5 Things I Wasn't Taught In School...
1. I was never taught how to stop the burning on my skin after my first love left me. I thought through every subject, thinking if algebra could have taught me how to make a graph so I could predict when the flames would die down, trying to remember if ever in history was the story of a woman being burned alive from the inside, starting at her heart. In the end, I had to let time heal the pain.
2. I was never taught how to look in the mirror and love myself. I face a mirror everyday and try to recall instructions somewhere on how to make yourself love who you are. I searched through folders and the trash, only to end up breaking two mirrors.
3. I was never taught that mental illness runs in genetics. I had to search for that myself. As if I didn't curse my father enough for the genetics he gave me, this broke through a whole new wall.
4. I was never taught how to deal with mental illness. Not once in science did they explain that when we panic, our heart races and causes complications in our breathing. Never was it mentioned in art that it was okay to use art to express my darkest parts, and to never give up art if it made me feel better, even when people said it scared them or worried them.
5. I was never taught how to have a good healthy relationship. I was shown abuse, I was shown anger, I was shown fear. I learned on my own that when you have a good thing, attach to it, before it's gone and you missed a good thing. As I got older, I learned that attachment is a form of suicide. I did not read that out of a text book, or take notes on it. I found it within myself.
