Elis de Guerre

When my therapist told me in 2012 that I presented with symptoms of PTSD, I was relieved, but also in disbelief.

I wanted to keep people at a distance. I wanted sympathy and validation. I believed that I was inherently unworthy. However, lately, I’ve begun to change my mind — or rather, it’s started to change on its own.

The Kinsey Scale test labeled me a 2, or, "predominately heterosexual, but more than incidentally homosexual," one notch above "equally heterosexual and homosexual."

In the past four months, I’ve undergone a veritable dating hurricane. I ran out on my 10-month-old marriage in August. I texted my decision and departure to my closest friends, live-tweeted my flight from upstate New York to the New Hampshire seacoast, and have written extensively and publicly about separation, my estranged husband, and the terrors of emotional pain ever since.

Whatever you choose to call Trump’s somewhat less-than-presidential-much-less-good words and actions, today is the day to celebrate them by mocking them online. Thankfully (?) Trump has given us plenty of material to work with.

I’m a person who needs to know the facts. I bring a notebook with me to every doctor’s appointment. I record important meetings. The research list for my memoir is pages long. Why should pregnancy be any different? And so the research began.

Two months ago, I filed for disability for unmedicated bipolar disorder. I had spent weeks dangling from tiring hands over a spiky precipice – or so it seemed. There were days of crying at my desk, days of inexplicable panic attacks in the face of a normal workload.

I am nine months into marriage and already have regrets. I do not regret my choice of partner, or our choice to get married, but do regret who I was prior to marriage and what I did (or didn’t do) when I was single.

I never wanted children. When other little girls were playing with dolls, I played with stuffed animals. Even when I played house, my home was filled with plush puppies.

If you see me with my partner, you’ll more than likely think that I’m a straight girl in a heterosexual relationship — and there’s nothing I hate more. Being with a man seems to negate my sexuality, rendering it secret or private when I’m anything but.