For my first post here, I wanted to pare it back to why I do what I do. To be honest and real with you all.
My world cracked open when I was too young to understand the implications. Moulded to accept that which I should not, I learnt to be quiet, compliant, to mask. To hide the pain behind smiles. Afraid of the consequences of speaking out, I stayed silent. For decades. Growing to expect, even welcome, unacceptable treatment. Believing that was my worth. My silence bought a mirage of a life, as outward smiles masked an acidic confusion, leaving behind the cruel stain of self-hatred, dirtiness and shame. Until two particularly violent experiences meant that my strong predilection toward dissociation had reached its limit. The trauma ruthlessly dislodged that which my childhood mind had fought so hard to protect me from. Suddenly I understood. The everything. I now held the answer to my biggest question, why I continuously accepted and endured abusive treatment. And it was awful. A numbness washed over, and I drowned in it. My mind fought to find ways to sort through the madness I felt, my behaviour became more erratic, and the excesses increased in an effort to block my reality. It was a slow, humiliatingly painful, public unraveling.
This messiness, this in between place I found myself in, made me untenably raw. Eventually, thankfully, I broke. I say thankfully because what I’d been doing until this point wasn’t living, it was enduring, and I now know that my life was meant for far more than that.
My complete breakdown and the brutal baseline it provided was the catalyst I needed to alter my trajectory. I was forced to acknowledge that, while the damage was caused by others, it was now me that was preventing my own healing. If I was to overcome the damage and break the destructive beliefs and patterns, my battle wasn't with them it was with me. Slowly I came to realize the extent at which trauma had pervaded my existence. Not in a self-pitying way, though I had been guilty of that in the past. More a softening. A knowing. That all the actions and reactions that brought me great shame and confusion as an adult, were the very things that helped me survive as a child. Though they clearly no longer served me well, I could see that my mind was fighting to protect me in the only way it knew how. And I couldn't help but be thankful for that. I immediately saw myself through kinder eyes, and felt the light weave its way in. I learnt that understanding my trauma, and the actions and reactions that resulted, gave me the knowledge and power to be able to change my life for the better.
Painting has long given me a deeply cathartic sense of coming home. An authenticity of self, a truth telling. Much like my life, my process of creation is all about the layers. It begins as a pen and wash on paper, then is reversed by gluing the surface and flipping it face down onto a board. Then I meticulously strip back the surface with steel wool, leaving a thin layer retaining remnants of the sketch adhered to the board. Then I begin to paint. These steps could easily be seen as far too complex a process only to come away with less. But it was never about erasing what was there, or then needing to fix what was left. More, respecting and embracing what remained. Daring to weave new layers into the old. Folding strength into the texture and grit. From where I’ve been to where I am now, this process couldn’t feel more right.
Constantly evolving. I am no longer driven by anger, though the raw elements of my past have instilled in me the fight to want things to be different. To not squander this opportunity to connect, inform, encourage, and comfort others.
It’s hard to overcome the noise of abuse, to find your voice, to take up space. If you are where I was, know that there is a way out, a better life far away from ugly words like control and violence. And I hope one day you have the audacity to believe in yourself so fiercely that it tears down everything they ever dared say you couldn’t do. I’m in your corner.
My story will never be picture perfect. But it isn’t merely the sum of my sorrows either. It is so much more intangible than that. Finally I feel like I understand the beauty in the complexities, in what the dark, the light, and the depth of it all, says about me. Which is simply this; I am a woman with narrative. We are the story we tell ourselves.
And I am brave not broken.
Commentaires