The Randomist

I’m coming out. That deafening roar you just heard was 95% of everyone I’ve ever known shouting “I KNEW it!” Sorry to disappoint, but I’m not coming out of THAT closet. My sexual preferences lie where they always have, mostly in myself. I’m coming out of what might be a scarier closet. There are certainly more skeletons in this one. It’s a door that everyone wishes would stay firmly shut, but I’m going to open it, again. I want to stand up today and introduce myself to you. I want you to meet the real Heather Heartless. Not just the bitchy angry one, not just the one that makes you laugh, but the one I keep hidden away. My name is Heather and I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder… among other things. On March 14, 2009, I looked out the window of the gas station where I was working and saw two men approaching on foot from the road. My very first thought, honest to God, is “They’re going to rob me.” And they did. Violently. No one asked for money. No one said “This ...

I should get an award for the creativity of my own self-inflicted injuries. I should also be given a medal of honor for the bravery I have shown by getting out of bed every day considering the luck I have. A quick look back through the years has left me astounded by the number of ways I’ve found to hurt myself or be hurt in ways that really shouldn’t happen. My first clear memory is from when I was two. Now, most people don’t remember much from their toddler days and many say that I’m making it up, but I’m sure the only reason I remember it is because it probably caused severe brain damage which I now blame for everything else. It was a cool and windy spring day. Two-year old me eyed the fold up pool chair from the front door. You know, the kind that seems to be woven from jelly bracelets and is long enough to accommodate an adult body. I wanted this chair. I wanted my tiny body on it and I wanted it bad. I scrambled out the door and wiggled my way into the perfect toddler su...