When I was 17, I moved to Germany. I went as a foreign exchange student and spent my entire senior year of high school in a small Landkreis (similar to a county in the USA) called Heidenheim. The first week I was in Germany, I woke up every single day from nightmares involving the abuse in the home I'd just left. These nighmares were so bad that I'd be shaking and hyperventilating for a good 30 minutes after waking up. I would have to talk myself down from these panic attacks before I could even get out of bed. I remember repeating to myself "she's thousands of miles away. She can't hurt you here." on repeat until I could face my host family and start the day.
I didn't know it then, but that was my first foray into the "P" of "PTSD".
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PTSD: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
(The important part here is "post")
I didn't know I had PTSD, even with the Germany episodes, until about 10 years ago. It was actually my psychiatrist who listed it on my chart first. He didn't say anything about it to me at the time, so I didn't know until I saw a mention of it on a file I had requested. At first I didn't want to believe I had it. After all, I hadn't been to war, so surely I couldn't have PTSD, right?
But looking into it, it fit. My childhood home was a regular state of "traumatic stress" and I was "post" that situation and it definitely was a "disorder". You don't have "panic attacks" that leave you hiding in the closet with the voice of your mother screaming through your brain as you remember your head being smashed into a dresser if you don't have PTSD, apparently.
The thing I learned as I read was glaringly obvious: PTSD comes after you are safe. Or at least, after you are safer. The fact that I was able to navigate my childhood home without panic attacks and then the first week I was in Germany, they started, is actually pretty typical for PTSD. It's why soldiers who go to war can handle being in war alright and then break when they get home.
It's when we're safe that our bodies and brains are able to process what the hell just happened.
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Tonight, Tommy was using a massage gun on my glutes. He's done this pretty regularly since we got together. I have a really old injury that tore up my glutes that flares up when I sit too long or sleep wrong or drive too much. It's been in overdrive since we started the road trip on the 21 February 2026 and so tonight, he was doing the usual - start in the glutes and then either go to the low back or down the leg, depending on where the pain was referring.
Except tonight, it triggered a panic attack.
I don't give a flying rat's ass what anyone else says: people store emotions in their physical bodies.
I'm a massage therapist. The number of times I've had a client on my table break down in tears or have a panic attack or get angry or sad or otherwise dysregulated while I'm working on them is too high for it to be a coincidence. It's especially prevalent if they experienced a strong negative emotion around a time that area was injured or otherwise impaired, but I've seen it in unrelated areas as well.
With this in mind, I wasn't super surprised that my body was having an emotional response to work done on it. I was just surprised with the intensity and with the fact it threw me back into the space I just left.
It threw me back into the panic of carrying my son to the car, of hearing of his assault in the hospital, and of fleeing my country.
I immediately had Tommy stop. Sometimes you can work through emotions with massage. This was not one of those times. The level of emotions was just too high for us to deal with tonight.
Traumatic Stress is a phenomenal way to describe what I've just lived through. And during that time, my injured area was in an active flare up.
I stored the emotions of fear there. I was so damn scared. So fucking scared.
I'm very much a person who doesn't believe that we should be comparing our stories to anyone else's. You wouldn't tell someone "you don't deserve to be happy. Other people have it better than you." Why would we tell people the opposite? So I want to stress that this is not me saying my PTSD before wasn't real. It was. It very much was.
And yet, nothing I went through before compared to the level of panic of having to move my entire family internationally in order to keep my kid alive. Nothing compares to knowing that the USA is in the early stages of an anti-trans-genocide and that if we were to stay, my husband, myself, and the kids would live in constant endangerment.
So I guess it makes sense that this time being on the P side of PTSD doesn't work quite the same as it has before. I'm numb. So fucking numb. At least I am when I don't trigger the feelings by having my husband work on the problem area that is active in my body and that stored all that fear.
I have to keep myself busy almost all the time right now. I can't do anything that lets my mind wander. If I do, it immediately goes to "I don't want to do this anymore." I'm not suicidal, I want to be clear. I'm safe. But my brain cannot cope with this level of PTSD on its own. I need a therapist. I cannot get one right now. So I stay busy. I don't let myself feel things. There's so much to do anyway, so it's not a big deal. I can stay busy from the moment I get up until the moment I go to bed.
Tommy is worried about me. I don't blame him. We have different trauma patterns, or different ways to cope. He's better at expressing his emotions through the trauma where I have largely just shut down. What do you do when your once lively husband is a functional zombie? That's what he's dealing with right now. I want to be more present for him. I want to be more present for the kids. But if I let myself feel these feelings on any real level, I will break and if I break, we do not get things done that need to be done. So I keep pushing through.
M keeps complaining that there are things he wants to do that are "never the time". Tommy keeps pushing me to feel my feelings, but that also feels like it's "never the time". Except, the one thing I know about PTSD is if you don't give room for the emotions to be healed, they will break you. I need to figure out how to find the time. I need a supportive place to process. I need to move through this trauma so it doesn't stay stored in my body.
I need help.
I don't know how to get the help I need.
Once my citizenship recognition gets processed, I can sign up for health insurance through the Canadian gov (MSP) and I will be able to get the help I need. I don't have that yet. Everything has to be paid out of pocket. We can't afford out of pocket prices right now. It's more important to pay for housing and food. That's reality.
Does this actually mean I'm still in the Traumatic Stress part after all? That's what I've been wondering today. Maybe, even though the Big Thing is over, there's enough small things that are still going on through all of this that I'm not actually in the P of PTSD after all. If that's the case, should I be pushing myself to feel anything right now at all?
I don't know. I really don't.
All I know is that when I spend even a few minutes with silence, my brain latches onto the fact that I'm exhausted and don't want to keep going like this.
So I stay busy. Even at 11:30 at night, instead of sleeping, I'm writing until my meds kick in and I can fall asleep without thinking.
What else can I do?
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If you want to help me and my family get the mental health help we need while we wait for things to process enough that we can get on healthcare, you can donate to our GoFundMe or directly through my old Business PayPal. I also can be contacted through my Instagram for other payment options.