Chelsea Swan

Oh no I was tricked.

I thought I was having fun and that I was just being nostalgic and playing but things have converged. Connections have been made. All paths and all that.

I have almost zero memory pre 16. I have vague ideas, things I have been told. Mostly its snippets. I could probable collect then in a little case.

If you know you know.

My grandmother lived with my mother’s paternal uncle since her father died when she and her sisters were little girls.

I really like these drawings of jumping and dancing I did a year or so ago for my fantasy project so I took some pictures of myself jumping to draw from and add to the spirographs. I am always dancing and jumping about. Never like staying still. Probably why they stuck me drawing.

See it’s all connected. Probably also why I was labeled naughty. Why when I told I wasn’t believed. When you seem so outgoing people think of it as performance and performances are lies, the performer is a liar.

I always thought I had been believed. I told a teacher. I saw the police. Then I found something when I was a teenager that said I was not allowed within a certain distance. So I must have been a believed. But then I remembered while making this work, thinking back to my time in that house, being kept quiet. I remembered my aunty did not believe me. My step dad sent my mum a letter telling her to make sure I did not make up lies about him. My mum got parenting help to set better boundaries for me. I guess so that i was not so off in a world of fantasy. I was not believed.

I was so lonely as a child.

I wish my brain had not told me. I wish it could all stay in the haze.

I will add more sparkles to the spirographs. At least I have that, the catharsis. Hiding it all in plain sight.

When you are ADHD you are told you are naughty, a bad person, dramatic, a liar. They repeat it enough and you believe it. You become what they say. How do you get Borderline personality disorder?

I was given these tasks because I was the problem. I never stoped going there.

We all have things that others cannot see. Concealed things. We think others can see. that we are being clear. That even by showing the cover up that they should be able to see what is underneath.

People should do more, be kinder. The should protect.

I was so lonely, unlikeable, annoying, unwanted. I was told. Off to foster care if I dont be less.

I can’t forgive so I forget. Still just hoping to make it all pretty enough to be likeable.

A cover up. They gave me art, the tools to make it all shiny. To use against them?