Introduction
It’s been four years since that night.
Trauma has muffled my willingness to be vocal, particularly about my personal experience of unsolicited violence against my mind and body.
My voice, temporary hidden by spiritual blindness and unforeseen depression—often triggered from warbling on-sets of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) episodes.
Each episode uncovering the reality of my unhealed trauma.
The title “Blood & Rubies” surfaces from the pain and beauty as a survivor of gun violence.
A challenge to the spiritual torture, mental anguish, societal disregard, non-acceptance, and haunting invisible perpetrators.
Lived Experience & Writer of Blood & Rubies: Jasmine Russell
Following the incident, to cry loudly on a public forum in the immediate aftermath of this violent trauma seemed foolish—dangerous, and counterproductive to the protection of anonymity.
To this day, I’m unaware of the individuals responsible for the release of the violent flame carried by that single stray bullet.
A flaming bullet that pierced the flesh of myself and my fiance’s body—leading me into a field of years of both relational and individual abandon.
It’s as though my spirit has only recently returned to the human form of my body.
In the years since the stray flaming bullet pierced my soul and body, I’ve worked to reconcile a new relationship with the unfamiliar post-traumatic fear of my own mind. Over the years, I’ve worked to embrace the absence of spiritual connection the shattered safety-of-a-home called my body—allowing my spirit to attach and detach as it pleases.
In my deepest moments of trauma, I lowered my posture for mental relief from responsibility.
I searched for security in empty voices and spaces.
I raised my heart to disguise my torment.
I devalued care and support for the self-soothing benefits of destructive solitude.
I enjoyed the mess.
What was this previous false reality of order?
Why did it ever feed me before?
Blood & Rubies is a love letter to my soul.
In the midst of my body’s spiritual abandon, I started writing as a healing method to process my unspoken experience of PTSD.
The haunting sickness of it.
Its destructive nature on relationships
Its soul transformative power
…and its comforting darkness.
This shouldn’t have happened to me.
Lived Experience & Writer of Blood & Rubies: Jasmine Russell
But it did—comforting narratives of order I would tell myself.
In the depths and peaks of trauma, while making sense of the blind-haunting pain, opportunities to surrender are often missed. It felt better to live in the lulls. To validate my physical pain with raw unsettling emotions and anger—versus surrender. Why should I surrender to something I didn’t ask for?
To be a woman, with anger.
To be a black woman with anger.
To be a dark black woman with valid blind, haunting pain.
My motive in sharing the lived experience of Blood and Rubies is simple:
To validate and humanize the life-altering experience of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Blood & Rubies offers an eye into ‘a singular’ PTSD perspective. These writings will not and can not speak to the PTSD experience of all humans, or all black women.
These writings are valid in their universal relation—bring light to nuances of the life-altering mental experience of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
As the writer, Blood & Rubies provides a moment to make sense of the unruly emotions and healing of my traumatized mind.
May the words of these passages provide support and healing on your journey.
Feel the darkness. Reflect the light.
#BloodandRubies
