Art as a form of self-expression has always been a part of me.

 

As a kid I would create elaborate drawings everywhere, including my body. When I was as young as four years old, my mother left me alone with a box of felt-tip pens, and instead of drawing on paper, I decided to cover my entire arm, down from my elbow all the way to the tip of my middle finger. It wasn’t something that the other kids were doing, or something that I had seen anywhere. I just made the connection between the felt-tip pens and being able to draw on my body and decorate it, so that is what I did.

 

All of my life I have experienced that pull towards art and creation. I would take up sewing classes and sew the dress I wore for my mother’s wedding when I was 15-years old. It was an intricate dress with a corset bodice, made out of pure taffeta silk. I would fill scrapbooks, notebooks and (travel) journals. I have had blogs, I bought myself a camera to take up photography, and I taught myself how to use Photoshop when I first got my hands on a MacBook computer when I was as young as twelve years old. I taught myself how to read before I had my first day of school, I taught myself how to read notes and I would find comfort in music, as well as inspiration. I could see the melodies and I would dream away of what the songs would look like. A song always looked like something to me. A visual, an atmosphere, a feeling. Music was never just notes to a melody, it was about so much more.

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Growing up "different"

Growing up I was different from what people deemed "normal". Some people might see that as something beautiful, and will approach someone who doesn't conform to the traditional ideas of "normal" with an open mind, curiosity and respect. To people with narrow-minded and ignorant views of the world, this "other" way of thinking and being is something to be mocked, something to be judged, and something to be exterminated. It is perceived as "strange", "weird" and a threat to a group identity that is centred around conformity. It might even be perceived as a threat to the sense of self, because if multiple truths are true, and it is possible to have a different worldview to the one that you have, to have a different opinion about matters, to dress differently and to have different beliefs, then what does that mean to someone who believes they are always right, and that their way of existing in the world is the only one that is valid?

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It creates a sense of discomfort. And discomfort is bad, so the person giving you this feeling must be bad, and therefore must be punished. Of course this isn't a logical conclusion, but I have seen people coming to this conclusion time and time again, and I have felt the wrath of people who refuse to accept multiple truths and worldviews simultaneously.

 

I grew up with parents, family and friends who believed that my existence was "wrong", which forced me to learn how to deal with inappropriate behavior, abuse and aggression growing up. I would be punished for who I authentically was. I never understood why, and this instilled a deep sense of injustice in me, since I could never understand what I did wrong. It made me feel like an alien, completely out of place, believing that I was the problem, and not the people around me and their hurtful, cruel, shortsighted and abusive ways of existing in the world.

 

It wasn't until I started to understand that it wasn't about what I did, but about who I was, that my perspective on myself and my place in the world started to change. It made me realise that just being myself was a threat to people who were uncomfortable with themselves, and that it did not mean that I didn't have a right to be who I was. I always asked questions and drew conclusions that other people weren't asking and weren't drawing. That threatened people who valued control and authority over autonomy and self-expression. I know this now, but I didn't understand this when I was very young. I didn't know that it wasn't actually my fault that people were treating me this way, so I took it to heart, I blamed myself, and it created a sense of anger towards myself that made me act out and punish myself, simply for being who I was.

 

The voices of the people around you who tell you who you are and what your place in the world is becomes the way that you speak to yourself. If everyone tells you that you are bad, and that your existence is bad, then this becomes what you tell yourself every day of your life. You learn to hate yourself. You self-sabotage. You are angry every day of your life, at yourself and at the world for being who you are. You punish yourself, scold yourself, and believe that your life has no value, which is perpetuated by the people around you, who treat you as if you are a bother, an inconvenience, and you deserve nothing and no one.

 

I learnt how to survive by adapting, hiding, and trying my best to fit in. I did everything a young woman was “supposed” to do. I finished high school, I went to university, I found myself a boyfriend. For years that sense of belonging and being part of the group felt good. I didn’t feel as alone anymore. Alone in my world, alone in my mind, alone in my being.

