I was having a lot of open conversations with my friends at school about trauma. I found it ridiculous that people saw a stigma in sharing dark parts of their lives. I had friends who were going through it in their personal lives and when they showed instability, they were institutionalized or suspended. A lot of us found it unfair that people in pain had to pretend that they were okay to fit in. I wrote about my frustrations with these constructs. I wondered about change and wanted people to explain to me why it's so wrong to talk about these things.
How is it that everytime my friends, who've been through real ass trauma in their lives make art about their experiences_Their sexual abuses_Their child neglect_Their trauma_They get shut down like they're glorifying it.
What the fuck does society want chasing after silence. Are we shunned from speaking? Are we losing our voices? I won't give society what it wants. I will stand with the hurt and the broken and I will be their voice of reason.
Trauma is valid. We should talk about it. Embrace it. Make art about it. Make music about it. Be creative with the scars we've been left with. Take all the traumatic tales and feed them to the unscarred people of this world who feel like they have the right to step in for others. Maybe for once. They should be listening instead of speaking. For once. They should be quiet and let the ones in pain prosper.
Trauma_based_art
Take_1
Disclaimer: The writing seen in the background depicts a range of traumatic experiences which can be distressing to readers. I wholeheartedly believe that these stories are meant to be read to understand the burdens people around us secretly carry. All the text seen in the piece was collected from peers willing to publish their trauma for this project and hence the stories have not been edited in any way by me. I have had consent from all the participants.
The collection of writing is included below;
1
This happened to me when I was 7.
A friend and I were told to baby sit her 3 year old baby brother
while he played in our apartment building.
We got distracted and moved away to
the back of the building to chat.
He wasn't there in the playground when we came back.
We searched for an hour on our own
before we went to tell the adults.
They spent all night searching.
They sent us back home when it got late.
We all though he was kidnapped.
They found him that night.
He'd fallen into an open pothole and drowned that day.
My parents didn’t tell me
until years later when I was 12.
It traumatized me.
I was responsible for a life.
I spent years oblivious to the reason why
I couldn't talk to this girl or her family or
why they'd gotten so reserved or
why I never saw the younger brother after that night.
2
I lost a very dear friend of mine back in March.
I pretty much stayed at home an entire day
to let the reality sink in.
It was pretty devastating
because it was sudden and unexpected.
She had just invited me for her birthday get together
2 days before that and she was so excited.
That was the last I heard from her.
And that too it was through a message.
3
im a pathological liar
and my mom caught me watching porn
4
I lost my dad a year ago.
He was my best friend and i miss him so much.
5
It was when I was about 8 or 9,
I sensed that one of our school security guards
was particularly close to me.
At that age I had enough self awareness
to know when someone was making me feel uncomfortable,
but I didn’t know what to do or what constituted as assault.
Anyway this man was in charge
of overseeing the kids after school
and making sure they went
to their respective after school clubs or to their buses.
So I used to go for after school basketball coaching.
It was during that time he’d pull me aside and well....
he’d touch me.
It wasn’t that I didn’t think it was wrong,
it was more so I simply couldn’t comprehend
the nature of his actions nor did I realize until many years
had passed that it was a disgusting, illegal act.
He did many other things to me over the course of a month
but for some reason, the one thing that spurred me
to tell my parents was when he pulled my hair.
I suppose it was because it was the only action that at that time,
That I was able to associate with inappropriate behaviour,
since hair pulling was considered bullying.
Again, I was too young to have understood anything
about wrong touch or sexual harassment,
so although I was confused and afraid,
I didn’t register what he had done.
He was reported and fired shortly after,
but a few years passed and I was in eighth grade,
listening to a lecture about sexual harassment
and how to deal with such situations.
That’s when it dawned on me,
that I had been horribly violated by a man
who had been aware of all of this and
had used his knowledge to take advantage of a very young girl.
