Artist dealing with abuse are ten times likely to have suffered abuse as a child. I am just one of those artist. I learned from an early age how to hide feelings, because you were not allowed to have any.
How abuse eats at your self esteem
As a small child I was abuse and could escape into my art when my father was not around. It was the only way I could cope. How does a person feel they have the right to treat anyone so badly?
Children do not get to pick their parents, so abuse becomes their normal life. I was constantly being yell at for being so stupid. It is as if you were born with all the knowledge in the world and you just weren’t using it.
Every day my father was at home my brothers and sisters were under his thumb. I would cringe just hearing his voice because you couldn’t hide from it. When he would say front and center you knew someone was in deep shit and that meant we were all in deep shit.
If I was the one he chose to abuse that day it started when I got up until I went to bed. Told your worthless and you bring this on yourself for being so dumb followed up with a slap or a beating was normal. Getting older the words would change to you should have known better .Why are you such a dumb ass? His words used over and over again with a violent gesture or a motion that you might be hit kept my mind from thinking I was as dumb or stupid as he said I was.
The abuse changed as I got older. It went from bad to worse. Your stupid went to you’re a slut and you need to find someone to put up with you because a women is good for one thing. The abuse escaladed and turned sexual, so I did feel like I was nothing and would never be anything.
Artist dealing with the abuse is on going
Everyone handles abuse differently I can only tell you how I handled it. So, I tried to be the best at whatever I was doing to stay on the good side of my abuser. I became a pleaser at a very young age and buried the abuse deep inside.
Compartmentalize things so I could deal with it was hard. My uncle was an artist self-taught and he would encourage me to draw something to show him when he would visit. That was a life savior because I could focus on that and so that’s what I did.
Drawing helped me escape the abuse for short periods of time. I got better at it and my teachers in school would encourage me to do more. I sunk into arts and crafts because of the positive feedback.
Blaming yourself
When I was allowed to stay with a friend for dinner or an overnight I could see that families were not like mine. I must have been so horrible to be treated the way my father treated me. I was 14 years old when I discovered that alcohol and drugs. Now I have even more to deal with my abuser.
Even though I turn to alcohol and drugs I would not recommend it, because they are a short time fix. I know it created more problems because they gave me courage to stand up and challenge my father and it really made things worse. Running away didn’t help either because there was nowhere to go and when I would get back I was reminded of how stupid and worthless I was.
Artist dealing with the aftermath of abuse
So throughout it all I continued to do art and had a great teacher in high school who taught anything is possible if you want it, go after it. I learned how to do research and I got some really great books to help me along the way. So determined to go to art school I through myself into art and with the help of my teacher on who to present my work and I made it to art school.
Artist dealing like myself find comfort in creating art. There is nothing I would rather do. The abuse stopped when I left home the aftermath is a woman with the same issues as a little girl. I remember be treated as less than and in some ways still do. Finding confidence if still a problem because of the abuse. These days I take one day at a time and pray, I pray.
Artwork
To see more go to my pencil gallery and acrylic gallery.