Why Pain is a Blessing and a Curse
A story of how I discovered my creativity and where the inspiration for Avery Indigo comes from
Even before I turned 3 years old, I was already a product of pain and disadvantage:
"Foster Care"
"CPS"
"Abuse/Neglect"
"Poverty"
"Mental Illness"
all filled my documented history before I could even read. I was born into pain like many others and like many others- came the burden of carrying that pain and making sense of it all. There was no closure or opened door to walk through to find that green stretch of grass, or a baptism clean enough to sanitize my personal history. I was born broken. I was born unwanted. I was born neglected. I was born a mistake.
These realizations dawned on me in recent times. I looked back through old journals and poetry written at the height of my despair and confusion. Of course, this happened to be my teen years. As I read the old pages, I saw a scared voice. I read a familiar song of anguish that carries itself with me, even now. The bigger picture I discovered: I wrote in a way that was heartfelt and original and sacred to me. I discovered that for years that I was already the creative that I wanted to be. The difference between then and now was simply that I now feel I have a RIGHT to create. I feel I have a VOICE to speak. I TRUST myself to be. To THINK. To DREAM. I was scared of my own creativity. It was as if I couldn't fathom actually taking myself seriously or having others do the same. And this creativity was not inspired by a love of creating or being acknowledged- I just always felt like I had a lot to say and not enough people to listen.
I gave myself the safe space in my art, that I never had around me.
The original family I come from is pain. It is a story about a mentally-ill mother who could not take care of her four children. It is a story where CPS stepped in and removed us from her care. It is a story of a woman plagued by the horrible condition of schizophrenia who lacked spousal support. Her world crashed and burned, and with it- so did mine.
I ended up in foster care for a little while and then was adopted into another family before I turned 3. Now, most times this would be the silverlining in a story like this- but it wasn't. This home was toxic and loud and violent and unstable. This home was cruel and sad and desolate and decrepit. This caregiver was angry, bitter, selfish, and self-serving. My older brother had endured so much trauma before we were adopted, that I can recall that he would on many occassoins , as a 5 year old, attempt to hang himself with belts and whatever else he could find. He never recieved the proper care from our caregiver and so he directed his unresolved and complex feeling toward a smaller and more vulreble target- Me. So began the 16 years of being physically, mentally, and emotionally tormented by this older brother. The worst part? He had the caregiver's blessing to beat, strangle, and torment me. She also showed me the same cruelty and started blaming me for why it happened. She participated in it. So here I was being beat, strangled, and abused/neglected by both my brother and "caregiver" and being blamed for being the reason for why it occured.
"It's your fault for not keeping your mouth closed."
Imagine for a moment:
You are a young child who leaves one abusive home to come to another.
You are told you are the problem child.
You are told your biological mother didn't want you.
You are told that you are lucky to have this new caregiver.
You are told that you are ungrateful for wanting to understand why you are being hit and beat.
You are told you need to keep your mouth quiet.
You are told that you are being beat because YOU are the problem.
Now consider that you are only 3, 5, 7 years old.
Imagine you are thinking of killing yourself as a 7 year old child because you felt so unwanted, unvalued, unsafe, and unloved that you as a 7 year old- rationalized that death would be better.
The immense amount of pain in my life at such a young age was and still is a heavy weight to carry.
When I was in elementary school, I acted out all this pain and brokenness in a very twisted way. I was an angel around my teachers but a devil around my peers. I was cruel and a bully. I was a small child in stature so I made "friends" with taller kids so that I could be "protected." This is how my ruse worked: I was the "quiet smart kid" in class so that the teachers would not believe my classmates when I acted out on the yard. It was such a contradictary image for these teachers that they couldn't fathom the duality that I was. I was a lost kid with no sense of direction or love in my heart. Evn now, I still felt guilt over this behavior. I feel I was too self-aware to pretend I didn't know what I was doing. Hopefully one day I forgive myself.
In my awkward teen years, I rebelled against the system in every way. I stopped doing homework or even engaging in class. I was a depressed and miserable teen fixated on the idea of suicide and my attitude was one of a defeated person. I kept to myself most of the time and it was rare for people to hear me speak for extended periods of time. I did not care to be seen, known, or acknowledged. I wallowed and wasted away in my hollow tomb. It was not until a teacher gave me an award for creativity that I even considered that I could be that.
I never saw myself as creative until this teacher: Ms. Maldonado (who later became Mrs. Heifer), saw me.
Thank you for granting me this idea.
So instead of acting out as I had done as a young child, I redirected most of pain into poetry, writing musical scores, playing trumpet, picking up guitar, and spending time with Wayne. I made it a goal to self-reflect and understand my inner world. I wanted to know why I thought, felt, and acted in certain ways. I wanted to map my pain out so that I could control it and not it, me. I dropped my last name which was tied to rejection and adopted an X to the end of my name. This came to signify that I could "X" out where I come from, and the limitations that came with that. This was my way of liberating myself from expectations of who and what I could be.
