Empathy is not a tone of voice. Empathy is not a mask that can be pulled on and off. Empathy is neither vapid nor intrusive. Empathy is a way of life, porous like a sieve. Your body is full of holes, and instead of covering and patching the holes, you invite others into the wounds, you allow the eddies and the flows that trap and drown other people to stream into you, through you. In this way, you sense, you feel, you begin to think, indeed, to live, differently.

Should I value my life if no one else does? It is a lonely question. A question I have returned to repeatedly, as I, for example, severed ties with my family of origin, severed ties with my workplace of two decades, continue to sever ties with people and with institutions who were supposed to value my life but clearly do not. It is lonely, carrying my life and its value in my arms, like a herder with a single sheep.

The knots that have tied me for the last several years have been undone. Trauma recovery. A brand new day. Goodbye to the liars, the bullies, the bastards, the frigid maidens, the mechanical sadists. I feel like grabbing the hand of Diana Ross and singing with her, “Ease On Down the Road,” from The Wiz. I feel like rejoicing with the dancers of Louis Johnson’s extraordinary Liberation Ballet in the 1978 film to the tune of Luther Vandross’ “A Brand New Day.”

It was an unfortunate coincidence that I went to the desert when I was feeling abandoned and empty, as the roots of the word “desert” indicate. In some Indigenous languages, “desert” means bright, shining place, but also a place of thirst. I thirsted for something and did not find it. The plants and mammals, the birds and insects, seemed barbed for self-defense. The sun was relentless. The property where I was staying was at a remove from other lives and other liveliness. Th

Winter might be the time for holiday caroling, but quite different sounds emerge from my body at this time of year. As the ice and snow bombard western Canada, an ordinary car ride with my spouse becomes an exercise in terror. The moment I find myself freezing in the passenger seat any unprocessed or semi-processed trauma comes zooming out of my nervous system like an army of flying monkeys. While I cannot purge trauma from my life experience, I can name it, recognize it, ove

I would like to tear certain traumatic memories out of my brain, like old garments on fire, and stamp on them until the burning and the sensation and the repetition of burning is extinguished. But trauma doesn’t work that way. The offences I can’t forgive or forget are nestled like baby reptiles in my blood, my nerves, my bones, my flesh. Recent research suggests why defeating traumatic memories is so difficult.

Grappling with PTSD from emotional and medical trauma, I search for support groups in my community but find none. Instead I bond with characters from outer space. I have followed the character of La’an Noonien Singh on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds with interest, respect, and recognition. And La’an is not alone in being a survivor of trauma on the Enterprise. If only respect and understanding for trauma survivors arrived on Planet Earth, now, and not in a fantasy future.

Recovering from trauma, I use hatred not as a vehicle for hurting others, but as a vehicle for changing myself, for changing the world. Eventually, hatred will be displaced by joy and curiosity.

I keep living into the same answer. It is the same answer because it is the same question. I give people millions of chances. I don’t start from cynicism. I make allowances for mistakes, fatigue, and frailty. And still I am disappointed. I am hurt, ignored, mistreated, or misunderstood. Time after time, I reach the same conclusion of midnight desperation: No More.

Invincibility. It doesn’t exist among humans, but I love invincibility as masquerade, as defensive strategy in cancer and trauma...

There are many ways to kill people without physical violence. All it takes is obedience. A willingness not to think or care. A vulnerable person might cringe as the faces harden, and the backs turn into impenetrable walls. The sanctuary turns into a collapsing house of cards, where someone is always going to end up crushed at the bottom. I offer this writing as an incendiary and hope that the flames give warmth and light to those looking for relief from the cold and the dark

Perhaps I shouldn’t have had the massage. It had been almost two years since a professional had touched me in a compassionate, and not a clinical, way. My chemotherapy for breast cancer had finished, and I was trying to reconnect with my body and find some physical relief. My cancer recovery had begun. But massage releases both the angels and the demons within.

We are still mired in disease-centred care. As to being seen as a whole human in the healthcare system, you are out of luck.

Rule #1 and #1000: Never try to cheer up a cancer patient. Is it really so hard? Letting others be themselves?

Having long been gaslighted by authority figures, I tend to gaslight myself, but I am done. Believing myself is healing, is health.

I didn’t have a PTSD episode while awaiting my colonoscopy to annoy my gastroenterologist, but annoyed he was. He is a busy, important...

A survivor of cancer and childhood abuse explains how empathy and defense have become her superpowers, sprung from scarcity.

What does trauma look like? Appearances can be deceiving, as adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are common and can happen to anyone.

A survivor of multiple cancers reflects on her relationship with panic, how PTSD has shaped her life and her character.

Medicine as transaction. I suppose I am not suited for it. But I ask myself, what are these startling realities calling me to do?