there's something poetic about the zebra self being the one who is tasked with managing pain, when zebras are an important symbol to a lot of the ehlers danlos community. i don't know whether that was something you were conscious of when the zebra first appeared or whether it's just a coincidence, but it's kinda cool even if the experiences that caused it are Not Fun
- love from a system who is rooting for you
it was definitely something we/i was conscious of, i think it was 2021 when i became aware of the zebra image, but 2022 was when i started drawing lots of zebras to cope with how much pain i was in and how miserable i felt at the time.
(March 2022) I still didn't use any mobility aids and my disability and pain were largely 'invisible' aside from when i'd wear tape and braces and people would constantly ask "what happened to your hands?" or give me weird looks and treat me differently when i was wearing my wrist braces. of course now i've gotten used to it all and of course the looks and the difference in treatment progressively escalated when i started using a cane, and then eventually a wheelchair, the questions "what happened to you?" and "did you get hurt?" "will you get better?" and people saying things like "i'm so sorry to see you using a wheelchair" "it's such a shame you have to use a wheelchair" including my own art professor at the time saying things like that. i remember trying to explain to her that to me, using the wheelchair wasn't a sad or bad thing. it gave me freedom and comfort to be able to go on outings and to go down town or to the grocery store without causing myself agonizing amounts of pain.
but still, the pain holding and pain persevering Zebra part of my brain continued to develop and take various forms.
(July 2022)
Sometimes I felt like my body was inhuman in the way that my hypermobility and fragility (tendency to easily bruise or easily trigger pain from even simple positions or movements or activities) made me feel like my body was a robot that was programmed wrong or breaking down and irreparable because its creator was no longer present.
(June 2023) I'm glad i made these images, it's an interesting piece to look back on because the second one clearly shows how i was already having multiple streams of inner consciousness/inner conversations or senses of consciousness with different reactions to the world & opinions and priorities.
(another drawing from June 2023)
I think this guy has a dissociative disorder.
I remember drawing this 'chimera' piece in June of 2022, when i was living at my dad's house at the time and coping with pain & my unstable family circumstances by getting high almost daily. i think i had gone out to smoke in his backyard when i started this drawing.
there was this strange thing i kept finding myself doing in 2022, which was a lot of the time when i'd get high to try to escape what was going on in my life (i don't want to share the full details but my family life was very unstable, unpredictable, always full of arguments, and sometimes physical violence), anyway i would do this thing where i'd be high and i'd try to draw 'me' or 'myself' but i always found myself ending up with multiple different variants and species and possibilities of who i could be or who i felt existed deep within me.
various lionselves i drew while high in the summer of 2023. i remember feeling like my sense of self couldn't be represented singularly. i remember the strange feeling that even my art style and method of drawing strokes would change when i would allow "emma lion" to draw himself. but i was completely sure i was "not a system" because it was too scary to accept.
I do find it incredibly funny i had drawn out this guide in August of 2023 detailing all my different past and present internal selves that i was aware of and yet still was adamant that i was "not a system" and this was just normal.
It was only after actually finally leaving my family's household(s) and influence, by going to Japan for the first time in late August of 2023 and finally becoming physically distant and "safe" from my family, and then subsequently undergoing one of the most traumatic and scariest health complications of my entire life (taken to the hospital in an ambulance twice, constant hallucinations, tachycardia, dizziness, vomiting, coughing, psychotic symptoms, full body pain, etc.) it took me months to recover from that. but during those months, the Zebra figure finally first "possessed" my body to take care of me. it really fucking scared me at first. I thought i was "going insane" or somehow making it all up. but he took control of my body while it felt like i just watched from inside the eyes as he prepared food and medicine because his entire existence is to be my service animal and my "other half" in the sense that his views and opinions often contradict my own & he exists explicitly to take care of me in regards to physical pain endurance and coping. he's pushed my/our body past it's limits a lot, but he's gotten better about it through time and input from our other parts who have their own viewpoints and priorities.
This is his drawing of himself from around November of 2023, I think. He rarely ever draws because he prioritizes bodily health/avoiding pain at all costs which is why he doesn't do digital art or colored art. just pen sketches if he ever does make art at all. mostly he just exists to endure pain and make me eat vegetables and take breaks instead of forcing myself to do schoolwork (he has zero interest in school and thinks caring for the body should be above all else.)
i don't know why tonight i suddenly felt the courage to open up about so much of this, but thank you for your message, and thank you to anyone who's decided to read this far. i hope you can listen to my experiences with an open heart.
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