Her Story: Wonderfully Wounded & Worthy
Life has been a relentless trauma from my earliest memory. A tenacious, yet traumatizing existence. It took me 38 years to figure out that I am NOT worthless because I am wounded. I identify with the Beautiful Disaster brand because of the crucial moment it entered my life. The slogans and imagery resonated with me so strongly as I found this brand when debating taking the same out as my mother - suicide. I have Endometriosis and PTSD which has made me the recipient of endless oppression and discrimination in the work place, and with family, “friends” and partners. Life can be lonely and scary as my disease gets worse.
I cannot say anything really turned around for me, but rather I learned to accept what I cannot control and let go. I left some abusive situations at a huge cost. I was attempting to clear the board of incoming abuse and at least open the gates to healing. I thought I had put in the work to heal from my past abuses, but when you dive into the past to process what you have overcome, life still goes on around you and new traumas accumulate, all the while trying to address the old ones.
Stress does not help, but I try to help people through my volunteer work with a sexual assault line and by building a trauma informed tattoo studio. I put all my energy towards believing in things like this brand.
I plan to continue to keep fighting for myself and causes like this brand. By doing so, I am actualizing my dream. I have spent over ten years collecting stories from clients in the mental health and addictions sector on the front line. My dream is to write a genre bending, raw account of client stories. I battled the red tape and barriers all the way up the ladder to the highest director. Their voices, like my own, will never be lost or forgotten. It took me five years to name it the Encyclopedia of Empathy. Wonderfully Wounded & Worthy was going to be one of the chapter titles. I am not giving up yet.
Some of the stories could only be transcribed due to the communication barrier and assumption that everyone can read and write in today’s society. Their submissions are hauntingly beautiful, and deemed unworthy by those more fortunate and ignorant to the realities of an oppressive society.
It was 15 years of front line work that was wrought with hidden oppression and abuse that finally propelled me to fight for this dream of making their voices and stories heard, but costed me my job.
I hate that they had me quit right before I was winning my battle against their employee harassment policy.
Paired with a pandemic and ongoing abuse, my health failed. If I do end up homeless, as I am barely holding on to my apartment after an emergency move, I will continue to carry their stories with me and find some way to get them heard. I have been on an “urgent status” housing list for 11 years.
Wonderfully Wounded & Worthy - this phrase is similar to so many pieces from your brand that remind me to keep fighting. I will continue to promote your brand at the studio and with fellow volunteers on the crisis line. My boss, friend, and the owner, understands my safety concern to not appear on any of the websites or social media, but is a Beautiful Disaster herself and values how I have helped to build the studio.
I will be forever grateful for her introducing me to your brand. I have hidden for so long.
If my mother were still here, I know she would've loved what Beautiful Disaster stands for and found comfort in your brand. She may have done better knowing she had a community of like minded humans with similar and diverse backgrounds. She died by suicide March 1997.
My survival is my success, which many do not celebrate or understand, but I that is okay. I am not ashamed of it anymore and want only to continue to have successfully survived because I am tenacious & traumatized and my legacy will not be a repeat of my mother’s.
My partner of 12 years watched me get attacked on our property and did NOTHING to try to help me. I took nothing from our house or my ex, even though I paid for half of everything. My Beautiful Disaster hoodie kept me warm when hiding outside in the winter while trying to find myself an apartment. The hearts on my leggings remind me of a tattoo I was supposed to get and reminds me of the safe space that I so desperately want that many of us take for granted.
My wonderful new boss, whom I helped to open a trauma informed tattoo shop that strives for pigment education and inclusion, got me my Beautiful Disaster set that says ‘Hating Me Won’t Make You Pretty’. This, thankfully, made me laugh and feel special when I felt so sad, alone and afraid. Beautiful Disaster cheers me up during impossible times. When I wear your brand, I feel comfortable even when I'm in unbearable pain. This brand is much more than a profitable endeavor.
I am a wonderfully worthy wounded person, a Beautiful Disaster and a perfectly imperfect person like so many other humans. Thank you for your inspiring brand and story, and thank you to all the others who shared their beautiful disaster stories that remind me to never give up.