“That is called trauma,” transgender therapist Carson Eckard told my confused daughter when she expressed fear that I might come to the campus of Rider University.
In October, it will be two years since Ilene took her life.
Trauma.
It is a word therapists use so often when gender-confused children speak about parents who question or oppose their new identity. Trauma. A word that now haunts me. And sometimes I wonder whether Carson Eckard truly understands what trauma means.
I am talking about the trauma many parents experience in this country when their children are pulled away from them by a combination of therapists, schools, peers, transgender activists, pastors, and even state involvement.
Does Carson Eckard know what it feels like when Mother’s Day comes and the daughter you love with all your heart doesn’t call to wish you a Happy Mother’s Day?
Does Carson Eckard know what it feels like when DCF shows up at your door because a transgender pastor filed a complaint against you despite never having met you and having met your daughter only once?
Does Carson Eckard know what it feels like when a university you trusted with your child’s education and safety labels you “unsafe” and bars you from its campus?
Does Carson Eckard know what it feels like when your child’s birthday arrives and you are unable to spend it with her?
Does Carson Eckard know what it feels like when police knock on your door and tell you that your child is dead—and that her body lay alone in a dorm room for four days while the university was celebrating National Coming Out Day?
Does Carson Eckard know what it feels like to stand beside your daughter’s casket and see her lying there, motionless, knowing that every hope, every dream, every plan you had for her future has come to an end?
Does Carson Eckard know what it feels like to watch that casket slowly lowered into the ground, knowing that this is the last time you will ever be physically close to your child?
That is trauma.
The sleepless nights. The unanswered messages. The fear. The helplessness. The grief. The years of wondering whether there was something more you could have done.
Yet I suspect Carson Eckard would not describe what I feel as trauma, despite being a licensed therapist.
To Carson Eckard, trauma was my daughter’s belief that something was wrong with her body and my refusal to affirm that belief.
But what would Carson Eckard call what I have lived through?
What would Carson Eckard call what countless other parents are living through right now?
If losing your child while she is still alive is not trauma, and losing her forever is not trauma, then what is?