When I first met my therapist I told him I was there because I was not able to finish my drawings. I told him I was unable to draw as much as I wanted to and that I didn't know what was wrong or why I couldn't draw more- but that I needed to be able to make my art.
The next time I went back I started to talk about my dad raping me. Now it's been more than eight years of working to know my own my mind, to tell the stories about what happened to me when I was growing up and to begin to knit it all together.
And now it is the night before we install our first year MFA show in the museum and I feel anxious. I feel anxious because I still wish that the past could have been different, that I had a different story to tell, that I had not been hurt so much. I feel sad that I will stand in front of my own big huge violent painful (but hopefully kind of beautiful in someways) drawing and know that all of the really hard things I have been working on accepting are true. I usually feel like I want to hurt myself when I get this anxious. I sort of have that tonight- but I am working on still more writing and drawing and talking and not taking harmful action- not creating more hurt because I hurt.
This is a small drawing I made earlier today. It is about how sometimes when all of everything about being human is too awful to think about I just step away and pretend I am a cat.
I had therapy tonight and it helped to talk to my doctor, I am writing here and this helps me, I am walking home with my roommate and friend tonight.
Recovering from the abuse often feels impossible- but I try to keep reminding myself that is just the feeling of it and that it is actually happening- I am getting better. In a just a few weeks I will be done with my first year of graduate school.
The next time I went back I started to talk about my dad raping me. Now it's been more than eight years of working to know my own my mind, to tell the stories about what happened to me when I was growing up and to begin to knit it all together.
And now it is the night before we install our first year MFA show in the museum and I feel anxious. I feel anxious because I still wish that the past could have been different, that I had a different story to tell, that I had not been hurt so much. I feel sad that I will stand in front of my own big huge violent painful (but hopefully kind of beautiful in someways) drawing and know that all of the really hard things I have been working on accepting are true. I usually feel like I want to hurt myself when I get this anxious. I sort of have that tonight- but I am working on still more writing and drawing and talking and not taking harmful action- not creating more hurt because I hurt.
This is a small drawing I made earlier today. It is about how sometimes when all of everything about being human is too awful to think about I just step away and pretend I am a cat.
I had therapy tonight and it helped to talk to my doctor, I am writing here and this helps me, I am walking home with my roommate and friend tonight.
Recovering from the abuse often feels impossible- but I try to keep reminding myself that is just the feeling of it and that it is actually happening- I am getting better. In a just a few weeks I will be done with my first year of graduate school.
1 comment:
Jenny,
You are also molding your future, which, day by day through the present becomes part of your past . . . and you are already talking about it, and drawing it too . . . so that we can see it all.
I hope your show is everything that you wish, and more.
D
Post a Comment