Marching season is out, but the competition is only heating up.
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Section leader applications for the next marching band season at Halston University are officially open, and percussionist Bay Rodriguez wants the role.
Bay's only competition is Ca...
noun. an eponymous note, indicating non-essential musical ornamentation.
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"POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER?"
Florence nods, sliding an informative pamphlet across her desk to me. I shake my head, still not understanding. "But I was fine growing up. I wasn't hurt or starved. Foster care was lonely, sure, but I wasn't abused."
In the brief silence that follows, I can hear how shrill my voice became.
"Trauma doesn't need to be like a lightning strike, Bay. Sometimes trauma is a single drip on a rock, eroding it over time."
I've been seeing Florence roughly every two weeks. The Halston University healthcare scheduling system won't allow me to make multiple counseling appointments, so I have to just attend each one and book immediately after. It's slow, and without band filling my days like it used to, I feel restless, walking around in skin that feels too tight.
Florence explains that traumatic events are less about what goes on 'out there' and more about 'in here' (placing a palm on her heart). People who have witnessed car crashes have come away with PTSD, apparently, and people who have survived car crashes have recovered completely. The human brain, clinging to outdated evolutionary foibles, remembers negative experiences way better than positive experiences as a way to keep us safe. Don't fall in tar pits, don't pet saber-toothed tigers. That's why children can remember instances of being yelled at in great detail, even if their parents only ever lost their temper once in eighteen years of childhood. We're a terrified species.
"You spent your entire childhood expecting loss, expecting your home situation to turn on its head," she says, "and you responded the best way you knew how, by going on the defense, avoiding attachments, and scrutinizing the people around you. Hypervigilance is a way to keep you safe."
I slide my forefinger under the cover page of the pamphlet, feeling the sawdust-y edge of the paper where it's been guillotined.
"PTSD just means that even when the stressor has been removed, your defense mechanisms don't switch off." Florence has me read the non-exhaustive list on the fourth page and 'just sit with' the symptoms I relate to. I feel like the list was written about me. Irritability, hostility, hypervigilance, self-destructive behavior, social isolation, mistrust, loneliness, emotional detachment. When I say I'm done, she nods contemplatively and reminds me, "There's no timeline on healing. You can take as much time as you need to process. The ultimate goal of PTSD treatment is to get you feeling safe and in control in your surroundings again, so we won't broach anything before you're ready."
