From a Cocoon to a Butterfly

I recently started working on a new project during my free time that focuses on creating art, while also incorporating plants, and flowers (dried up and using scissors). I am working on creating an art gallery, showing my healing journey as a survivor of abuse. Creating these pieces have been very therapeutic, and it makes me feel happy. As an adult I feel much more comfortable sharing my story, because I have been able to process, learn how to self-regulate, and start healing from those traumatic experiences. It has made it much easier for me to move through this world. I have not fully healed from those traumatic experiences but I have confronted them and I am at a point where I share my story. I know that I have a voice and my story deserves to be heard.

My story (it may be triggering if you are a survivor of abuse):

As a child (5 years old) I witness domestic and emotional abuse perpetrated by my father onto my mother. I witness my father being arrested in our home and taken away in handcuffs. I was aware at a young age due to my own observations that my mother had put a restraining order on my father. For example my mother and father had no contact, and my father would make comments such as "your mother does not want me to be near her" when we would spend time with him. My mother was still able to arrange visitation rights for my father through family members.

Around 10 years I experienced sexual abuse by a family member. At 17 years old I experienced domestic violence by a classmate that I was dating during that time. The domestic violence that I experienced was a very traumatic experience and it was the cherry on top of all of the other abuse I had witnessed and experienced. The guy I was dating was emotionally abusive and when I decided to break up with him he choked me and tried to stab me in my neck. More had happened that day but it is a slight blur. What I mainly remember is how I was able to escape. With my family's support I reported him, and he was arrested, and I placed a restraining order. I began therapy shortly after, but my experience in therapy was HORRIBLE. I am an Afro-Latina woman and when I was 17 years old my first therapist was a White woman named April, who was culturally insensitive. During our second session she compared my experience to Rihanna and Chris Brown's domestic violence situation that was happening during that time. She silenced my VOICE and I retrieved into my cocoon.

I struggled with finding the right therapist after. During my college experience I spent most of my time in my cocoon and engaging in activities that were harmful to myself. After graduating college I explored other ways to cope, express myself, and heal. I engaged more in writing, movement, and painting. I began to evolve in my cocoon and slowly started transforming into a butterfly.

Creating was and still is one of my many therapies.

Creating allows me to express myself in ways that allows me to feel less heavy and free. We are human beings with many different parts to us (intellectual, spiritual, emotional, mental, creative, sexual and physical) and those parts can at times be in conflict with each other, and maybe even with other human beings due to our own traumatic experiences. We are constantly searching for balance in this world, but we need to accept that we are living in a world of imbalance, but there are moments of balance.

I was personally able to move through life through creating, especially by using paint, and different types of materials that I can include in my art. Painting has always been an outlet for me, and where I was able to find balance many times over and over again. Through my paintings my voice was heard, and it was loud and clear. This gallery will be a representation of that and how those moments of balance are also moments of evolution and healing. In this gallery I am focusing a lot on the body and nature. My body did not feel mine for so long, and it was continuous work of grounding myself, listening to my body and what it needed in order to let go, feel safe, and feel more connected to my physical self. I did this a lot through nature and movement, which is why I am working a lot with plants, flowers, and sticks in my paintings.

I personally have a strong belief that we are nature and nature is us, and we are a representation of nature. Think of it this way… the trees, grass, dirt, flowers, mountains, the ocean and just everything that represents earth are in constant communication through their roots. We are in constant communication through our energies, our energy are our roots, and our bodies release and receives so much energy. Here is another way of thinking about it… trees, and plants are constantly evolving, constantly changing, constantly growing, they experience death, and life. We are the same.

I have been finding joy, peace, and love in creating these paintings. I can hear myself, because I am no longer in that cocoon.