artfully roll around on paper and create merwomen in the style of Yves Kline. The day before we were set to do so at lunchtime, in a roped off classroom, Laura got ill and we had to postpone. It turned out that Laura had meningitis. Her illness gave me the wake-up call I needed. I decided to live the hell out of my life but to get my act together and get through school. I was passionate about my art and gave it everything I had. Laura lost the use of her right hand,9 and so I helped her with her coursework too. I got all mine done and we got hers done too. We both got As for our art A levels. I also got a distinction for the 4 units at GNVQ art and design, and an A for the photography GCSE I was doing. We were featured in the local paper as an example of good grades and a touching story. It wasn’t about that, it was about values – my values were beginning to show themselves. Freedom. Loyalty. Friendship. Expression. Creativity. Passion.
The day we got our grades I went and got a tattoo. My tribal tramp-stamp may be incredibly nineties, but it reminds me of a good day. It was my second tattoo. I was 17 and loved how hanging out in a tattoo shop made me feel. I loved the smell. The buzzing of the machinery. The permanence of the work. I was aware that this subculture excited me, and at the same time I could see that there was a prejudice against people with tattoos and I was mindful that I didn’t yet know what I wanted to be when I grew up, so whilst I knew that I wanted more tattoos, I decided to wait a while.10
At the end of my first year of college my art studies were going well, but my Sociology A Level was not. This subject that had initially excited me because it was new and about people and ways of thinking was now really difficult and I was getting 3/25 for my essays. I went and saw the teacher and asked if he would sign a piece of paper that would allow me to quit. Again I was gifted with one of the best teachers ever. This incredible man also saw potential in me and told me to wait until one week into the next term. If at the end of that week I was still sure I wanted out, he would sign my piece of paper. I didn’t study that summer, but by the time we had our next papers returned to us I was scoring 23/25.
I am a huge advocate for stopping, for taking time out to digest. When we are learning a lot of new information it takes a while for it to embed. In my second year I became passionate about sociology, I loved how I was now able to think and argue with conviction for each of the opposing schools of thought. I believe that I have always been an empath but now with these new skills I had a way of understanding and articulating what other people, with a different mindset or view from my own, might think about something. I had started to be able to translate the feelings I was receiving with a system of articulation. When I did my exam at the end of that year I got an A and I also got a letter telling me that my work was outstanding. I have never forgotten the power of encouragement, how powerful someone else’s belief in us can be and how someone outside often has a clearer perspective than we do.
1. Juves = juveniles. A nickname we were given that I loved because it made me feel like part of something. I still love having and giving nicknames. I had a lot of nicknames growing up, that was something my family did really well and I am still really fond of my nicknames and all that they mean to me.
2. A role that Gillian Flynn captures the essence of so well in Gone Girl. http://gillian-flynn.com/gone-girl/
3. http://www.thesite.org/mental-health/depression-mental-health/being-sectioned-5844.html
4. Empaths have highly attuned mirror neurons. They are able to feel what others are feeling physically, emotionally and spiritually. Often called overly sensitive or cry-babies, empaths take on the feelings or emotions of those around them – it is a skill to distinguish which are your own and which are coming from your environment, a skill which most empaths develop over time through a process of discernment – for many often feeling like they are going insane. Wanting to or choosing to numb feelings is not uncommon, and can be part of the process. It is a gift, but can initially feel like a curse. By the time I was at college I had become aware that not all of what I felt was mine.
5. https://www.facebook.com/pages/People-with-Preauricular-Sinus-Their-Abilities, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preauricular_sinus_and_cyst
6. I actually had that first one redone in 2006, and then covered over with something much bigger in 2012.
7. That’s English for ‘made out with’
8. http://www.yveskleinarchives.org/works/works1_us.html
9. It was only temporary, she got it back eventually, but had to learn to write and draw and paint all over again.
10. I did end up having one more done that year, and then no more until I was 25.
SHAME AND SHADOWS
In October 1998 it was socially acceptable and legitimately possible for me to leave home.
Finally, real independence and freedom!
Right?
I needed to decide what was next.
The thing is that there were two parts of me: the ‘make it happen’ part and the ‘let it happen’ part. I was unclear on who I really was and what I should do.
What we focus on is what we get AND when we don’t like aspects of ourselves we stuff them away, where they fester. Every single one of us has qualities that are pleasing to us and qualities that we don’t like so much. We shine a light on the ones we are proud of and which have been useful in getting our needs met. We drop into the shadows the ones that we are ashamed of or which we have learned are not so ‘good’. There were a lot of qualities in me that I didn’t yet understand, which I was ashamed of or saw as ‘bad.’ A lot of these were issues of femininity and my associations with things like ‘softness’, ‘ease’, ‘vulnerability’, ‘emotions’, ‘sensitivity’, and ‘uncertainty.’
Although I felt at the time like I had a high level of emotional intelligence, there were huge gaps. Whilst I was headstrong, passionate, mature and determined in some areas, in others I was just a kid. As I left home and embarked on my next adventure, one of individuation and development, I didn’t really have any idea of what I wanted next for myself.
The ‘make it happen’ part of me was running the show, and she won.
Regardless of how quick I am to process cognitively and logically, creating solutions and seeing links quickly, there are other areas where I am much slower. I’ve often listened to my head and not my heart. Ignored my intuition and been the last one to know how I am feeling. Whilst wearing my feelings on my face and my heart on my sleeve, plain for others to see, I still find it
