{"id":2672,"date":"2026-08-13T06:47:37","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T10:47:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/?p=2672"},"modified":"2026-08-13T06:47:37","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T10:47:37","slug":"new-england-winter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/new-england-winter\/","title":{"rendered":"New England Winter"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/span>The cold windy air hits my skin and suddenly the stories I tell of my past aren\u2019t just\u00a0 stories. They aren\u2019t something I use to entertain a crowd. They aren\u2019t something I feel\u00a0 stronger for. Not something from long ago. They were real, are real. Oh they feel so real.\u00a0 Almost like I died and my memories are replaying on film from those ancient film\u00a0 recorders. A mosaic of how I became how I am. I remember how I was, how they were.\u00a0 The good, the bad, the grey. I feel everything I did back then. The pain, sorrow,\u00a0 confusion, anger, nostalgia, joy. It all rushes back to me and I\u2019m in that house, in that\u00a0 room. In the cold of a New England winter.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>In the old house of my childhood under three blankets to keep warm. At the vacation\u00a0 rentals hiding in different locked closets. My house had a bathroom without a lock and at\u00a0 2am, was the safest place. My room wasn\u2019t safe neither was my writing. My mind wasn’t\u00a0 a safe space either, my dreams as well. I search for fond memories only to come up\u00a0 empty handed. I know they are in there somewhere. Maybe if I focus I can find a positive\u00a0 that’s not tainted by darkness. Even in childhood every nice memory was tainted. Nothing\u00a0 was ever just good. I felt like nothing could ever be just good, my mind, my life,\u00a0 wouldn\u2019t allow it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>My disorder was described to me at the age of six by my mother. She said you have\u00a0 PTSD, \u201cit\u2019s when you see or smell something\u201d She had described only my symptoms not\u00a0 my disorder. She unknowingly described triggers. I know those well. I heard the word\u00a0 PTSD but was unaware of what it stood for. I knew I wasn\u2019t like other children but I\u00a0 didn\u2019t understand why. I came to the conclusion this was because of things I’d endured. I\u00a0 was told later on that people experienced it after going to war. I couldn\u2019t understand why\u00a0 I, a child, would have something like that.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>When I broke down in the cafeteria in middle school, girls comforted me. They\u00a0 asked what was wrong and all I could say was I have a PTSD. They didn\u2019t know what I\u00a0 meant and neither did I. A coworker recently asked me a similar question. He said I\u00a0 looked upset. All I could respond with was, \u201cnothing important happened.\u201d he also\u00a0 wouldn\u2019t understand. Something important had happened. A lot of important things\u00a0 happened but it was all technically in the past. It didn\u2019t feel like it was over a decade ago.\u00a0 You can explain as much as you’d like but I find if you’ve never experienced this you will never fully comprehend the feeling.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>I know when it comes. I stare at the wall like a deer in headlights. People may be\u00a0 speaking but I can\u2019t hear them. I look past them like they’re ghosts. I feel paralyzed\u00a0 unable to move or speak. I\u2019m trapped. As a kid my parents got scared seeing me just\u00a0 staring. They didn\u2019t understand why I did that and neither did I. Then the images and\u00a0 voices come. I\u2019m forced to be back there regardless of if I\u2019m in class or at work. These\u00a0 episodes are predictable. I\u2019ve learned to not ruminate. I shake my head once I regain\u00a0 movement and my head voice shouts STOP. I\u2019m attempting to cleanse my mind of the\u00a0 tainted memories.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>The cold makes everything worse. Once the sun stops shining and the warmth is\u00a0 gone I want to be gone too. As soon as autumn fades into winter I am six in the back of\u00a0 my mothers car. I am eight muffling sobs under my covers. I am twelve on my bathroom\u00a0 floor. I am fifteen hiding in a vacation rental closet. In reality I\u2019m twenty and the old big\u00a0 cold house is so far away. I have a lock in my bathroom now and it\u2019s just a bathroom. My\u00a0 closet is full of everything I love and my home is a safe space. There\u2019s no need to find\u00a0 one. I am one, I\u2019ve created one. I sit in front of my small space heater and wait for the\u00a0 wind to pass. It always does.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0The cold windy air hits my skin and suddenly the stories I tell of my past aren\u2019t just\u00a0 stories. They aren\u2019t something I use to entertain a crowd. They aren\u2019t something I feel\u00a0 stronger for. Not something from long ago. They were real, are real. Oh they feel so real.\u00a0 Almost like I died and … Continue reading New England Winter<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4227,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6855],"tags":[],"issue":[6885],"class_list":["post-2672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-fiction","issue-6885"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-22 15:19:24","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4227"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2672"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2675,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2672\/revisions\/2675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2672"},{"taxonomy":"issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue?post=2672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}