by Audrey T. Carroll
[Author’s note/content warning: As the title suggests, this piece does mention several kinds of trauma, including PTSD, childhood sexual abuse, medical trauma, etc. Nothing is graphic here, and these content warnings ended up becoming part of the piece itself.]
1. You pick up a glass baking dish fresh out of the oven with your bare hands. Your brain tells you it is too hot and should be released. You
a) release it immediately, even if it shatters on the floor
b) gently put it back down
c) freeze for three to four full seconds because your brain has to assess the situation in order to make the decision that will ruin everyone’s night the least [content warning: C-PTSD and generalized anxiety]
2. You have a nightmare where you lost your balance, forced to stumble from a distant cousin’s wedding into your family’s 1994 minivan. You wake up in a sweat because
a) you were accused of being drunk by your family when all you actually did was pick up a piece of key lime pie that you didn’t even get to eat [content warning: eating disorder trauma]
b) you were forced to walk this stumbling path with the man who abused you and act like everything was fine [content warning: childhood sexual abuse]
c) both of the above
3. You extensively research at least two options for diagnosis before a doctor’s appointment because
a) you just like being prepared
b) you’re anxious about whether or not they’re going to believe you or they’re going to say the symptoms are all in your head [content warning: medical trauma]
c) you’re used to fight-or-flight and if you fly, you won’t be able to get in for another appointment for at least four months [content warning: trauma; origin unclear and/or multiple]
4. You get shattering news. You
a) calmly and rationally handle the situation [don’t lie]
b) take your nightly anxiety medication early [content warning: mental health]
c) toss and turn all night until you hurt all over and wake in the morning so zombielike that coffee cannot help you / vitamin b cannot help you / water cannot help you / fresh air cannot help you / nothing can help you [content warning: gesturing vaguely to everything]
Results:
Congratulations! You are traumatized!
© Audrey T. Carroll
Audrey T. Carroll is the author of What Blooms in the Dark (ELJ Editions, 2024), Parts of Speech: A Disabled Dictionary (Alien Buddha Press, 2023), and In My Next Queer Life, I Want to Be (kith books, 2023). Her writing has appeared in Lost Balloon, CRAFT, JMWW, Bending Genres, and others. She is a bi/queer/genderqueer and disabled/chronically ill writer. She serves as a Fiction Editor for Chaotic Merge Magazine. She can be found at AudreyTCarrollWrites.weebly.com and @AudreyTCarroll on Instagram & Twitter.
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