Youth At Risk: Blog Post, Photos and Context of work

***I want to give an EMOTIONAL (SUICIDE) TRIGGER WARNING as to this series of photographs and this blog post.******

Hi, My name is Jennifer Pace and I am currently 30 years old, my brain has told me to kill myself since I was about 15 years old. This is my darkest and most heartfelt life confession that I have kept to myself for more than half my life. 

I was placed in therapy at 13 shortly after my adoptive mom died from ovarian cancer, things didn’t get bad till I hit high school. From adjusting to a new family life with a new guardian, my adoptive aunt. To fitting into a new school environment, puberty and all that comes with that at some point my brain told me it just wasn’t worth it. I couldn’t find any meaning in life especially my own. I knew what red flags were, I knew in some capacity that if I spoke my truths about my “self-hate and suicidal thoughts.” That people would look at me funny or terrified. My brain also likes to jump to the worst conclusion so I was already convinced I would be lead to the “looney bin.” Which was my own condescending way of looking at the situation since I knew my birth mother was bipolar and considered a “hot mess.” I, of course, didn’t want to be anything like her and I didn’t want to be “different”. I also had an issue with my own blackness but I will save that for a whole other discussion, as I hope to make more photography work around that. I’ve come to understand these were my forms of self-hate and self-denial. So I kept quiet, I was so lost and confused and over time became very self-destructive. By the end of freshmen year, I was staying out late,  “running away from home” and doing a good amount of shitty shit. I was also still a straight-A student but emotional explosive especially at home. So my Auntie who had become my guardian was torn as what to do. It’s only after her passing in 2017 while having to go through her personal things did I find a giant folder with my whole adoptive case file which was sad. I also find a stack of papers about filing me as “at-risk youth” and handing me over to the state until I turned 18.

As I said my home life during high school was a disaster. I was not a nice person, my auntie understood how lost, confused, hurt and full of self-hate I was. She went above and beyond, almost like when you decided to take in an overly-aggressive animal. From 16 till I was about 19 we had a very rocky relationship to the point that I didn’t really talk with her much just because it always turned into a fight so I just kept my silence. I also didn’t talk much to other people, in high school I always had a journal as I was taught in therapy to do conscious journaling. My Auntie created what she called “a talking book” since I wouldn’t talk to her she decided we would pass this book back and forth as she wanted to establish some sort of communication with me. There really aren’t that many entries in the book but I choose to photograph a few. As well as photograph some of my personal journals to give more intimate, personal, raw and vulnerable series of work. That is about the self exploration and mental health awareness I’m calling “JP: Youth at Risk.” I want to add that last thing my adoptive mom gave to me before she passed away was a manual 35mm camera. My Auntie when she became my guardian is the one who signed me up for my 1st dark room class through and art camp in 8th grade, she also found YIF, “Youth in Focus.” YIF is a non-profit organization that gives “urban at risk youth” the opportunity to learn photography, darkroom and digital skills and have access to teachers, mentors and equipment. It would become a very special and safe place for me and has become an integral part of who I am as an artist now.

“JP: Youth at Risk”

Photographs of my aunt and I’s “a talking book” with a few entries between us over a year.

Photograph of a sad self hate note from one of J.Pace’s journals from high school.

(**At the 13 and up until recently I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder…. will continue that later.)

From 13 I continued once a week therapy and then I was placed on medication by 16. Around this time I also started doing drugs mainly smoking weed, doing ecstasy, mushrooms, and acid on rare occasions. I did do a few random pain killers here and there. It sounds silly but I had my own rules and I would not do any drugs that caused physical addiction, body deterioration and mainly that had a 50/50 chance of you dying on the 1st try. Because of course, it started as experimenting but it did soon turn into trying to numb myself and trying to escape my reality and my feelings something I would only come to realize later of course. I started to depend on ecstasy as DOC, “drug of choice” to make me happy in a time I wasn’t. It all came crashing down Sophomore year at the end of October, I had completely given up on anything and everything the worst being myself. Halloween 2006 was to be the day, I started it off with an 8th of mushrooms and 2 triple stack blue dolphins, by lunch I did another 8th of mushrooms and was handing out more (mushrooms and ecstasy) to other kids at school. Skipped the rest of school to meet up with other friends and get more fucked up… by midnight I was in graveyard doing coke off tombstones, drinking and doing random pills that I don’t remember and I don’t normally do. All with the goal of not waking up the next day.

