¡Hola Papi!: How to Come Out in a Walmart Parking Lot and Other Life Lessons

by John Paul Brammer

Trauma lives in the body long after the events that birthed it go away. It builds a home for itself in our memories, where it asserts itself as reality: I was treated this way because there is something wrong with me, and if I am to protect myself, then I must carry a healthy, vigilant sense of paranoia with me at all times. Never again, it says.