This is the Way Forward

So I pour all of this internal conflict and angst into my art. I let it breathe. I lift the pressure to go all the way in any direction. I can just have these feelings, thoughts, questions. This is how I free myself.

“the great escape”

Charcoal, graphite, and watercolor on bristol paper. 17 x 14 inches. 2025.

Dearest Doodle Soupsters,

When I make art and write about my experiences with abuse, it’s cathartic, freeing … parts of me wake up and finally feel safe to step into the light, feel the sun on my skin, to live now and let go of survival mode.

The first person who raped me was very close to me. It happened when I was a young child. It’s a secret I kept from myself for a very long time, too painful to acknowledge.

I lived in dissociation, in destructive habits that kept me from confronting the truth. And in that dissociation, I was vulnerable. I couldn’t stand up for myself. I couldn’t speak. As an adult being sexually assaulted, I couldn’t yell. I whispered no, over and over. I didn’t get up and leave. I was frozen.

This is what hiding the truth does to a person. This is what trauma does to a person. This is what happens when a child isn’t believed.

So a few years ago, I tried to share this secret, a secret that isn’t my burden to bear. Then I received an email from someone close to the abuser, someone I used to be close to, that broke my heart all over again. I took down the post immediately.

I’ve played it over in my head a million times. I don’t want to name these people. What I want is relief. To feel free.

I’m choosing not to name these people and you know what? That’s okay.

I don’t want to diminish the reality that it can be empowering for survivors to name their abusers, to hold them accountable. But right now, I’m just talking about my own experience. My own needs, wants, feelings.

And I’m sure I’m not the only sexual abuse survivor who’s felt torn between the shame on loop in the brain screaming it’s your fault! don’t believe yourself! forget forget forget FORGET!!! and the desire, the need, for a path forward. Often, there aren’t neat, clear answers to the question: What is the path forward? Sometimes, all I’ve got is take one step, then another. But what step?

Maybe, I’m still scared of what “they’ll” do. Is that so bad? Can’t I just let myself be scared? Be human? Not want to deal with emails that say anything along the lines of I don’t believe you.

I’m still struggling to believe myself. And that email, I’m still reeling from it. I don’t want to admit that anything could impact me that much. I want to be bigger than it. I want to be so tiny and invisible that none of it matters. I want to be stronger than it. I want to be unaffected. I want to not feel …

What’s the longing? To not be affected? To not be human?

I think I’m reaching out for a coping mechanism that doesn’t work for me anymore. A coping mechanism I don’t use, or at least not to the same extent or in the same way, anymore. I can’t dissociate. I won’t dissociate. I’m feeling.

It isn’t about being bigger or smaller or stronger. I’m allowed to feel what I feel. And if I feel something for a long time, then I feel something for a long time. It’s okay! I don’t have to be ashamed of this.

Maybe, I don’t feel comfortable being more specific about the abuse, the email. There are details I just don’t feel comfortable sharing. That’s okay.

But I can still express myself.

I’m working on a new series called secret messages/hidden in plain sight (series title and description still TBD so look out for more info soon-ish!). The artwork at the top of this edition is a new work in that series.

It’s funny — I say “new series” but I’ve working on this series for the past year at least, maybe more. These are the artworks stashed under the studio desk. These are the pieces I don’t know how to share.

Visual art, music, writing, dancing, walking, observing — in the background, I’m finding clarity, trying to make sense of something … this series is me trying to make sense of the internal conflict between wanting to free myself of the shame that I feel and so many survivors of sexual abuse feel, wanting to free myself of the burden of keeping secrets that were never mine to keep, the secrets that kept me stuck in a cycle of freeze-fawn-flight, unable to name the truth, and as a result, unable to protect myself.

It may sound counterintuitive but it’s pretty common for sexual abuse survivors to be assaulted more than once, by more than one perpetrator. I know what’s it’s like to shut down … as a kid, I tried by best to fight back. But as an adult, I laid there frozen, whispering no, but unable to yell, unable to get up and leave.

This series is me making sense of all the things I want to say aloud but also don’t want to say aloud. I want catharsis. I want privacy. I don’t want to get messages from the people who hurt me. I want freedom from shame. I want to pretend none of it happened because part of me is still terrified and struggling to believe myself.

So I pour all of this internal conflict and angst into my art.

I let it breathe. I lift the pressure to go all the way in any direction.

I can just have these feelings, thoughts, questions. This is how I free myself.

I write it down, I draw over. I move my body, swooping my paintbrush all over. I draw faces, one eye focused on one set of truths, the other focused on another set of truths. I let the dualities of my experience be there.

I’m letting this be enough. I’m seeing the beauty and pain. I love these pieces. I love writing down my honest thoughts and then continuing the artwork in a way where the words are still there but you can’t really read them. But you can feel it anyway, can’t you?

Ahhhh! It feels very vulnerable to share these pieces, but I can feel it. This is the way forward.

Here are a couple more peeks into my upcoming series …

Sensing, feeling, trusting, fearing, feeling the fear and doing it anyway, taking the next step,

Nicole Sylvia Javorsky