Yesterday I mailed out four drawings.  It made me feel very happy.  All four were drawings I had made in the hospital and while I really liked them in many ways- they were also pretty painful to me and so it feels like an enormous gift to have mailed out little bits of my beauty and struggle to other strong people so that they can hold a piece of my story with me.  What a gift.  Here is the fourth drawing.

I've struggled a lot with feeling like much of the abuse that happened was in some way my fault.  I've really come to see that for a very long time it has been easier to blame myself for the abuse than to acknowledge fully how much I was hurt and betrayed by the people who were supposed to be taking good care of and loving me.

This drawing has some painful text written underneath the tissue paper layers of it- but I like the way the drawing looks and it makes me feel good that I wrote 'FORGIVEN' so large across the bottom- because that was me telling me:  The abuse was not my fault.  And I do not have to blame myself any longer.

I love so much the way that art is a container.  Art can hold anything; art can hold everything.  It can hold my biggest sufferings and my most enormous joys.  I love that.  I love it so much.

Thank you to every person who reads my words here and looks at these images that I make.  Whether you comment or not or email me or not-- thank you for being here with me on this journey of my healing and my life.  I am very grateful for all of the love and encouragement that I receive here.  Here is a music-gift-thank-you from me to you today.  xo Jenny

*This post may be triggering.

I got this tattoo a few months ago.  I was upset one day and decided I was going to make a 'small list' of all of the worst things that had ever happened to my physical body.  I felt better after I made the list- relief.  And then I was sad- a mass of grief.  Then I went and got the tattoo.  The words say: asphyxiation, sodomy, poisoning, beaten, tied down, abortions, rape, urolagnia.  Urolagnia is a fancy way to say:  I was urinated on.  I have thought of other things.  I will probably add more to the list.

I am posting this photo today and writing about this list because I am struggling with so many things and I can not struggle with shame about what happened to me anymore.  It's just too crazy.  Today I was walking dogs for my friend who is on vacation and I was thinking of a conversation we had last week before she left- she asked me if it was ok to give her clients my email address and phone number and I hesitated.  I hesitated-- oh, I think this is an all caps moment---  I HESITATED BECAUSE I WAS AFRAID SOMEONE WOULD GOOGLE MY NAME AND FIND OUT I'D BEEN FUCKED AND TORTURED BY MY DAD FOR 25 YEARS and then they wouldn't want me to walk their dogs.

Just writing that makes me sick with rage.  There are so many things I hate about the abuse and how much it tore up my mind and my life and my heart but I always hate the MOST- the fact that it was all turned back around on me and in every way that I was suffering and the suffering was coming out all over my life- I was a promiscuous teenager fucking everyone, getting drunk, getting high, burning myself, cutting myself- to all of my suffering my abusers responded by saying, "See.  Jenny isn't well."  I WAS BEING FUCKED BY MY DAD AND ABUSED IN WAYS TOO HEINOUS TO EVEN TYPE HERE.  It just makes me sick- how much all I could do with my world of pain was turn it all back in on myself and hurt myself more and then to have my abusers take that too- take my profound suffering and USE THAT AS THEIR MAIN WAY TO COVER THE SHIT THEY WERE BOTH DOING TO ME- it makes me sick in a way that I truly do not have any appropriate language for.

But I will say this:  I'm not fucking everyone in my path now and I'm not drinking or doing drugs or burning or cutting myself.  I'm sober and sane and healthy.  I'm smart and strong and even though I still struggle through a lot of days- I WILL NEVER BE SILENT.  I will never be silent about the abuse I lived through and I will for the rest of my life be an advocate for other women, children and humans that are being mistreated and suffering.

When I went into the hospital a few weeks ago it was because I was struggling so much I had started to think of killing myself- I was SO overwhelmed.  School and memories- it had really worn me down.  But I went into the hospital because I want to LIVE.  I knew I didn't really want to die- I knew I just needed some extra help and a safe place to regroup my thoughts and get calmed down again- and it worked.

And now I carry on- each day is filled with struggle and with beauty and with a lot of love.  I'm always struggling- I am always getting better.  

And I was never crazy or unwell.  I was hurt.  I was very hurt.

Lately still the acuteness of much of the pain feels almost impossible.  But I am going to just keep going.

