I walk into the office, sit, and face my therapist. The books behind her chair are neatly arranged in their same places. We exchange our familiar greetings. I try to speak.
Her face fades, and I see pink water dancing on broad palm leaves. Giggles from small children echo. I hear my wily brother. He sings and dances to Abuela’s songs. Sometimes, from the water, green caterpillars peek, shyly telling me they see me. My brother goes silent. He doesn’t want to look at me, not really.
They are yelling—well, just her. And he is unmoved.
My therapist asks, “How can I join you?”
My brother is gone. I don’t remember my face or eyes without him, or my name. It is erased. It is me and the green caterpillar.
I look up.
Snap! Bang! Zoom!
I read from my research and studies to my therapist, “Dissociation…a somatic experience of being separated from the body, where trauma has caused a chasm in the brain and the split results in a form of survival, a brilliant form some would say, but it is a split nonetheless. It allows one part of the mind to survive and another part of the mind to activate, then engage the traumatic circumstance or trigger.” Really, they are saying that Latinas specifically have more intrusive forms of PTSD or Complex PTSD so as to engage the world and survive, but is that how it really started?
I go on to say, “I have to fight for myself. I don’t believe that anybody feels the way I do about talking or dissociative negotiations that invite me in and out of the backseat of my parent’s car.”
My therapist nods. She understands.
Our car buzzes through the curves of the Sierra Nevada mountains. My brother sits, enchanted by random noises, inventing ways to interrupt the fighting. I pull out my book on Vietnam and stare at the “F word” plainly written. They don’t see me and don’t care.
“It looks like you are watching a movie. Is there a way I can join you?” my therapist asks.
I look up. Skeptical. “I don’t know,” I reply.
She nods, without pressure.
I then say, “It’s constant sadness, to the point where I don’t know if it’s sadness, depression, or the cost of assimilation. I am sitting here to process memory. I can’t speak for hours of our sessions. My angst begins with a system that demands I “get what’s inside out” verbally. So, I grind my teeth.”
In speaking the feelings trapped inside of me, my body halts. Fires light across the bay from her office. I challenge myself to make good use of our work. She sighs, huffs, arm stiffens. We both look out the window. Gray skies cloud the story, pushing it out of the room, the entire building, actually. The floating is not right. It is almost gone, demonized and categorized by other professionals.
Mariposa…mariposa…mariposa, I imagine.
I drift. The room blurs.
“Can you feel your feet? The ground?” She asks.
My brother and I jump out of the car. Hopping in the arms of our grandparents, we go inside silently. Scars of wars are contained in our skinny bodies. Each war keeps my parents separate enough and complicit enough in their respective territories. I wander through our reality as my dad’s rigid demeanor stonewalls Mom and all of her feelings every day.
“Who will find me?” I say out loud.
My therapist hums, her eyes soft.
Water bubbles, brims, spills down my belly onto the floor of the forest. They say tears wash the soul, yet I am dirtier the more they fall. Poison empties from me. Sadness and bitter rage tumble onto dead branches. I fly from my body and sense there is no help for me, not now. Abuela knows. She is gone.
“Can you feel your toes? What kinds of socks are you wearing?” my therapist asks.
My internal negotiations with dissociation are furious.
I call Abuela back, and we smile at one another. The birds call back their advice to us—a slow, careful movement, held by tenuous muscle memory. It’s new for me and old for her, carved into her biceps, triceps, the sinews of her shoulders. My body, mind, and soul experience the distance for only minutes, not hours. We see souls and spirits dancing among us. We aren’t alone. No, these aren’t ataque de nervios, but nervios en vuelta.
“Can you hear me?” she prods.
I look up and reply, “I am hopeful and despondent. I want to tell you I am okay, that there is hope, yet I realize I am trapped inside my head.”
Don’t do that. Don’t dream that. Don’t wish that,” my brother urges, his eyes open, his mouth wide.
“Will you be here with me?” I ask him. “I’m scared.”
My therapist smiles at me. It is 8:49 a.m., and our session ends.
“See you Wednesday?” she inquires.
“Yes, I’ll see you Wednesday,” I respond, shutting the door.
Danielle S. Castillejo grew up in the swirl of a mixed identity, with a German father and a Mexican mother. With her four children in school full time, she applied to graduate school at The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology. Before her second year of graduate school, she was invited to explore her story through a Story Workshop at The Allender Center. She went on to complete Levels 1 and 2 of the Certificate in Narrative Focused Trauma Care and the Externship. Since our culture has experienced such an intense ripping and cultural identity crisis, Danielle addresses internalized racism and its effects personally, in her family, and in her community. She encourages other healing practitioners to do the same. Danielle began this process with her MA in Counseling Psychology and studies at The Allender Center. Danielle loves the anticipation of spring and summer in the Pacific Northwest, with the return of long days and sunlight absent in the dark winters. You can easily find Danielle out on a trail or working in her yard. You can also find her online at www.daniellescastillejo.com.
Thank you, Danielle. This is a holy piece. What a sacred invitation to join you.