Pgh Lesbian Correspondents

Today, August 27, 2024, marks one year since I was wrongly detained for an involuntary commitment (302), held against my will for four or five hours, then discharged to find the lock to my home had been changed.

Each of these claims is a fact. The date, the invalid 302 paperwork, the time spent at the emergency room without my consent, and the changing of the locks. “Why” these things happened is the part where I still need information.

I woke up this morning in my windowless bedroom and the date hits me like a truck. I know the probability it will happen again is very low, but I’m living proof of the possibility it would happen.

I got ready for the day and went downstairs. I stared at the front door, remembering an almost disembodied hand unlocking the door and two police officers strolling into my home. I knew immediately what was happening, something I wrote about before.

This is not about before, this is about what I experienced today. It is PTSD from a highly traumatic series of events, PTSD that flows into my existing Complex Trauma Disorder like a feeder creek into a river.

Today, I’ve been watching that door all day. I saw on the same couch where I could see out the front windows. Without exception, I scrutinized every sound – cars, people talking, mail slots clanging.

I was waiting for them to come, I still am at 2 PM in the afternoon.

I repeat the phone numbers I now have memorized. My therapist, psych nurse, and two lawyers know. They surely know the probability v possibility, but because they are trauma informed – they understand the need to reassure me.

I remind myself over and over that if it happened again, I could endure it. I just need to reach one person on my list to trigger a plan to notify my lawyers and therapist and support network. I just need to be compliant, a modal mental health patient, to get extra blankets. I just need to eat whatever is served to keep my strength up and also be a modal mental health patient. I need to answer questions appropriately. I need to notify the hospital of my federal lawsuit in case that’s a factor in treatment (they can look it up.) Make eye contact, fold my hands together so my tremor doesn’t appear to be nerves, don’t interrupt.

Tell the truth. Offer nothing more. Wait for the helpers.

This plan rolls through my mind all day. This day is wasted, sacrificed to my fear and anxiety about what has happened. My accomplishment today was unloading the dishwasher and washing the pet dishes. Slightly atypical twist within a rote task I handle most every day.

I could go upstairs to my windowless bedroom and free myself of the thousand startles. Staying downstairs isn’t defiance, it is survival. I need to know if they are coming for me. I’m not going to run nor resist. But it is bad enough the living room is a space of horrors for me, I don’t want to do that to my bedroom.

Also, the cats. I need to be mindful to tell anyone who enters the house about the cats. I won’t add a runaway cat to my load.

I know they are not coming, but I also know that they could. Anytime, any minute. I am totally and permanently disabled due to my mental health. I am totally and permanently vulnerable due to my disability. I must always be the model patient, saving my defiance and resistance for the courtroom.

You may notice that my tense switches in this post. That’s a trauma response. What happened a year ago is real to me right now. And it is also historical. I know this, I’m not confused or forgetful. But I am stuck in this terrible place I don’t deserve to occupy. No one should be in this place. No one should feel this scared. No one.

I also transpose ‘model patient’ with ‘modal patient.’ Care to guess why?

You can help me by supporting my legal fund. I have two, possibly three legal actions. They are not cheap and I need to raise another $5,000. No one has offered to organize a benefit for me. No one can write me a $5,000 check. Some people have hurled accusations that I’m profiting from my trauma. Wow.

However, I understand legal precedents and hope that my federal civil rights case will actually protect someone from going through this again. I already go through it again enough for all of us.

• GoFundMe bit.ly/HelpLGBTQBlogger
• Venmo @Pghlesbian
• Paypal.me/Pghlesbian
• CashApp $Pghlesbian
• Patreon @Pghlesbian