Content warnings: prison/incarceration, colonialism, sexual trauma, family violence, parental substance use, emotional abuse, nudity, vulvas

I have engaged in creative expression for as long as I can remember through drawing, writing stories, and crafting. It was after a really major life transition – separating from my child’s father – that I really started delving into painting. I can remember the first piece that I painted. It’s a huge rainbow vulva, ready & open. I think this painting was my first step in healing during that time. To me, the painting represented a freedom that I hadn’t had. It symbolized my escape from what was ultimately an emotionally abusive relationship. 

It was with that experience that I realized so much of the creative work I have done in my life has been in response to transitions or trauma. I wrote fantasy and science fiction short stories when I was young to get away from what was a sometimes chaotic & traumatic childhood. I drew homes that weren’t mine and places I dreamed of going to. At the same time though, so much of the connection I had with my family came from creativity. When I look back I can see how my creative expression was both my connection to & healing with my family, and was also my resiliency, my coping strategy when my family was not in a healing space, when there was violence. 

Fast forwarding to me, here & now, the purpose of my creative expression hasn’t changed foundationally, it’s only shifted. It is still my resiliency, and it is also now my process. It is a way for me to process trauma and lived experience; it allows me to arrive to a space where healing is possible. It can also be incredibly grounding, bringing me back from places of disassociation and numbness. Over the years, it has also begun to encompass more depth and has provided me with a practice for exploring generational & historical trauma. This piece is called Old pain, inherited. I often pair my painting and drawing with writing. The title of this piece came from the poem, which reads: 

The deep ache of wounds unhealed.

Felt through the strands,

linked through the centuries.

Old pain, inherited.

Passed from the womb, evolved

yet unchanged,

Violence tore, ripped yet connected.

Finally feeling, knowing your depth,

because it is also mine. 

I created this at a time when I was learning about how trauma is passed down through DNA and how the impacts of generational trauma and violence affect your mental and physical health on a physiological level. Learning this knowledge was a really powerful part of processing my trauma & experience. It explained chronic medical issues I have embodied for most of my life, it unraveled family dynamics and brought peace to some of the memories & experiences I had been struggling with for a long time. It was also the beginning of the realization that I could break this cycle with my son. I had the power and control to do that, and with that awareness, I knew I had to. 

Like many people who have trauma in their past, I have also struggled with projecting my family’s trauma, stigma, and shame onto myself & my choices. Drinking alcohol and experiences with drugs have always brought a lot of shame to me because of parental substance abuse that I bore witness to when I was young. Even though I have never struggled with addiction or felt like I was creating experiences for myself that were based in harm, I often felt ashamed or guilty for wanting to and having those experiences. I created a piece titled Their shame is not your shame when to help process those feelings (image coming soon). This piece helped me to work through that shame. I was reading adrienne maree brown’s Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good at the time which spoke a lot to the balance of using substances for pleasure and medicine and how narratives impact how we work with that balance.

Part of using art to process trauma and lived experience is to delve deep into it, to address it messily, unsure, and heavily. This piece, Untitled no. 1 encompasses what that process looks like for me, in this case processing sexual trauma. The writing was actually written a few years before I created this piece. It reads:

Bonded through DNA.

All that is left are strands

of memory.

Sometimes I forget we come from

the same place.

Born of violence,

rage ingrained.

The process of using art to process trauma & lived experience has been a harsh teacher about how complex experiences of trauma are; understandings change & deepen to reveal something that is nothing that traditional responses to harm could possibly address. 

Healing is possible. I didn’t always think that it was and I think I was resistant because I knew it would be painful and challenging. It’s hard to voluntarily take something like that on. For me, it was worth it. For me, it’s still happening. It’s not a process that ends and that is part of the radical acceptance I had to embody to move through it.

What I learned is that healing is about reframing & reimaging; 

it’s about imagining what can grow from what I went through; 

it’s about embracing change, transitions, and shifts in life, in body, and in mind;

it’s about creating boundaries, disrupting patterns, and crushing narratives;

it’s about accepting that it might make me a different person. 