Photography of J.Pace’s personal Journal from high school “Drawings and songs lyrics”

Photograph’s of J.Pace’s personal Journal from high school “Racing thoughts, drawings, song lyrics and notes to self and from others”

Photograph of J.Pace’s personal Journal from high school “Late night passive suicidal racing thoughts”

Welp, I woke up just fine the next day. Not hungover or sick even, I remember rolling around my friend's floor and crying because I was still alive. I was pissed off that even after all that I was still alive. I also felt like I was a coward because I would never directly take my own life as much as my brain told me to do so. So then I was like, “Now what?” That's when I started to realize that life just kind sucks and all that we can do as people is make the most of it. Make the most out of bad situations and keep moving forward. I still continued to party and have fun, get my straight A’s… my home life still suffered and that came to a head by my 17th birthday. That March auntie told me she was sending me to in-patient aka REHAB. At this time I was already in outpatient which was drug therapy 4 days a week and peeing in a cup once a week. I attended for 13 weeks (Nov-Feb) before I would then spend 50 days in a lockdown teen rehab facility. I convinced her not to send me on birthday but the day after. So March 2, 2006, I was placed in the in-patient REHAB center at Ryther in Seattle, WA.

“YIF Self Portrait Beginning BW 2006”

I didn’t like my self so I didn’t want to take a self portrait, didn’t want to take one of my face. There is a makeshift bandage around my wrist from one of the few times I managed self harm. Tried to make it less noticeable with all the bracelets. 16-17 years old.

• 1. Valentines day card I was give after leaving Ryther/Rehab from my best friend.

• 2+5. Pile of “rave” bracelets

• 3+4. A friend’s drawing of a mushroom experience.

• 6. A note written by a friend.

I have very strong and mixed feelings about my time and experience within Ryther and rehab. I support the idea but not the execution, for one any form of rehab is a form of SELF HELP. I, nor any of the other kids I meet at my time in out or inpatient wanted to help out selves. We were all sent by our parents or as I learned police, courts, and POS. I and few others were honestly outcasts and made fun of at 1st by the other kids because we were placed in there by our parents. Also for not doing more “hardcore drugs” like crack, heroin or meth. We were already bad, shitty manipulative little shits so, of course, we knew exactly how to act and what to say to again not give up any red flags to the drug counselors. To act like we wanted to “get better” and that's exactly what we did. I did too up until a point, they had a whole point and number system for “graduating the program.” I got stuck meaning no new numbers so my score got stagnate. That's when I flipped a script and then I got kicked out because I began to question their rhetoric. My questions got turned into “I glorify drugs” when I was trying to bring up the idea that its not the drugs but the people and what and why they choose drugs and to do them. Also that the 12 step program was about self-help and none of us wanted to actually help ourselves only in the sense of getting out of the rehab. So in some way rehab for kids to me became a joke and I don’t think it should exist. It’s more to satisfy the parents, the courts, the police those who feel like they don’t have control. I understand the need to have a place to hold people who are suffering like that. So again mixed feelings. 

