My impulse to appease dictates everything…even my dietary choices — Three years ago, Rose*, also known as the best therapist ever, gave me a copy of Melody Beattie’s The Language of Letting Go. “It’s not because you’re codependent,” she insisted, always one step ahead of my overthinking, “but I think it’ll help with your complex PTSD.” It was a purple…

Life when the floor is the ceiling — This is the beginning of the end, I said what I meant and I meant what I said. As I was lying in bed, I felt alone, even more alone than I do on solo nights when I hug myself and go to sleep. …

The only rule is insanity — According to 23 and Me, I should know how to play chess. Of course, that’s not what the app actually said, but I am, in fact, Indian, and Indians are supposed to be able to play chess. That’s one stereotype. The best I can do is checkers. What a shame. …

In the wake of yet another sexual assault, I’m struggling to let go — “I should be used to this,” I told my friend Kelly. The two of us were sitting in a car meant for a family of at least eight. I laughed, just thinking about it. I laughed at everything she said. I couldn’t stop. In Kelly’s car, I giggled. I cackled…

Dissociation is my refuge — The world is a dangerous place, and I want a gun. I suppose I could end my story here, the way I do in casual conversation; six letters and a perfectly placed apostrophe stop further questions in their tracks. I’m fine. I tack on a “thanks for asking” if I’m…

I Don’t Want to Lay My Weapons Down — I am from the jungle. Of course, it’s not really the jungle anymore, and I’m not even really from there, but a man who considered himself Wise Once said that I am what my father is. …

Learning to embrace former triggers — I have eggs in my refrigerator. For the first time in over two years, I have eggs I intend to use in my refrigerator. I open the door, look at the eggs for a fleeting moment, then close the door again, but I will use the eggs. I promise to…

And I’ll continue to do so — When I was a kid, I thought love was a bad word. That, along with ‘stupid’ and ‘yucky.’ I remember the day my little sister, only two years old at the time, proclaimed that I was yucky. That didn’t go over well. Neither did the time I was trying to…

Rest easy — Sometimes, a story is the toothpaste still left in the tube when my little sister proclaims that it’s empty. Other times, it is the first rain of the season, the kind that heals the cracks in the dry earth like much-needed Vaseline for the chapped lips of a middle school…