When I first began writing on line years and years and years ago, I took a lot of self-portraits. They looked a lot like this one in that they were always crappy web cam photos that I then played with to my heart’s content. It was a kind of art practice. At least, that’s how I see it now. I was playing with the only canvas I had at the time: html and a very basic graphics editing program.
Which is to say that though I am very quick to tell people that I only just discovered art a couple of years ago, the truth is that I’ve had an artistic bent all my life. I just didn’t *trust* it.
I was one of those kids who should have been born to gypsies or hippies, but instead found herself in a family full of really uptight people. Up. Tight. We’re talking hours worth of screaming and yelling over socks on the floor. We’re talking specific instructions with regards to the Proper Way to do just about everything. Wipe a table. Apply sugar to cereal. What order dishes should be done in. How to vacuum the floor. The level of control in my household once my mother married my step-father was *insane*. We’re talking: I was only allowed to wear my glasses to read (even though I was near sighted and couldn’t see properly without them.) We’re talking four squares of toilet paper per wipe and heaven help you if you used more. We’re talking a fridge drawer for the ‘red delicious’ apples no one else was allowed to eat and a drawer full of the crappy macintosh apples that no one wanted to eat. Everything was so tightly controlled that there was no room to trust what I knew. There was no room for my knowing.
This mode of existence came after I turned nine. By this time I had already been raped and sodomized and used in child pornography by a different man – the one my mother moved in with after she divorced my biological father. Prior to his arrival on the scene my memories include being burned in the palm of my hand with a cigarette to teach me ‘hot’, drunken brawls in the living room, a lot of screaming and yelling, and a mother so hopped up on something (valium?) that she drooled. Literally. Drooled. I remember my father passing out and convulsing on the bathroom floor in a puddle of his own urine, vomit and blood while my mother stood ten feet away blithely stirring a pot of soup. I remember people banging on the door and threatening to kill my father if he didn’t give them what he owed them. I remember being in a locked room a lot. I remember bashing my own face against the locked door because if I had a bloody nose, my mother would let me out of my room and tend to me.
I have trust issues.
The realization that I’m coming to in this latest round of navel gazing is that these trust issues manifest most powerfully in terms of self-trust. Trusting my self. Trusting me to know what’s right for me. Trusting me to do what’s right for me. Trusting me to know when someone has my best interests at heart and when they don’t. Trusting my affection for someone (so hard!). Trusting someone’s affection for me (equally hard!). Trusting that what I offer has value. Trusting that I am who I think I am.
Trusting myself as an artist.
I don’t know how to trust.
I’m grieving this fact even as I’m working toward learning how.
(to be continued…)
xo
Effy
You are a brave and beautiful woman and I’m so happy to have “met” you on facebook. We have a lot in common, but I am not as far along as you are and I need to tell you how much you sharing your truth has helped to inspire me to look at mine and feel hopeful. There are no accidents and I keep being guided to your art and your writing and it is such a gift to me. ((hugs))
Sharing your truth is risky. It will open you up to shittyness on the part of people that don’t get it, won’t get it, or are triggered by your authenticity. BUT. It will also open you up to people who enhance your life in such a way that you will *never* regret being real.
You will get there, and I will applaud wildly and shower you in confetti. xo
Sending you LOTS of strength and positive energy!!!
Good luck with learning to trust your heart!
It will take time (hate it), but you can do it!
We have 100% trust in your capability!
I agree, trusting yourself is probably one of the hardest kinds of trust to build. It’s easy to forgive people you trust when they let you down just a little, knowing they are only human, but if you let yourself down just a little? Pff, forget it. lol. I was in an abusive relationship from 15-21 years old and was pretty well brainwashed during that time, when I should have been discovering myself and coming into my own, so it’s taken quite awhile for me to forgive my naivete during those years, as well as figure out who I was (rather than who that guy basically trained me to be). Trusting my instincts and trusting those who *truly* love me has been a task, for sure. What you said here totally resonates with me. <3
Cara, it sounds like we have a lot in common. I, too, was in a relationship from 15 – 21 and left it not knowing who the hell I was. If I could impart any kind of wisdom to young women it would be to wait before they get entangled with some guy. They are worth too much to give up their formative years like that. xo
Trust is SO hard to relearn once it’s been unlearned. At every step, it’s tempting to give up and withdraw. Sigh.
I’m sitting here just sort of speechless. Part of me wants to rage. Rage on behalf of little you. Punish every person who ever harmed you. Part of me wants to rejoice in your survivor spirit, celebrate your incredible strength. Another part of me wants to say: yes. Of course that would mess with trust. And how amazing it is that you can make sense of it all. Mucho respect from me to you. Always.
Respect right back atcha, babe. <3
I wish to thank you for your honesty and open heart that so beautifully shares the golden energy of creativity with all of us. I am so looking forward to becoming an Effy fan!!!!! You have changed so much I am having great fun exploring. Love the new colors.
Let the glitter fly every where !!!!!!
Sagey
Thank you, Sage. :) It’s good to have you on the ride! *flings glitter*
Pingback: Trust Part II | Effy Wild
I keep coming here determined to comment with something intensely meaningful. But then I re-read the graphic pain and harshness of your childhood journey, and it leaves me speechless with rage for them and awe of you. And I find I still don’t know what to say… <3