Seeing her in the gallery, I moved to stand / in her presence. Instantaneous connection / with the face on the canvas amplified the / disconnect with the one in my mirror.
I have long been fascinated by artists and their art, but believed I was incapable of creation. I didn’t recognize the creativity I lived in every moment of survival. At age three, I survived my first sexual assault. My mind created alternate personalities to experience and block these memories so I could have a sense of normality and safety while living in an abusive home. A cast of wildly different characters caused me to lose time and experience flashbacks almost daily while raising two children and navigating a healthcare system that often scoffed at me, causing more trauma. At thirty-four, my creative response to trauma was diagnosed as Dissociative Identity Disorder. I prefer “reaction” to disorder.
Shedding searches and door hangers, I shift / to nightlights to comfort my unease with the dark. / As I untangle real from past danger, I redefine / how safety appears – in my life and actions.
Straying to Mother Nature’s galleries, adept at avoiding people, I walked among the trees in Balboa Park, discovering another community I could embrace as I dealt with severe depression, PTSD, agoraphobia, and self-injury. Viewing the shapes of human faces and lounging bodies on the living canvases of trunks and branches made me chuckle. Their symbiotic relationship with other plants provides them with nutrients and water, a reminder of my need for others. And, the evidence of their fierce desire to survive in every knot formed after a lost branch and each valiant dance in the wind. I found hope there.
Passing through those feelings again / I inhale the despair and residue of agony. / And release the peace of healing to my past. / Ever and always divinely loved. Never alone.
Each new reason I found to keep living, the vow I made to never cause my kids harm by ending my life, practicing new coping skills. I contracted for safety with my therapist when I was actively suicidal and was willing to go to the hospital when I couldn’t. I gathered with a group of survivors with DID learning how to cope, function, and create an island sanctuary in my mind, a safe place for my alters to go. It was everything that safety had never been in my life.
From feet to head, inside and out, she started practices of loving each body/part. Her becomings. Each mislaid step. / In reappraisal, she became priceless.
My purple spiral-bound journal, Crayola fine-line markers, glitter gel pens, and paper hole reinforcement stickers went with me to the hospital. Depression robbed me of my ability to focus except on small tasks. I turned the stickers into tiny Pride flags and read my daughter’s Baby-Sitter’s Club books.
I traveled a thousand miles from the ones / who pleasured in my pain to discover my / story in a painting – crashing through / darkness to light and blessed sound.
Because of art and the community it fostered, I have gone from thinking I am weak, wounded, and beyond healing to believing in myself and expressing myself through jewelry making, baking, and writing poetry. Writing is the foundation of my creativity, opening space for my experiences to be expressed outwardly. Each poem I craft is a vessel for elusive emotions. When I find the word or phrase, the feelings break free of my body and onto the page.
Shifting to tender touch and explorations, I learned to / request my body’s consent before seeking her pleasure. Love is planted in moments of gentleness and respect. / In reclamation, I call her “Whole, Holy, and MINE”.
Writing and making art are solitary activities, and creating communities of support is a vital part of this process, especially for a trauma survivor. Most of my trauma was created in moments of forced silence. I read my poems aloud as I write and edit them, breaking the silence, but both the poet and survivor in me need human ears to witness the story. I first found this with the Emerging Poets group on Zoom during the pandemic, then book launches and workshops with Sage Herrin of Beyond The Veil Press, and later at CBAW on Friday mornings and once a month on the fourth Tuesday of the month. Gradually matching the names to voices and stories, I am no longer alone.
Note: Italicized lines are excerpts from the author’s poetry.
Susan Niemi (she/her) is a Queer disabled poet. She served in the Navy in the mid-1980s, then was medically discharged. She is a mom and grandma, living in San Diego. She is also a peer facilitator for a Zoom Grief group. Her poetry has appeared in anthologies with Beyond the Veil Press and the San Diego Poetry Annuals. Susan’s debut chapbook, Yoni Provenance, will be published in late Spring 2025 with Beyond The Veil Press.
Artwork (As seen on homepage card for this post): Visions of Strength, Rylann Morales, 2024. Stone lithograph, 7″ x 7″.
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