I do also want to say more than half the kids I meet there went back to doing whatever DOC they were doing before once they go out.  It was a safety bubble that doesn’t exist in the real world. I myself had actually decided to stop doing ecstasy as I had done a roll before I was sent to inpatient and I just cried for 5 hours. I came to terms with the drug I was taking was mostly liking making my sadness and mental state worst. I understood how it worked and that I was forcing my brain to make more serotonin then it did natural and thus causing a shift in my chemical balances. So when I came out of rehab I mainly still smoked weed because I don’t think drugs are bad themselves. It’s who, how, what, why and when you use them. It’s about self-control and moderation at this point I will admit I still smoke weed. Which I want to cut down on as I know I do it out of habit these days and thus it's not actually necessary. I enjoy it but it's not needed but it does help me sleep and calm my overactive mind.

I have also always felt that my bipolar disorder diagnosis was wrong and that I have some mix of issues… such as OCD, depression, and anxiety. As my brain gets stuck on things and won’t let them go, I get stuck in loops, patterns and have tons of obtrusive thoughts, my mind is constantly thinking and working to the point I get headaches. I tend to only see the small picture, the negative and that my glass is half full. Obviously, over time I’ve become more aware and accepting of these parts of myself. They still come up daily, if not hourly or even every min sometimes. As much it feels like I have to try 5 times as hard as other people to maintain my emotional autonomy. It’s something I’m accepting, also having people that understand and forgive me when I do have an emotional outburst helps but I’m aware and don’t want to take advantage of those people.

This is where I bring you now, to 30-year-old Jennifer. I lost my Aunt in 2017 to her fight with breast cancer that she was dealing with for the last 20 years. I had just move to a new city and state. I lost a few other major things such as my 5-year relationship, the stress of my partner's mom almost dying to kidney failure. I got kicked out of an art group I was so happy to be a part of and the new person I had been involved with for 6 months ended it all with a 4-word text. The end of my 2018 was like dominos, they just kept to seem falling and for the 2nd time in my life, my brain wanted to shut down, told me to quit, that would be better. As I’ve lived with suicidal thoughts most of my life, for the most part, it’s like a whisper I don’t even hear and I’ve learned how to ignore it. Only twice in my life did it feel like the only voice or sound I could hear to the point it became deafening. That’s when I started to drown.

Iphone photos I managed to take: left my wrist strapped to a bed in the ER after going in for mental distress, Right is the one piece of paper I was given by a psychiatrist after my 3 hours in the ER and then another 2 hours in the Psych ward before I was released free.

My brain asked me “what is the point? Why do you try so hard? If it all just falls apart?” Everything went dark, grey, cold and for the 1st time, nothing brought me joy. A concept I never even really thought much about. I tried to do draw, paint, shoot photos and create as that is what had always saved me. Then it got to the point where I didn’t want to cook, it got hard to get out of the bed or even shower. I would constantly cry at work, for the 1st time in my life I couldn’t hold a job for more than six months without some sort of emotional outburst. Mainly me crying and having a panic attack over that I couldn’t control myself. It was a very vicious mental and emotional cycle and it took its toll on me. I eventually took myself to the ER… under emotional distress. I was strapped to a bed for 3 hours, experienced a man four beds from me having a heart attack and having to be revived just adding to my own distress. Then another 2 hours in the psych ward only to be asked by another patient if I prefer the dark or light brown heroin. Then a few questions by a doctor and then released, I would receive a 585$ bill for this encounter. Later I would take my self to the sliding scale low-income doctor and after three visits to the doc, one to their therapist and one finally to a psychiatrist I find out I have sever PTSD and they would have never said or thought to diagnosis me as bipolar from the beginning.

My mind was blown, 13-30 years old almost 17 years being treated for bipolar only to find out its PTSD. I do also want to say from my move in 2017, which was to Portland OR up until this was all going on I moved to back home to Seattle. During all of this I was not seeing a therpist. I went one year without my weekly appointments, I was in the process of finding one. But when you are already so emotional distressed and I was getting turned down by most places I reached out to, it again made it my situation worse. I finally found one after this ordeal and I see her once a week, I’ve had to stop for financial reasons but thats where I’ve learned I have to do the mental work all the time.