I suppose that’s when the trauma truly settled in,
when I fully understood the gravity of his actions and the nature of the act.
Many days after that I only needed to think
about that mans face for a second and
I’d rush to the bathroom sick to the stomach,
unable to do anything but cry.
To this day, being around men of his age makes me jittery.
I feel the anxiety swelling up in me and
the pain from those events surfacing back to haunt me.
I suppose I’ll never completely be rid of this fear no matter how much I try.
6
I cheated on my SATs
7
I was kissed by a homeless man
who seemed like he was on crack or some hard drug.
I felt violated and it caused me
to mentally breakdown that night.
8
When I was a kid,
I thought it was a normal thing
for a grandmother to fondle her grandkids balls.
Whenever I went to visit her in the village,
she would grab my balls and play with them.
This happened until I was 8.
After that, I buried the memory somewhere
deep in my head because we hadn't visited her for a long time.
Just about a year ago, however,
I suddenly got the realiziation of what had happened to me,
and had one of the worst panic attacks of my life.
I'm not sure which is worse;
the fact that the adults knew and did nothing,
or the fact that they let their own kids (my cousin's) get harrassed too
9
So basically I’ve experienced many several concussions
in the past and they really did a number on me.
I couldn’t be around people,
noise or bright light or else
I was thrown into another migraine.
I mostly staid home from school and slept all day.
Doctors tried giving me anti inflame
and anti-de present medications that didn’t help anything;
instead it made me worse.
I was sick of the constant pain and
feelings of failure that lasted up to two years.
Within those two years I contemplated suicide a lot.
I thought of how easy it would be to
let all my pain away and not have to deal
with the bullshit of this work anymore.
I started to abuse my anti-depressant so that I could sleep all day.
Whenever I would wake up I would take more to fall asleep.
Eventually it got to the point where I was unable to sleep without them.
I would even take my pills and no longer be able to fall asleep.
I got to the point where I would hallucinate
and hear music when there was nothing there.
I ended up going to a cliff over in a nature sanctuary in my town.
The cliff was several stories high and
was surrounded by several jagged rocks.
I started to climb it whenever I felt hopeless.
It gave me the adrenaline rush and
sense of fulfillment that kept me alive,
but every time I did it I risked my life.
I always said it was a 1/4 chance that
I could fall and be dead or seriously injured,
but I kept climbing regardless.
A second, a third, and a fourth time.
On the fourth time I grabbed for a ledge
that fell off and nearly sent me down to the bottom.
I no longer had any handholds,
was tired, and for the first time I was actually afraid.
At that moment I realized what I was doing;
I was trying to kill myself, but then and there I realized that it wasn’t worth it.
I found my way to the bottom
and never went back since.
I had to flirt with death to realize that I wanted to live.
10
Okay, so like I was with a guy and he was very romantic
at the start and I believed that
he truly did love me and that he cared about me.
And I should’ve known, he kinda became possessive
putting the blame on me for every little things.
But like he bought me things all the time
so I thought he still loved me.
Anyways, he kinda pressured me into having sex with him,
and I felt very violated and it still scares me to this day.
He kept touching me when I was trembling,
telling me I owe this to him because he went out to pay that hotel room.
And I don’t know, it just wasn’t right
and I felt like I was being tricked but I believed him
and I felt like I did owe it to him.
But anyways, this one day he blamed me for something
he did to himself and I didn’t know what to do.
He took me out of my own house, by my wrist
and dragged me the corner of the street where he yelled at me
and telling me I was a bitch and all these names
and he looked so scary and I felt like I wasn’t going to see my parents again,
and I started crying and for a good 15 mins
I was literally out of my own body and mind
I think over time I forced myself to forget
but I remember praying to god that day,
I though he was going to hit me, hurt me
and i didn’t know what to do
I just sat on that curb wanting to go home.
11
I'm emotionally unstable
and I was never able to get support from anywhere...
