made me miss my ex-wife and wish we could still be friends. In the past, I had been too afraid about white guilt to be an honest presence at a place like that while feeling safe. Nowadays, I just let people reflect. And nothing is met with less reflection than two mirrors looking at each other. My smiles towards black folks aren’t met with exactly the same in response, but it’s authenticity both ways.
Queer couples around Seattle are triggering. Women walking with friends. People with homes and cars. Pretty much everything is a trigger to my PTSD. I’ve lost my whole life for being unable to do math, and having a complete lack of family and friends.
My counselors and psychiatrists all look at me funny these days. I’m like the smartest, most honest, and kindest person they meet. But I have no friends or family. And they believe me about my disability but only after I explain it really well. It’s hard to see. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. It’s more than my PTSD. My PTSD is the denial of place for people to exist in this society without the ability to do math and organize their way through bureaucracy. My PTSD is about not having one person be kind to me after suffering abuse for being a transgender woman. It’s about isolation, my own psychosis punishing me, and a complete lack of help to figure out what might make my storytelling work for others.
More than anything though, it’s about the fact I never got to be somebody’s girlfriend. And that I never will be one. And that I have lost my daughter for the way I cannot do the tasks this unfair society demands a person without family that sees them as a woman must do.
I’m a mentally disabled, mentally retarded person with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder which is passive. It’s not hormonal. It’s not bipolar. It was previously psychotic for my continued usage of marijuana until I realized that must stop.
My daughter and I were my haven for being a playful and feminine creature. My PTSD is about not getting to talk to her.
It’s complicated.
And I still need help in a way you’re not allowed to ask for: I need a friend.
Daphne’s Hometree Is A Good Idea
Daphne Garrido
(253) 316-2024
daphnejgarrido@gmail.com
My biggest dream for the future is a garden to tend, a stream to know, and a place where my daughter can visit in the Summers and when she is older.
I would also like to talk with some of my old friends again. And have a genuine friendship with a woman.
I’m going to write a story about trees too. I want to learn all the species. :)