Now I understand myself in a new way. A way that makes way more sense, I’ve started to be able to figure out my emotional self. That for the most part, I am mainly OCD and Anxiety based that then causes depressive spirals. From there I’ve been figuring when I feel triggered, like when my heart starts to race or I start thinking in overdrive. I know, I am learning and constantly reminding myself most of my thoughts and feelings are irrational. As well as to be kind to me, don’t beat myself up, forgive myself, working majorly on self-talk. For how I talk to myself speaks volumes about how I feel about myself and for the most part, is not the best. Trying to move away from seeing/feeling things as good/bad or negative and positive moving more into if it’s constructive or destructive to myself or the life I want. Trying to learn to better manage emotional autonomy, another concept I didn’t fully understand. Be more grateful for things in life, especially things that I tend to perceive as bad or negative and find the good or lesson in those things. See my glass as full and not empty and who cares if it’s half or not. It’s my cup, this is my life, it’s my brain I want to be the one in control. It’s a fight ever day, every hour and every min but I’m learning how to win or to at least keep going living. I hope to be an example to others. It does not go away but you can learn to live with it and that you are more then your brain, thoughts and feelings. Crazy concept but it’s true.

“Self Portrait: Laying my demons to rest” September 10, 2019 (Worldwide suicide awareness day)

I have hit an emotional block again, I think it’s because what has happened in the last two years has now made me scared to be open, to be raw, emotional and real and in some capacity to be myself. Moving back to Seattle has had me coming to terms with new emotional trauma from the last two years that is causing me to be overly emotional dependent on others that has manifested into some sort of separation anxiety. I’ve always been an introvert and solitary person but I have a hard time going two weeks or more without seeing a close friend these days. I am also facing all of my past trauma and by accepting all of it and actually working through it. I again understand it, myself and my brain on new levels and growing so much as a person. 

This is all something I have wanted to share but have been too scared to do so. Scared in general for the topic matter it covers is such a sensitive one. I know all the “red flags and stereotypes” that come along with it, the disbelief and resentment from others. But this is my truth. I live with suicidal thoughts, consider as “passive suicidal ideation” meaning I have thoughts of wanting to be dead or that I could die, but I have no plans to actual follow-through. I am not seeking attention and I truly don’t wish to have others worried about me. I wish to be an example of why mental health awareness is so important to those who don’t understand. I hope to be a source of light to those who suffer from some sort of emotional or mental distress. That it’s the hardest thing in the world but you can live with your mental health and learn to control it and find joy in life. I am again careful with my words and how I phrase things these days and I pay a lot of attention to the way I talk to myself as I want the best for myself. Just like instead of saying “sorry I’m late”, I now say “Thank you for waiting.” Small changes lead to big changes. If you ever need a person to hear you, to see you, to listen. I am here. A huge part of my work is about being seen and celebrating your self for yourself, finding the joy in your self so that you love your self.

Remember to breathe, we make things harder for ourselves and you are not alone. Call 1-800-273-8255 I had weeks were I called once a day just to talk to someone. It’s okay to not be okay sometimes, that’s being human. You are strong and brave for being so aware and seeking help.

A few more self portraits from “Laying my demons to rest.” Taken on September 10,2019 which is worldwide suicide awareness day. September is also National Suicide awareness month in the USA. Art is what brings me joy, creating and interacting with others gives me purpose and meaning and photography is my own love affair and all of them combined save my life every day. I wanted this series of photos to seem like I was at a funeral, a funeral for myself. My past self, the person I was because I’ve come so far but my brain wants to keep me there. I can finally see myself, all the things others see in me, that I’m not a “bad person.” That I should exist, that I’ve accomplished some cool shit, that I bring something to the table and the world. That I not only like myself but I can finally say I love myself and I’m excited for me to keep growing. Life will always have ups, downs and sudden curves. I have to learn to adapt to that the best I can, starting with my thoughts, feelings and not to react to everything. It will be a constant thing and I still have a lot I’m working on and through but I like the direction I am going and that’s key.

Love J.Pace