Explain This To Me
A Memoir
by Jay Gore
Introduction
I answer the phone. It’s my sister.
“Hi brother. Did I wake you up?”
“No, I’m laying here but I’m not asleep.”
It’s late morning sometime in May. I’m in NYC. She’s in Phoenix.
“I’m happy to hear from you.”
“I’m out of the rehab clinic.”
“They released you early?”
“No. I just left. Saul’s in the hospital. Pancreatitis.”
“Another binge?”
“Yeah.”
There’s a long pause before she continues.
“And Stephen is in the hospital, too.”
“What - why?”
“The police tackled him and cracked his skull.”
“Oh my god.”
“I’m so…tired…”
My sister’s voice starts to crack as she repeats herself.
“I’m just so tired.”
“I know. I understand.”
I do. Still, this is a lot to process.
“I need to get a coffee.”
“Okay. Call me back. I’ll be at the hospital all day.”
I make a coffee and call her back, but the call goes to voice mail.
Saul is my sister’s boyfriend. He’s spent more than half of his life in prison. Stephen is my nephew. His father died of an overdose when Stephen was three months old and left my sister a widow. Now Stephen struggles with addiction just like both of his parents.
My sister has encouraged me to tell you our story and she’s agreed to help. We haven’t seen each other in person for many years but we speak on the phone almost daily. Where my memory fails, hers flourishes. Together through these phone calls that we’ve both come to rely on, we help each other understand our past and current traumas.
Tell Me That I’m White
Let me begin by sharing that I have PTSD. Complex PTSD to be specific. There are symptoms that impact me more acutely than others. For example, memory loss. This symptom has plagued me my entire life.
I was not officially diagnosed until I began attending therapy on a regular basis when I turned thirty. Until that point, I just thought I was dumb. I didn’t understand that I was living with generational trauma that was hardwired into my DNA and then reinforced by my childhood experiences.
While I’ve worked diligently for many years now to manage my PTSD, it’s something I’ve come to accept that I’ll carry with me for a lifetime. I’ve also come to accept that I am not like others who don’t have it. Simple things that others might take for granted can bring me great discomfort and even physical pain or fatigue. I don’t like surprises, for example, not because I’m a curmudgeon but because my senses are so continually piqued that a surprise - even a good one like a surprise birthday party - can register as danger and trigger my adrenaline and cortisol instead of giving me a positive dose of dopamine and serotonin. For me, growing up, there were very few good surprises that I can remember.
One thing I can remember is that my blond hair as a child was celebrated - almost revered. My father - the “gringo” who got my mom pregnant when she was sixteen and he was seventeen - had blond hair. I knew somehow it was due to the “whiteness” I inherited from him that I was treated special. But the compliments about my hair and light skin never made me feel good. It made me feel disconnected from all the people around me who were darker in complexion.
Yet they were my family. They were the people I loved.
And although my father left when I was two and I only saw him a few times a year after that, I looked like him, and I missed him even though I didn’t know him.
There is a deep pain and disassociation I experience and can’t quite describe when people ask me what ethnicity I am. I’ve learned to deal with it as best I can over the years. But I want to feel whole and want to go home and while I feel more whole now than I ever have – a deep spiritual practice has filled that “god-sized” hole inside of me – I still don’t know where home is.
Ultimately, I know I am white. And I also know I am not.
This, I fear, is the legacy of a people - my people - who were running from a genocide and desperately seeking to prove that they were white enough to survive.
Trigger Warning
“Stephen checked himself back into rehab today.”
“Oh good.”
“Being at this house is triggering me.”
“Why?
“There’s a bunch of foil everywhere. Reminds me of the burn on my hand.”
“Burn? From what?
“Smoking a tray - hot liquid rolled off the tray and burned my hand and it’s now blistered.”
“When?”
“The other day. I drove home and ran cold water on it - burned for hours throbbing off and on.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“Yeah, my legs have burn marks from the same thing.”
“Did you go to the doctor?”
“No. I’ll be alright. But hey, I think I figured something out.”
“What?”
“This new clinic that Stephen checked into, they told me that he can’t take Suboxone until he’s out of detox or it will cause precipitated withdrawals which are worse than regular withdrawals.”
“What does that mean?”
“I think the other clinic started giving us Suboxone before we were out of detox and that’s why our withdrawals were so bad. That’s why we both checked out early.”
“Hmm. Do you think they did that on purpose?”
“Yeah. I don’t trust that other clinic.”
“They probably get paid for moving people through detox quickly.”
“Right. The clinic he’s at now is the good one in Scottsdale where I went the first time, remember?”
“I’m glad he was able to get into the good one.”
“Yeah. Before, they started giving me Phenobarbital cuz I was going through symptoms for forty-eight hours until I could go on Suboxone.”
“What does Phenobarbital do?”
“It’s the strongest benzo out there.”
“I see.”
“And powder is more potent than pills and takes longer to detox. So that’s why I choose pills before I check myself in.”
“What about Stephen?
“He had a bunch of pills and had to smoke them all before checking in. He sold the 11 that were left.”
“After detox, they’ll put him on Suboxone?”
“Yeah. Suboxone three times a day. But it rots teeth. I’m missing most of my teeth inside. I’m embarrassed.”
“Don’t be embarrassed.
“I want them to pull my teeth and give me dentures.”
“Maybe when you find a new job with better insurance.”
“And I want them to put me on Sublocade instead of Suboxone.”
“What’s the difference?”
“It’s just a shot in the stomach once a month.”
“That would be better.”
“Yeah. But I’d rather not be on anything.”
She chuckles.
“Ya know?”"
I know, sister, I know.