I tried to run away by making myself bussy with other stuff ...
and in that process I got cought up in more and more traumatic experiences...
at 24 I've moved back to my family howe
and now I'm all alone with my depression and anxiety ...
my bussy life before ddnt treat my illness
and now I'm faced with it once more
in addition to the sins I committed becouse of it...
I'm tired and this has started to affect me physically. ..
every second is traumatic
12
When I was 9, I went to a performing arts sleep away camp.
While there, I was in the production of hairspray.
Through the show I met
two 17 year old gay guys who I called my “gay uncles”.
At first, it started out as a game backstage where they
would “scoop” my chest like ice cream,
but then they started touching me and scooping me
in private areas that should not be touched by 17 year olds.
It was traumatic for me
and I think about it all the time to this day.
This happened to me when I was 7.
A friend and I were told to baby sit her 3 year old baby brother
while he played in our apartment building.
We got distracted and moved away to
the back of the building to chat.
He wasn't there in the playground when we came back.
We searched for an hour on our own
before we went to tell the adults.
They spent all night searching.
They sent us back home when it got late.
We all though he was kidnapped.
They found him that night.
He'd fallen into an open pothole and drowned that day.
My parents didn’t tell me
until years later when I was 12.
It traumatized me.
I was responsible for a life.
I spent years oblivious to the reason why
I couldn't talk to this girl or her family or
why they'd gotten so reserved or
why I never saw the younger brother after that night.
2
I lost a very dear friend of mine back in March.
I pretty much stayed at home an entire day
to let the reality sink in.
It was pretty devastating
because it was sudden and unexpected.
She had just invited me for her birthday get together
2 days before that and she was so excited.
That was the last I heard from her.
And that too it was through a message.
3
im a pathological liar
and my mom caught me watching porn
4
I lost my dad a year ago.
He was my best friend and i miss him so much.
5
It was when I was about 8 or 9,
I sensed that one of our school security guards
was particularly close to me.
At that age I had enough self awareness
to know when someone was making me feel uncomfortable,
but I didn’t know what to do or what constituted as assault.
Anyway this man was in charge
of overseeing the kids after school
and making sure they went
to their respective after school clubs or to their buses.
So I used to go for after school basketball coaching.
It was during that time he’d pull me aside and well....
he’d touch me.
It wasn’t that I didn’t think it was wrong,
it was more so I simply couldn’t comprehend
the nature of his actions nor did I realize until many years
had passed that it was a disgusting, illegal act.
He did many other things to me over the course of a month
but for some reason, the one thing that spurred me
to tell my parents was when he pulled my hair.
I suppose it was because it was the only action that at that time,
That I was able to associate with inappropriate behaviour,
since hair pulling was considered bullying.
Again, I was too young to have understood anything
about wrong touch or sexual harassment,
so although I was confused and afraid,
I didn’t register what he had done.
He was reported and fired shortly after,
but a few years passed and I was in eighth grade,
listening to a lecture about sexual harassment
and how to deal with such situations.
That’s when it dawned on me,
that I had been horribly violated by a man
who had been aware of all of this and
had used his knowledge to take advantage of a very young girl.
I suppose that’s when the trauma truly settled in,
when I fully understood the gravity of his actions and the nature of the act.
Many days after that I only needed to think
about that mans face for a second and
I’d rush to the bathroom sick to the stomach,
unable to do anything but cry.
To this day, being around men of his age makes me jittery.
I feel the anxiety swelling up in me and
the pain from those events surfacing back to haunt me.
I suppose I’ll never completely be rid of this fear no matter how much I try.
6
I cheated on my SATs
7
I was kissed by a homeless man
who seemed like he was on crack or some hard drug.
I felt violated and it caused me
to mentally breakdown that night.
8
When I was a kid,
I thought it was a normal thing
for a grandmother to fondle her grandkids balls.
Whenever I went to visit her in the village,
she would grab my balls and play with them.
