12-17

Continuing my portrait for each year of my life, this post will cover ages 12-17.

twelve-twelve was a less awkward year than eleven but that's not saying much.

I was straightening my hair at the time, or attempting to, anyhow. Thanks to the PNW drizzle, by the time I got to school one side was straight and the other was just crazy.

I am wearing a hoodie my sister had printed for me at the mall and my glasses frames were indeed a pretty awful for my complexion shade of red.

At age twelve I was big into choir, I was in the main one as well as the select one and did some solo contests. I sang rather well, but didn't feel like I fit in very well with the "choir kids". I distinctly remember telling this gorgeous girl a year older than me that she looked like an angelfish. I meant it as a compliment, she did not seem to take it as such.




thirteen-

If we're being honest here, I should have made my hair a lot greasier for this one. I was being really really kind to myself.

At thirteen I was in this advanced algebra class, but algebra is boring so I sat in the back of the classroom and started teaching myself German instead.

There was this guy I was friends with and also had the biggest most obnoxious crush on. After winter break I walked into algebra to find this jacket folded up on my desk with a folded bit of notebook paper which read something to the extent of "Christmas, merriness, new year, whatever".

I wore it every day. Literally every day. I slept in it sometimes. I wore it so much that I can still feel on my arms what that fabric felt like and part of me wishes I hadn't had the sense to let go of it at twenty. 

fourteen-

I could have just as accurately put myself in the German camouflage jacket again, but at fourteen I really did wear this jacket a lot and it was also a bit ridiculous. It's a black faux straight jacket. I would also like to point out that the jester's had was not for special occasions. I just dressed like this.

Fourteen was gold make-up, neon, and hair-dye. It started with dark red streaks, on to bleach blonde, cotton candy pink, Lola Rennt firetruck red before becoming a mohawk which honestly I just bleached out and redyed every two weeks, no use even trying to keep track of all that nonsense.

Fourteen was also when I really got into art. I definitely had kinda sorta drawn a little before, but I had to take art, band, or choir. Band was out because I don't play anything, choir out because I didn't think I'd fit in, so I had to go art. And what a godsend. Fittingly, the self portrait we did in that art class I was wearing this jacket for, it was that drawing that caught the teacher's attention enough to tell me I really ought to keep taking classes instead of just doing the minimum to get the required credits.


fifteen-

fifteen was the year I attempted suicide. This shirt was one of the shirts I had on one of my stays at the mental hospital (the second of the three, I think).

One of the things I remember about this stay was the nurse telling me that she didn't understand why I was there because I was so incredibly polite and well behaved. I told her that just because I wanted to die didn't mean I wanted to make her life difficult. We weren't allowed to have erasers in our rooms because you could self harm with them, but she gave me one because I was drawing constantly in the living room area and she wanted me to be able to during down time too.

There are so many things I could say about this year, but I think that will suffice.

When I work on things like this I sometimes struggle with whether or not to share my fight with depression, and if anyone is wondering why I am sharing it is because I think I need to. Not for me but for all the people who are struggling with depression and at a worse point than I am now. It's important for me not to hide it or act ashamed of it because a lot of people go through depression without realizing how many other people have gone through it. I remember it being isolating at the time that no one talked about it.

sixteen-

When I think of 16 year old me, I don't really think of me. I was still on a lot of medications from fifteen and I guess I just don't recall most of the year very well. The parts I was there for, I wasn't really myself.

I did living history at the medieval fair and enjoyed that a lot. I took art and did a lot of very normal almost bland creating.

It's the year that would get glossed over with a sentence or two if someone was writing my whole life story.

And here is where I say, again, depression is ugly and while I am not ashamed of it, I am not proud of it either. I say this because I know the sentences sixteen is boiled down as I already wrote them in my short memoir.

"These were the summer months of enlightenment, where everything was going to be alright and I was capable of anything. A particularly inspired talk with a friend of the family, who played the herdy gerdy and crafted traditional marionette puppets, inspired me to quit taking my medications..." 

seventeen-

I reiterate that I definitely do not think I made a wise choice at sixteen in just electing to stop taking my medications. I was on A LOT of medications. It was dangerous and stupid, but at that point no one was listening to me saying that I could not feel anything and that my hands shook too much to draw and I was done with it. 

But with that in mind, at seventeen, through will-power and glue and the delusion of invincibility, all the things that I identify as my personality now burst into life. 

I started doing a lot of mixed media art, I did stop-motion animation (mostly claymation) staying up all night in my room so I could control the lighting. I got heavily into photography and would spend hours laying on the patio by the pond photographing dragonflies. I bound books and did martial arts and got in ridiculously good shape and just kept my sock puppet doppelganger, Damien, in my backpack hoping to be prepared to add a little absurdity into the day. 

I was me. 

The previous post in this series covered ages 18-24 and can be found here.