As you can see, there's some "positive" aspects that came from this painful life but with that came:
Suicidal thoughts
Depression
Anxiety
PTSD
Abandonment Issues
Insecure Attachment
A deep rooted issue with authority
Neuroticism
Anti-social behaviors
To everyone I've ever hurt, I am sorry. I am still a work in progress and I fully acknowledge that despite all the thing that have gone wrong in my life- I have to take ownership of my short comings and just be better. I think I have to be the one to challenge myself to improve and change and grow. I alone have to be dedicated to my own self-improvemnt. I think the only way I could even attempt to be better, is that I first acknowledged that what I experienced is not normal. That it is not okay. That I don't want to treat people that way. So this is why pain is a blessing (makes you more empathetic, inspires creativity at times etc.) and a curse (disorders, more disorders, and yes- more disorders). I am not thankful for my pain but I do try to make it serve me.
-Wayne X
P.S. If you do feel inclined, please do checkout a song I wrote. Thanks again for reading xoxo.
About the Creator
Keep reading
More stories from writers in Motivation and other communities.
Lost but Trying
There are moments in life when everything feels lost—not dramatically, not loudly, but quietly. The kind of loss that settles into your bones and makes even simple breathing feel heavy. For Adam, that moment came on an ordinary Tuesday morning when he realized he had nowhere left to go. At twenty-seven, Adam wasn’t supposed to feel this tired. He wasn’t supposed to feel like life had already passed him by. Yet there he was, sitting on the edge of a narrow bed in a rented room, staring at peeling paint on the wall, wondering how everything had gone so wrong. He had once been full of plans. Big ones. Dreams of building something meaningful, of becoming someone his younger self would be proud of. But life, as it often does, had other ideas. Adam grew up in a small town where hope was common but opportunities were rare. His father worked long hours, his mother carried silent strength, and everyone believed that education would be the escape route. Adam believed it too. He studied hard, stayed out of trouble, and dreamed even harder. But dreams don’t always come with instructions. After college, rejection letters became his daily routine. Job interviews led to polite smiles and empty promises. “We’ll get back to you,” they said. Most never did. Slowly, confidence turned into doubt. Doubt turned into fear. And fear became a constant companion. When his father fell ill, Adam returned home. Medical bills piled up. Savings vanished. Dreams were postponed, then quietly buried. After his father’s death, the house felt too empty, too loud in its silence. Adam left again, this time not chasing dreams, but running from memories. The city welcomed him with indifference. He worked temporary jobs—delivery rider, warehouse helper, night security guard. None lasted long. Each job paid just enough to survive, never enough to grow. Failure followed him like a shadow, whispering reminders of what he hadn’t become. One night, after being laid off yet again, Adam walked aimlessly through the city streets. Neon lights blurred into streaks of color. Laughter spilled out of cafés he couldn’t afford. He felt invisible, like a background character in everyone else’s success story. That night, he considered giving up. Not dramatically. Not with a note or tears. Just a quiet decision to stop trying. To accept that some people were meant to struggle forever. He sat on a bench near a bus stop, head in his hands, when an old man sat beside him. “You look like someone who’s lost,” the man said gently. Adam didn’t reply. The old man continued, “Being lost isn’t the problem. Staying lost is.” Adam finally looked up. The man’s face was lined with age, but his eyes carried a calm confidence, the kind earned through survival. “I’ve tried,” Adam said bitterly. “Nothing works.” The man smiled softly. “Trying doesn’t guarantee success. It guarantees growth.” Adam wanted to argue, but something in the man’s voice stopped him. “I failed more times than I can count,” the old man added. “But each failure taught me something. Most people quit right before life changes.” The bus arrived. The old man stood up. “Don’t stop trying,” he said. “Even slow steps are steps forward.” Then he was gone. Adam sat there long after the bus left. For the first time in months, something shifted inside him—not hope exactly, but curiosity. What if stopping wasn’t the answer? What if trying, even imperfectly, still mattered? The next day, Adam did something small. He updated his resume. It wasn’t impressive, but it was honest. He applied for jobs he felt un for. He watched free online courses at night. He started writing—short thoughts, reflections, anything that helped him release the weight inside. Days turned into weeks. Rejections continued, but so did effort. One evening, Adam posted a short piece of writing online. He didn’t expect much. But comments came in. Strangers resonated with his words. Someone said, “This feels like my life.” Another wrote, “Thank you for putting my feelings into words.” For the first time, Adam felt seen. He kept writing. Months later, he landed a small content job—not glamorous, not permanent—but real. It paid little, but it paid consistently. More importantly, it gave him purpose. Life didn’t magically improve overnight. Problems didn’t disappear. Some days were still heavy. But Adam noticed something new: he no longer felt stuck. Trying had changed him. He learned that progress isn’t loud. It doesn’t announce itself. It arrives quietly, disguised as persistence. He learned that being lost doesn’t mean being broken. Sometimes it simply means you’re between versions of yourself. Years later, Adam would look back on that bench, that night, and that stranger. He would realize that the turning point wasn’t a job or success—it was a decision. A decision to keep trying, even when trying hurt. Because sometimes, the bravest thing you can do isn’t winning. It’s not quitting.
By Inayat khan3 days ago in Motivation
The Path to Salvation
The late autumn evening air filled the monk's lungs, but it wasn't the season that chilled his bones. The heavy-handed presence of evil he had sensed upon entering the woods surrounding this mountain village had not bothered to conceal itself from him.
By Made in DNAabout 7 hours ago in Fiction
Comments
There are no comments for this story
Be the first to respond and start the conversation.