These photos were taken in 2008, Charlie my dog was only puppy, about 2-3 months old, and my mum was still alive, I was resistant about getting a dog as I thought it would interfere with my spontaneous party lifestyle, but it was the best thing that could ever have happened, I believe Charlie was sent to me as a spiritual gift, to help prepare me for my mums death.
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These photo’s were taken about 4 months after my mum had died, I was dealing with the torment of trauma that my mum’s death had released, her death triggered much that was repressed and locked away to surface and I lost the plot. I tried to put on a happy face, the one people had become familiar with, but I’d become a little girl again in many ways, my world seemed unsafe and unpredictable, I felt very alone and lost. It’s strange to view these photo’s, my life feels divided into sections, there was the me that existed before my mum died and the one left after she died, there was the me before heroin addiction, the heroin me, and recovery me, all very different states. I know what lies ahead of these photo’s; an effort to stay alive, to find meaning and eventually to find myself.
I tried escape to deal with my issues and spent many years addicted to heroin, the time came when I became tired of not feeling anything, I was a living void and as much as my painful emotions were difficult to face, I was missing the good emotions, I wanted to feel alive and connected to life again. During my recovery I’ve found that writing is the best way to manage the feelings I find difficult to express. It’s hard to talk about being abused, and often I distance myself from it by exploring it intellectually, I’ll say my repressed trauma started to impact my life, it made relationships difficult, that I was unable to self-soothe, but what really needs to be said is often to unpalatable, and I fear shocking others with the horrors of my mind, writing poetry gives me a place for such things, the horrors, darkness, anger and rage can all be channelled into something cathartic and affirming, it helps me to claim some power back over my experiences. My book of poetry is an example of how creative writing can support the management of trauma and mental health, it’s one of my ways of coping and integrating the experiences, it’s another step towards the wholeness I desire.
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