I think trauma is a strange word.
I was probably twelve or thirteen when I first heard it - oh yeah, it's when you get really hurt, right?
Blood and guts everywhere.
Thank goodness that doctors exist.
They can patch you up and make you whole again.
"Incoming trauma! All hands on deck!"
I think it's a strange word because, supposedly, trauma is what happened to me. But that can't be right, can it?
I imagine myself being rolled into a hospital on a stretcher, doctors and nurses taking me from paramedics.
"Eighteen year old female suffering from internal cardiovascular and neuro injuries. Speech and sight is impaired."
I'm okay. What are you talking about? All I did was love two people.
"Injuries are consistent with loving parents that don't love you in return."
Wait, what? No, my parents love me!
My dad likes to drink sometimes but at least he doesn't act unpredictable anymore when I suggest he go to bed.
Well, there was that one time he fell down the stairs. Also the time he peed on me while I was sleeping because he believed my room was the bathroom.
But my mom is okay! She likes to leave a lot and there were those times she had loud sex with strangers in the room next to mine late at night. But she's good, I swear. Even when she had chlamydia and I held her while she cried.
Even when she left and never came back.
"I need a crash cart in here! Patient is bleeding out and her blood pressure is dropping - "
I'm fine, I swear.
All I did was love them.
Wait, hang on!
What about that time my parents argued and my dad tried to choke my mom to death?
I mean...I did run away from the house, crying, to find our neighbor.
I did beg her to call the police.
But that's not trauma, right?
I just wanted them to stop yelling. I just wanted him to let her go before she stopped breathing.
That's love.
"Paddles, please! Charge to three hundred..."
"Clear!"
These doctors really don't know anything.