Art, Self-Trust, and the Support That Helped Me See Myself Clearly

Throughout my childhood, even before my ADHD diagnosis, I was told that I would never make anything of myself. I was called stupid, unable to learn, a lost cause. Sometimes people said those words aloud. At other times, I believed I could read the same judgment in their expressions. I remember teachers making a mockery of me in front of my classmates instead of understanding that I learned differently.

That was how I felt they saw me, and I did not believe they wanted to see my potential. My love of art kept me moving through days when everything felt black and I could not glimpse any light ahead. There were many days when I thought all was lost.

When I was a child, contact with my mother ended after court proceedings, and I experienced that as abandonment. I went to live in the care of my father and stepmother.

My father was a good dad in many ways, but I did not feel that he had my back when I needed him. Life with my stepmother became painful. I thought of her, briefly, as Lady Tremaine from Cinderella. I remember my stepmother and stepbrother mocking my weight, while the home I had known with my father came to feel hostile. It happened quickly, and I felt unprepared for it.

Later, meeting my husband brought more safety and brightness into my life. I felt seen and supported. When other people had regarded me as quiet and easy to manipulate, my husband recognised something in me that I was still struggling to recognise in myself. I still cannot fully explain it.

I continue to work my way out of the shell inside my mind, a shell I imagine as protection from the world. The love and encouragement I receive from my husband lift my spirits, but my worth and my creative life are my own. I no longer want the people who doubted my intellect to decide what I can do. Self-doubt no longer gets to eat away at the part of me that knows I can write and make art.

In my own image of this change, I am coming out of a dark tunnel and learning to see myself more clearly. I am free to read about psychology, philosophy, spirituality, and other forms of knowledge that speak to me and have changed the way I see my world.

I have written many articles for people whose minds work differently, spoken with advocates, learned from them, and shared my own perspective. Making tattoo art gives me joy and somewhere to put intense emotions. I am also writing two works of fiction that belong to a duology.

I think of myself as a phoenix still rising from the ashes, not as proof of what must happen for anyone else. My story leaves me with a personal hope: that I can keep trusting my abilities and making a life in which I know my own worth. If someone finds a little peace in that possibility, I am glad.