It was also about finding and welcoming a queer identity that couldn’t blossom until my healing had started. Coming out as pansexual and qenderqueer has been an incredibly liberating aspect of my process. I use art and writing to explore these identities, drawing lines of bodies that I desire, and creating a loving relationship with my own body which I sometimes wish was more masculine or more disconnected from the gender binary. I use creative expression to imagine bodies that I want to embody, that connect more with my identity, transcending what I have been given. I use art as a tool of radical vulnerability and love in exploring pleasure, sexuality, and the beauty of feeling pleasure after trauma. 

When I am thinking about historical trauma, linkages to personal/individual trauma & collective healing, I find myself pondering questions like:

• Where does our individual trauma & healing intersect with historical trauma & generational trauma? 
• Why is it important to look at these intersections? 
• What can we learn about our own healing by looking to our ancestors and within larger historical contexts? 
• What trauma, lived experience, and resiliency has been passed to us through our DNA? What does this mean for how we heal?

Art is a vehicle for my own individual healing and process, and for exploring identity, reimagining, and transformation. It also allows me to explore social injustice and to begin envisioning what healing and transformation means collectively. It allows me to shed light on injustices, contextualize those injustices, and center those pushed to the margins. 

Incarceration and the criminal legal system are two topics that I focus most of my work on. Having had close family members incarcerated while I was growing up led me to work with incarcerated victims/survivors of sexual violence, providing emotional support, crisis counseling, and advocacy. The most powerful thing that I have learned from this work is that connection is healing. Incarceration is inherently violent, isolating, & disconnecting; it displaces people & communities. Connecting with incarcerated people is an act of collective healing. 

I also use my work to explore the historical context of incarceration, as an extension of colonialism & slavery. What does attending to the historical trauma of incarceration mean for supporting the healing of people who are incarcerated? I work from the foundation that incarceration is an experience of trauma. It’s complex, it’s state-sanctioned, it’s violent. 

What my personal healing has taught me is that you often need to shed the old before you can be reborn, still with the old lessons & knowledge from before. I believe that anti-oppression, anti-racism, anti-colonialism, and social transformation can only be cultivated if we completely shed the old, violent, and harmful. Reform makes systems better at what they do. Transformation creates what we imagine. This collage speaks to that. The writing reads:

Rage burning over

Lands of violence displacement

Flames of resistance

adrienne maree brown writes, “How do we make social justice the most pleasurable human experience? How can we awaken within ourselves desires that make it impossible to settle for anything less than a fulfilling life?” I believe that part of having a fulfilling life is to heal from our trauma – individual, generational, historical, and collective. My greatest healing growth has been getting to a place I can feel pleasure, despite all of the pain that I have experienced. It’s about accessing that space when I can, and accepting when I can’t. Finding joy is often challenging for me, but when I can, it’s everything. 

I created some creative prompts that have worked for me in getting started with processing & healing. I hope folx will find them helpful.

• Draw, paint, sketch, or write joy (or any emotion that you want to explore).

• [adrienne maree brown inspired] What would it look like/what would the story be if social justice was the most pleasurable human experience?

• Draw, paint, sketch, or write healing. What does healing look like/feel like?

• Draw, paint, sketch, or write how you see yourself. What does this say about where you are and what you need?

For more information about adrienne maree brown visit http://adriennemareebrown.net/
This essay was originally presented with artwork at Celebrate845’s CELEBRATION 2021. For more information about Celebrate845 visit https://www.celebrate845.com/

I believe that sometimes, healing begins with an exposure, a vulnerability, an illumination. We cannot heal what is hidden, what we do not allow others to witness and affirm. Much of my current reflection on presence and depression has been focused on this idea of exposure, particularly in regard to childhood wounds. The question that keeps bouncing inside of my head is, how do old wounds, unexposed trauma or experience, manifest itself in the now? And what of that is not doing us good? What would we like to get rid of to make room for something else, something that is needed, or more of something that we feel in the present? The other, somewhat conflicting question that I cannot seem to let go of is, what beauty and wisdom have we inherited from our families, from our ancestors? And what offerings from our ancestors can actually help us to heal the childhood wounds and trauma that may be keeping us in the past, and not present?