 

Being told that you deserve to be punished and abused for who you are will make you your own biggest enemy. I don't remember a day that went by where I felt proud of myself. I would look in the mirror with disgust, and I tried with all my might not to be me, because being me was bad. Life really was a life sentence, and it took me breaking away from my family, friends, the environment that I was living in and the habits that supported my old lifestyle to heal, learn to love, embrace and comfort myself, and to learn that there was in fact nothing wrong with me, and that I didn't need to hide in order to be safe.

 

Coping with the pain of not being able to be myself

Standing out from the crowd can be a daunting experience. I never felt safe to express myself, to speak my mind the way that I truly wanted to speak my mind, to wear what I truly wanted to wear, and to be, love, say and do as I pleased. I learnt how to blend in, even though it never felt like I completely managed to blend in, no matter how hard I tried.

 

Perhaps I just wasn’t meant to.

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Hiding your truest and most authentic self costs a lot of energy, and the role that I had to play in order to survive would wear me out and would lead to feelings of dispair, depression and anxiety. It made me feel disconnected from everything and everyone around me, and even though I was smiling on the outside and pretending that everything was just fine, I was dying on the inside, felt misaligned, terribly alone and horribly unhappy.

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I would self-medicate and self-soothe with alcohol, sex and drugs. I lived a life that made me hate myself. I hated the people who I had surrounded myself with and I hated who I was with the people that I had surrounded myself with. I didn't care about anything anymore, and two years ago, it got to a boiling point.

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I had just travelled the world for a year, didn't have any money, had my heart broken and struggled through deep-seated feelings of shame, disgust and self-loathing. I had unexplained physical ailments, I was broke, and I just wanted to forget everything. One night I went out on a bender drinking in my new city, Rotterdam. I felt like a failure, and I self-soothed by the only means I knew how: I drank. I drank a lot.

 

It was a summer night, hot, and the alcohol just completely obliterated me, to the point where I couldn't walk anymore. I passed out in a park on the opposite of a bar in Rotterdam-Noord, and I vomited while laying on my side trying to find the strength and mental clarity to move. A stranger called me a taxi and got me home. Drunk, ashamed, feeling horrible about myself, knowing deep down inside that this was absolutely not who I really was, I realised that I had reached the limit.

 

I had always found ways of justifying my coping mechanisms. In my mind it just made sense, because everyone else was doing it, and it made me feel like I belonged. In that moment, when everything else fell away, and I was not drinking with other people, I was not in a tropical destination on a beach somewhere, but in a strange city in the middle of the night where I didn't know anyone, drunk, vomiting and unable to find my own way home, I couldn't pretend anymore. I was tired of lying to myself, I was tired of hating myself, I was tired of living like this. I was exhausted.

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This is the moment that everything changed.

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After that, I decided to clean myself up. I quit drinking, I quit smoking, I quit doing drugs and I quit having casual, meaningless sex.

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This was around the same time that I quit my job, and I found myself racking up debt, applying to the government for benefits.

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There is nothing more sobering than losing everything that once made you "you", and having your entire identity stripped away from you.

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Coming home to myself

I spent the next two years working through my depression, learning to lovingly face myself, and cope with my emotions and trauma in ways that were healthy and constructive. I learnt how to be honest with myself, and how to accept my own flaws, imperfections and shortcomings. The first of June is my sobriety anniversary, and this year I hit the two-year milestone. I haven't touched a drop of alcohol, a pill, a joint or a cigarette for the past two years, and I changed the relationship that I have with myself, my emotional, mental and physical well-being, my spirituality and my sexuality.

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I learnt to hold myself and care for myself in ways that I never felt cared for and held, and that changed everything for me.

 

Through all of this art has always been there for me. Creating has always felt therapeutic to me, and it still is. My mind rests when I am creating. It is the most honest and the purest form of self-expression, and my soul, mind and body heal when I create.