Diversity Rules Magazine

3 Diversity Rules Magazine August 2015 David-Elijah Nah- mod is a film crit- ic and reporter in San Francisco. His articles ap- pear regularly in The Bay Area Reporter and SF Weekly. You can also find him on Facebook and Twitter. David developed Post Traumatic Syndrome Disor- der (PTSD) after surviving gay conversion therapy as a child and has found that many in the LGBT community suffer from severe, often untreated emotional disorders due to the extreme anti-gay traumas they endured. This column chronicles his journey. "If you go, I'll understand leave just enough love to fill up my hand........" -- Rod McKuen "His name is Russell," I was told by the vet in New York City. "No it's not," I said. "It's Charlie." And so I took a very frightened kitty home from the vet's office who had rescued him from the street in the Upper East Side Manhattan neighborhood where I lived during the late 1990s. Until he died on December 4, 2014, Charlie was my closest friend, my family. e first few months were touch and go. Charlie had been aban- doned, and had obviously been abused. He was frightened and didn't trust me at first. He hissed at me. Soon my hands were cov- ered in scabs from his almost constant biting and scratching. Friends advised me to give him up because he was hurting me. I'm ashamed to admit that I actually considered it. ank God I came to my senses and kept the little guy. After about six months with me, Charlie began to calm down--I guess he realized that I wasn't going to beat him, and besides, I was his food source! One night I was lying on the couch, watching TV. Charlie casu- ally strolled over and gently lay across my tummy. As he purred gently, I looked down upon him and fell hopelessly in love. We were soulmates from that day forward. In 1999 I became addicted to the daytime soap opera Passions, and was quite amused by a core family on the show who carried the unlikely moniker of Lopez- Fitzgerald. I laughed out loud the first time I heard the name because it sounded so over the top. On that day my kitty's full name became Charlie Lopez Fitzgerald- -I had his medical records altered to reflect his modi- fied name. When I moved back to California in 2003, Charlie sat quietly on the back seat of my rental car. He was amaz- ingly well behaved during the five day journey, snug- gling with me each night in motel rooms. He spent the rest of his life, 11 years, in the apartment where I still live. Sometimes when I went out he would get angry, wrap- ping his paws around my ankles. He didn't want me to leave. When I returned home he would greet me joyously, often jumping up into my arms. When I sat at my desk writing stories, Charlie would sit on the window sill behind me. He was in heaven, in his own little world. I've not been in a relationship for many years, but with Charlie in the house I never felt alone. I got so much love from him, and I loved him just as much. PTSD - Con't on page 7 If You Could Read My Mind: A PTSD Memoir: Charlie Lopez Fitzgerald: 1997-2014 By David-Elijah Nahmod

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