Despite Everything, it’s Still You

Tessa Greenwood

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Emotional isolation has become a common state of mind for people in our culture. Though casual conversations do happen, there is a lack of a deeper connection happening within those conversations. One way to create connection, true connection, is by telling a personal story that can be related to. Some experiences that we share are positive, while others are imbued with trauma. Our society, however, prohibits the normalization of speaking out about traumatic experiences. This denies people a way to create connections that can lead to healing. My work is about the connection created through the sharing of traumatic experiences, showing that those events no longer have control over me or anyone else.

 

The stories I am sharing range from my battle with sickness to my experience of dealing with toxic personalities. These stories are extremely personal, full of information I typically reveal only to those I can be vulnerable with. To document these parts of my life, I chose to digitally illustrate a fantasy narrative into a series of comic book pages. This narrative is used to emphasize the need for storytelling by crafting my actual life into a fantasy realm. Fantasy is a genre that has allowed me to cope with my own experiences, and I hope that the viewer will feel the same healing properties of this form of storytelling. Knowing that even though our hero in the comic has magic flowing through her body, she still has flaws. However, those flaws don’t dictate her entire life. She remains herself. Along with the fantasy-based setting, there is a handwritten letter, written on fibrous paper and stained in order for it to look worn and aid in the creation of fantasy.

 

I was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia at the age of two; this was my first encounter with trauma. I overcame my cancer through chemotherapy and a lot of love from my family. In my work, this story is the first told as it is the earliest. In the story, our hero is cursed by a creature that represents this cancer. The healer that is in the comic is the oncologist that helped me throughout my treatment. The crystals in the comic are a representation of chemotherapy, and they are light purple to represent the support ribbons for all forms of cancer. Once our hero touches a crystal it turns orange symbolizing the ribbon for Leukemia. Then attaches itself to the places where I was given my infuse-a-port, an object that was placed under my skin to administer chemotherapy. As time passes in the story the crystal turns into a representation of the scar left over from the port.

 

After some time, I began to encounter other traumas as I was bullied by my peers. The effect it had on me was immense at the time. Looking back on that event taught me how not to treat people. In the comic, this event is represented by the boy bullying our hero by using dark energy, and our hero eventually using her own magic to retaliate.

 

I experience anxiety. This has triggered panic attacks in the past, and one of these panic attacks is depicted in my comic. I have represented a panic attack as textured erratic black swirls surrounding our hero’s body.

 

Along the journey of my life, I have also encountered those with toxic personalities. These people showed me that I shouldn't trust everyone and that some people just have a lot of negative emotions inside them that they want to push out onto others. In the comic, the toxic personalities are represented by black shadowy figures outlined in red. Through all these traumatic experiences, I have realized that these events have contributed to who I am as a person.

 

My work is meant to take these traumatic experiences and present them in a way which will allow the audience to either relate to my experiences or to empathize with them. By taking traumatic moments in my I want to display that although these moments have contributed to who I am, they are not my entire being and they should not completely dictate my life. I want to take this and give that feeling to the audience. Creating connections with others has always been important to me throughout my life. With my work, I intend to bring that full circle and create connections with my audience as well as have them create connections with each other while viewing my work.