Tonight I am going to draw.

Much love,

Jenny  

Three people contacted me about the drawing I posted below; so I am sending out these two drawings as well.  I made these in the hospital too.  I will put up more images of drawings I am giving away soon; there is a lot of story inside of me.  Much love, Jenny

I'm going to start giving away some of my art.  If you would like to have this drawing you can email me at:  jsawle @ gmail.com and I'll mail it to you.  I made this in the hospital, it's 10" x 8.5", crayon & ballpoint pen.
(*This drawing has found a home, thank you.  I'll be giving away more drawings soon. xo)

This is my roommate, Tye. That's a lion around his neck and that lion is named Lllloyd.

The past was like a wild dog that came and ate all my insides out. No, I'm the wild dog. Did I eat my own insides? Did they go back inside of me then?
It's like that- the dissociation- it's that you're eaten alive by your self and then you're in you but you're all chewed up and for a really long time you didn't even know you'd survived. Then you finally get you are there- but boy oh boy you've really been torn up a lot.
I'm gathering up all my needles, all my thread.
I'm going to stitch myself back together now.
Lemminkäinen without a mother; Lemminkäinen with her own needles and thread.
Much love tonight.
Jenny

I am kind of struggling with a lot of hard thoughts and feelings- but here are two good things.  First, we had two guests at our apartment this weekend and that was a lot of fun.

And then last night Ashleigh wanted me to help her cut her hair.  I was extremely nervous because she wanted a bob like Louise Brooks and that seemed like it was going to be complicated.  But I managed to do a pretty good job and then she died her hair black and it looks amazing- so that was fun.  :)

A couple days ago my friend said he wanted to show me a funny video.  I groaned internally but sat down to watch it anyway.  Then I had a good laugh.  ;-)  Here it is.
xo Jenny

I got this tattoo two days ago.  I was telling the tattooist some about my life.  He asked if I'd been triggered by the news.  I didn't know what he meant.  At first he didn't want to tell me.  Then he told me about Amanda Berry, Gina deJesus and Michelle Knight.

The calls are coming from inside the house.

One of the things I have struggled with for much of my life is a feeling of extreme loneliness.  I have it a lot when I am physically alone; I have it when I am with other people too.  The loneliness feels like something inside of me eating away.  It's a thing that aches all of the time and for much of my life I have tried to fill the emptiness with a lot of things; food, people, hurting myself.

Now I am finally coming to know that this feeling of intense loneliness in me has been because I have not been able to know fully my own mind.  I've been trying to find something for so long to stop the ache and the answer is: myself.  It's just that I have not wanted to know myself because I have been scared away from much of myself for fear of running into painful memories about the past.

So I am working more to know that I am ok.  I survived all of the worst things that still feel scary inside of my head; but I am working to talk about them more in therapy.  Then the memories feel less scary; then I know more of myself and feel less alone.

I have so many things that I want to do.  I have so many things that I want to make and create and see and read and listen to.  I am never bored; but I am very often terrified of.... of having my own internal experience.  Having my feelings now might remind me of old feelings I had in the past and a lot of them were not very pleasant.  So after surviving the worst of the abuse the best way I could figure out how to live was in a pretty shut-down way.  There have been times in my life when I have not even wanted to move my body because I fear so much memories about things that have happened to me.

Except now- more than ever- I want to do the things I want to do!!  I want to make my art and listen to music and go to the museums and ride my bike and do all of the things that I love.

I still have so much fear of my own life and being in it.  But I am just going to keep one-day-at-a-timing-it through this fear.  Fear is a feeling and it can't hurt me.  I am a tough woman and I am... I am going to face my fear- mostly my fear of myself- so that I can continue to free myself from the prison of the past.

I keep feeling like if I carry my journal with me- so I can write or draw at any moment- that I will feel less lonely and be ok.  So that is what I'm going to do today; carry my book with me.

The abuse I lived through scared me so much- it took me away from myself.  But I know now that I can have myself back.

Much love today,
Jenny

Thesis.

This is my work for the MFA thesis show.  There were three poles with clothing pieces and one collaborative drawing that I made in the hospital with my friend Ben when he came to visit me there.  Below are more photos.

Jenny Sawle, Jenny Holzer