The Little Signs of Healing

I was born with a rare birth defect and conditions in my ears causing my severe hearing loss that put me in a doctor office very often since I was an infant. I endured a lot of painful procedures and surgeries that were in hopes that my hearing parents could "fix" me. This caused a lot of trauma, anxiety and PTSD. I spent my adolescence confused that I wasn't accepted the way I was born and have spent my adulthood working to advocate and bring awareness to help others avoid the path I went through but also my parents. Growing up, I sat and stared at the medical art on the walls in all my appointments. I saw the colorful graphic art that displayed beyond our skin but failed to express the pain and emotional sides to us underneath. This piece is to honor that - underneath the skin but also to honor the mental side of going through life with the need for being really seen and understood. Where the medical side of my life was being addressed and examined, no one ever thought to check on my mental health, and how I was being severely impacted while struggling with who I was born to be, who I wanted to be and how I wanted to be acknowledged as someone who felt important enough to be treated with the same respect as everyone else. My imagination adds beauty to the medical art that beyond the soulless charts under the surface of our skin there is is strength that wants to grow and feeling of wanting to be heard and loved the way we are.