This happened until I was 8.
After that, I buried the memory somewhere
deep in my head because we hadn't visited her for a long time.
Just about a year ago, however,
I suddenly got the realiziation of what had happened to me,
and had one of the worst panic attacks of my life.
I'm not sure which is worse;
the fact that the adults knew and did nothing,
or the fact that they let their own kids (my cousin's) get harrassed too
9
So basically I’ve experienced many several concussions
in the past and they really did a number on me.
I couldn’t be around people,
noise or bright light or else
I was thrown into another migraine.
I mostly staid home from school and slept all day.
Doctors tried giving me anti inflame
and anti-de present medications that didn’t help anything;
instead it made me worse.
I was sick of the constant pain and
feelings of failure that lasted up to two years.
Within those two years I contemplated suicide a lot.
I thought of how easy it would be to
let all my pain away and not have to deal
with the bullshit of this work anymore.
I started to abuse my anti-depressant so that I could sleep all day.
Whenever I would wake up I would take more to fall asleep.
Eventually it got to the point where I was unable to sleep without them.
I would even take my pills and no longer be able to fall asleep.
I got to the point where I would hallucinate
and hear music when there was nothing there.
I ended up going to a cliff over in a nature sanctuary in my town.
The cliff was several stories high and
was surrounded by several jagged rocks.
I started to climb it whenever I felt hopeless.
It gave me the adrenaline rush and
sense of fulfillment that kept me alive,
but every time I did it I risked my life.
I always said it was a 1/4 chance that
I could fall and be dead or seriously injured,
but I kept climbing regardless.
A second, a third, and a fourth time.
On the fourth time I grabbed for a ledge
that fell off and nearly sent me down to the bottom.
I no longer had any handholds,
was tired, and for the first time I was actually afraid.
At that moment I realized what I was doing;
I was trying to kill myself, but then and there I realized that it wasn’t worth it.
I found my way to the bottom
and never went back since.
I had to flirt with death to realize that I wanted to live.
10
Okay, so like I was with a guy and he was very romantic
at the start and I believed that
he truly did love me and that he cared about me.
And I should’ve known, he kinda became possessive
putting the blame on me for every little things.
But like he bought me things all the time
so I thought he still loved me.
Anyways, he kinda pressured me into having sex with him,
and I felt very violated and it still scares me to this day.
He kept touching me when I was trembling,
telling me I owe this to him because he went out to pay that hotel room.
And I don’t know, it just wasn’t right
and I felt like I was being tricked but I believed him
and I felt like I did owe it to him.
But anyways, this one day he blamed me for something
he did to himself and I didn’t know what to do.
He took me out of my own house, by my wrist
and dragged me the corner of the street where he yelled at me
and telling me I was a bitch and all these names
and he looked so scary and I felt like I wasn’t going to see my parents again,
and I started crying and for a good 15 mins
I was literally out of my own body and mind
I think over time I forced myself to forget
but I remember praying to god that day,
I though he was going to hit me, hurt me
and i didn’t know what to do
I just sat on that curb wanting to go home.
11
I'm emotionally unstable
and I was never able to get support from anywhere...
I tried to run away by making myself bussy with other stuff ...
and in that process I got cought up in more and more traumatic experiences...
at 24 I've moved back to my family howe
and now I'm all alone with my depression and anxiety ...
my bussy life before ddnt treat my illness
and now I'm faced with it once more
in addition to the sins I committed becouse of it...
I'm tired and this has started to affect me physically. ..
every second is traumatic
12
When I was 9, I went to a performing arts sleep away camp.
While there, I was in the production of hairspray.
Through the show I met
two 17 year old gay guys who I called my “gay uncles”.
At first, it started out as a game backstage where they
would “scoop” my chest like ice cream,
but then they started touching me and scooping me
in private areas that should not be touched by 17 year olds.
It was traumatic for me
and I think about it all the time to this day.