The last few months have lent me to very deep reflection about my family, what they meant to me in the past and how that is different (or not) now. What narratives have I created or accepted that no longer carry truth or benefit? What boundaries have I set in the past that are now keeping me from being a part of the beauty and wisdom that my family offers?

My latest creative works have been very much focused on these reflections. I am sharing them with you all very hesitantly – like most of my work – because it invokes very deep feelings of vulnerability; perhaps in part, this is the exposure that is needed to help in the healing process. The two paintings I am sharing below do not have titles. However, I am including the writing that I did in relation to the artwork. It’s difficult to say whether the writing happened before, during, or after the artwork. I am beginning to see it as one process, not separated or differentiated.

The deep ache of wounds unhealed
felt through the strands,
linked through the centuries.
Old pain, inherited.
Passed from the womb, evolved
yet unchanged.
Violence tore, ripped yet connected.
Finally feeling, knowing your depth,
because it is also mine.

 

Bonded through DNA.
All that is left are strands
of memory.
Sometimes I forget we come from
the same place.
Born of violence,
rage ingrained.
I remember a time when
we were our universe.
Even that has faded,
much like the innocence barely felt.
When born in darkness,
the line between love and violence dims.
And what is left behind is the gaping wound
where you once were.

 

 

Last month, Kate Earley, a contributor to The Radical Notion wrote an article entitled When the Abuser is Someone You Know. In that article, Kate discusses the challenging experience of knowing someone who has been accused of perpetrating abuse. Kate outlines three important things to remember, which are to: understand that the situation is not your fault; to acknowledge that it is okay to have feelings; and to focus on solidarity with the person who has survived the abuse while also allowing them to define their experience and the support that they need. I admire Kate’s article because it discusses a topic that is so often ignored – the experience of the people who know or love a person who has perpetrated abuse or violence. However, I believe that there is space to take this topic a step further and to complicate the dichotomies that often exist when speaking to the experience of knowing and being close to people who have committed acts of violence.

Often conversations about sexual violence – or any crime really – focus on blame as a focal aspect. One of the final points made in Kate’s article was that for folks who know someone who has committed an act of violence, the practice of putting the blame “in the right place” is vitally important in order to move froward through the experience. Although I do believe that accountability is crucial in addressing acts of violence and in the healing process, using terms like “blame” and positing that there is only one “right place” to project it onto simplifies the experience, and does not afford the lens necessary to see the complexity of the experience. When we know someone who has committed an act of violence, the concept of blame becomes incredibly complicated. Society tells us that people who commit acts of violence are “bad people” to be blamed for their choices. However, when we know that “bad person”, we see the context of their lives, the lived experiences that have brought them to moment of committing an act of violence, and the role they have played in our lives. Maybe they are our father, our brother, our mother. Maybe they have committed acts of violence against us. Arguing that there is or should be a single focus of blame not only decontextualizes the lives of people who have committed acts of violence, but it also reinforces the very dichotomies that feminism attempts to challenge and change. In this case, it is the dichotomy between “innocent” and “guilty” victims. I have seen this dichotomy most often in cases where people who are incarcerated survive physical or sexual assault while they are in prison. Oftentimes, the narrative in this situation names these individuals “guilty” victims, meaning that there tends to be little sympathy and they tend to be written off as deserving the assault because “that’s part of serving time'”. Essentially, what this narrative leads to is a complete decontextualization and dehumanization of people who are incarcerated. This same narrative is what we see when we speak to individuals in our lives who have committed acts of violence. The  narrative consistently centers around the question, “What is wrong with you?”, rather than the question, “What has happened to you?”

