Your Prayers and Good Vibes Requested for our EIC!

Dave suffered a grand mal seizure late Wednesday night.

Hello to our subscribers and contributors!

I'm sorry to say that I have some unfortunate news. Very late on Wednesday night - about two and half hours ago, as I write this - David suffered a seizure at home. While he is somewhat better now, and resting comfortably, our family has some steps to take in the coming days to figure out what caused this distressing episode, since seizures are not at all typical for Dave. We very much appreciate your good wishes, healing vibes, and, yes, thoughts and prayers. Our hope is that this was simply caused by a medication issue, and that it does not represent the onset of a new condition. Please know that I'll keep everyone posted.

Dave does not recall what happened, which is probably a blessing. Because I witnessed the entire episode, he has requested that I write about it in detail, as I did after his recent panic attack. I will do that, and soon. But this was a very scary experience - I thought I was watching him die right in front of me. So, as I calm myself down and marshal my thoughts, I will share here what he woke up talking about, because it's very important to him.

As you know, David writes a lot about his experiences with PTSD. This is for many reasons. One of these is advocacy: he tells me that he hopes to shine light on a dark, dank corner that he feels society prefers not to poke around in: “Sunlight is the best disinfectant,” he tells me, believing that deeper, more meaningful research into treatment will not happen unless a sizable public demands it.

Another reason is that he wants to inspire others, suffering with the same condition, to talk about their feelings and experiences. Aside from some promising developments in psychedelics, talk therapy is the A#1 treatment route for PTSD. But even just writing about it - or talking about it with others who are affected - yields results, even without a clinician. He's had many such conversations - too many to count - with other people experiencing PTSD, and they have been, to a one, compassionate and rejuvenating exchanges of strategies, ideas, and encouragement. And maybe, he hopes - we both hope - his boldness in discussing it will prompt just one other person suffering in silence to begin talking and seek help. It's out there. We want everyone who needs it to find it.

But a third reason that writing about PTSD stays front of mind is one I did not appreciate or recognize until he sobbed it to me tonight, looking up at me imploringly from the twin-size memory-foam cushion on the floor, where he needs to sleep tonight in case another seizure comes.

“I do this to document it,” he howled. “What those two officers did to me - this is all the evidence I have left. They need to be held accountable!” He took a shaky breath. “This seizure, what happened tonight, is directly correlated to Officers Choi and Blackman's abuse and torture of me! And this is all I have to prove it!”

Oh, Dave. Oh, darling.

We do not yet know the cause of the seizure, though his parents and I couldn't stop ourselves from speculating. Was it how little sleep he's been getting? Wait, he had scarcely eaten all day - it could be that. Or it could be some recent medication tweaks: we don't know yet. Nevertheless, it's true that, on any given day, those cops' mockery and taunts ring in his ears; the memory of their physical abuse radiates through his body.

But that can't be quantified. After all, the sickening, egregious bruises they covered him with have faded. The scars on his hands can be only partly attributed to their intentionally cruel, even savage handling. An official complaint we filed together yielded the promise of an internal-affairs investigation, but no results we were made aware of. And so, as much as I dearly wish he were not still so stuck on that awful experience, I understand what he means when he says, his voice cracking, “This is all I have.”

The past week or so has marked a change in how he talks about the experience. Once solely focused on the harm done to him, Dave now wishes to focus on accountability. He has urged his parents and me to call the Burbank police department and ask about that IA investigation; ask whether those officers were even reprimanded. We all know they should've been; we all know it's unlikely they were. Ultimately, does it matter?

Well, it does to David. David matters to me. So this does, too.

He feels that tonight's seizure is part and parcel of the whole - part of the PTSD recovery odyssey those two police officers set him on sixteen months ago. I've got to say, I’m hoping it was only caused by a medication imbalance: a little too much of one; maybe not enough of the other. But this, I think, is what PTSD is: one trauma is related to another, and another, so that they are all inextricably tied up in a complex knot that's very, very hard to untangle.

But we're going to try. And,in the meantime, I'll keep you all up to date.