Interestingly, society – and a lot of feminists (see: white feminists) – tend to selectively contextualize crimes. “Quality of life” crimes are often viewed in the context of economic injustice, gentrification, and lack of needed community services. “Quality of life” crimes are acts such as theft, drug dealing, welfare fraud, and drug possession. We can more easily ask the question “What happened to you?” when the answer is that an individual was dealing drugs because they had to do so in order to support their family or that an individual committed theft because they were pushed out of their community due to gentrification. It becomes increasingly difficult to ask the question “What happened to you?” when a person has committed an act of violence. For feminists and the feminist movement, that question becomes even more challenging when someone has committed an act of gender-based violence. However, I do not think that feminism means that we always exclusively center the experiences of the “obvious” survivor of violence. Feminism means that we contextualize all experience and that we see the complex multiple truths that exist in all experiences and situations. This is true even in situations of the perpetration of violence and gender-based violence. When the narrative that we hear largely in the feminist movement is to exclusively center the experiences of what we are supposed to see as the “obvious” survivor, the feminist movement completely invalidates the experiences of people who know and love individuals who have committed acts of violence. Additionally, I would argue that in this case, the feminist movement also largely works against its own foundations – centering the lived experiences of marginalized individuals. Do we as feminists feel comfortable only contextualizing the lives of people who have made the “right” choices, based solely on societal judgment statements that define “right” and “wrong”? As a feminist, I feel that we need to strive to complicate and challenge these norms, even when they feel as if they are conflicting with our values. The work of feminism is complex and uncomfortable. Questioning that discomfort and searching for the root of it will bring us the complexity that we need to truly confront the systems that feminism seeks to challenge and eliminate.

 

UPDATE! In addition to writing to Governor Cuomo, you should write to the following individuals via email:

Marta Nelson, Executive Director of the Governor’s Council on Community Reentry and Reintegration – marta.nelson@exec.ny.gov

Anthony Annucci, Acting Commissioner of NYS DOCCS – anthony.annucci@doccs.ny.gov

Senator Gallivan, Senate Chair of Corrections Committee – gallivan@nysenate.gov

Assemblymember Weprin, Assembly Chair of Corrections Committee – WeprinD@nyassembly.gov

Senator Avella, Senate Chair of Children & Families Committee – Avella@nysenate.gov

Assemblymember Jaffe, Assembly Chair Committee on Children & Families – JaffeeE@nyassembly.gov

***

Governor Andrew Cuomo has put forth a proposal that would cut visitation in NYS maximum security prisons from 7 days week to only 3 days a week. Currently under the 7 day system, family and friends often have to wait two to three hours before they can see their loved ones. Additionally, many families who live in New York City need to travel for up to 6 hours to see their loved ones in upstate prisons. Cutting the visitation days down only makes these barriers more challenging. Visitation is crucial not only for the mental health and successful reentry of prisoners, but also to the well-being of families and children.

The Correctional Association writes (and I’m quoting a bunch because they say it so well):

“Nearly 80,000 children have a parent in a New York prison – the majority of these children live in a handful of low-income communities of color in New York City. Most prisons, however, are located in rural, upstate communities, making visits difficult, especially for individuals with few economic resources. Approximately 73% of women and 58% of men incarcerated in New York are parents. Many have never had a visit with their children.

The large-scale social, emotional and economic disruption of families—particularly in low-income communities of color—is one of the most devastating consequences of mass incarceration.

Removing primary caretakers inflicts trauma on children, harms family structures, destabilizes communities, and places financial burdens on relatives who assume caretaking responsibilities and taxpayers who assume costs associated with foster care. In addition, incarcerated parents with children in foster care are at serious risk of losing parental rights to their children forever.

Like all young people, children of incarcerated parents need nurturing and support, and maintaining family ties helps them process their parent’s absence and reduce the trauma of separation. For incarcerated parents, staying connected with their children can motivate them to participate in prison programs, ease family reunification after release, and greatly reduce the likelihood that they will return to prison.”

Cutting visitation rights is not just about individuals – it is about devastating communities, particularly communities of color. And, just like all aspects of the prison-industrial complex, it is about perpetuating white supremacy. Cutting visitation rights keeps incarcerated individuals disconnected from their communities. Additionally, targeting maximum security prisons punishes prisoners for the one thing they cannot change: the nature of their crime. And in fact, cutting visitation hours takes away one of the most important rehabilitation tools – connection with loved ones and community. Please ACT NOW by calling, emailing, or writing Governor Andrew Cuomo in opposition of his proposal.

You can write to Governor Cuomo at this address:

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo
New York State Capitol
Albany, NY 12224

Or, call at: 518-474-8390