002: THIRTEEN

Welcome to Dark Void Disco. In this episode I want to hold space for myself, when I was thirteen. So, I want to hold space for my teenage self. That earlier version of me that was in the threshold between child and adult. That young person, who was suddenly awakened into a new world, where I was no longer simply a person, a being, a child, but becoming perceived as something different and other than simply a human being, because I was going to be perceived as being a woman.

And I was pissed off about this shift. I was so angry. I was in pain. And for the longest time, I carried these memories of my first time into teenagehood with some kind of shame about how difficult I was in those times. How much I fought with my parents, particularly with my dad, because of his way of trying to keep me in line and control me.

Maybe you can hear some of the traffic in the background. That’s fine, I’ll leave it in. I am in the city. In a city. It’s daytime and the sun is shining but I have some curtains drawn so that I can have a little bit of a shielded corner from the sun, but feel the warmth through the curtain as I record this.

Even though my Dark Void Disco-episodes are built on the foundation of my own experience I hope they can also function as a space that is created for other people to connect what I discuss back to their own experiences and from their lives, their own memories. So that we can create this shared space. So that we can join each other here and have a safe space where we can allow all of our sides and emotions to be. Particularly these sides that have been pushed down and hidden, so that they can just breathe a bit. Come up for a moment, be acknowledged, be cared for. Be perceived. And then, hopefully, integrated more deeply into us and helping us to become more whole beings. So, I just want to start this episode with this acknowledgement. That I am creating this space for myself, and also for others who need this kind of space.

You can think back for a moment and remember, how were you at thirteen? Or, think of someone in you life who is in a similar stage. And bring that with you into this, connect it back to your own experience.

At thirteen I felt like, as though a veil was lifted from my eyes. I don’t know if it happened gradually or suddenly. I don’t remember. But at thirteen many illusion started to break at their seams. I felt a new sense of annoyance and anger building up in me. I couldn’t understand why. I was so deep in it at that moment that I couldn’t perceive it from the outside and only now later I can totally understand why.

At thirteen I saw the movie “Thirteen”. It was an american movie, it was pretty new at that time and a friend had gotten a copy of it and we watched it at their house. Actually, I think it was the thirteenth birthday of two of my friends. Like a birthday party. I remember that we were laughing about how absurd it felt. Because the movie portrays these thirteen-year-old girls as very mature. In a way mature, but also immature on an emotional level. They are embarking on pretty wild stunts with drugs and sex, and we couldn’t relate to that. Because I grew up in a pretty sheltered space. So this movie felt far removed from our own lives. Suburban lives. But, while we were playing it down and laughing about the movie I still also remember feeling that I was secretly exhilarated to see other girls that simply seemed to do what they just felt like without needing to reign it in or without needing to hide their madness. Wildness. Because, I felt like something was erupting and growing in me, and at the same time it was something to be pushed down. It was something to be feared.

And I think many people who grow into becoming teenagers or adults go through these feelings because we don’t have spaces, safe spaces where for example, you can get to know your sexuality and your wilder sides. They are something to be kind of hidden or pushed away as if it doesn’t exist, as if it’s not a part of becoming a mature being. That you have to go through these extremes of emotions and this development, both on a physical and mental and spiritual level.

Thirteen was the year when I got my period. And despite my mother framing the event as something so wonderful and [saying] “oh you’re a woman” and “this is completely normal, and nothing to worry about”, she was putting on a good face, but I saw that it was a bit of a mask. Because I had a distinct feeling that this event was also a portal into completely new horrors. Monsters that would come through that portal. And they did. And that’s a part of it, that’s a shadow side of this beautiful growth. It has all sides.

With my mother, there was no space for acknowledging dark sides. She didn’t have space, and it scared her so much that I learned to...well, I wasn’t exactly able to hide it, but I tried to tone it down a bit around her maybe or, [it] didn’t get it’s fullest expression. It was a part of this whole process of having to repress the darkness.

I found myself being drawn to dark music, that gradually grew heavier as I grew deeper into my teens. And from these more typical kind of pop/rock into some punk, some metal music, death metal, doom, grindcore. Different types of music. Both music that had a lot of yelling, other people that yelled for me, because I was screaming on the inside but I wasn’t allowed to voice it externally. So that was sometimes the only thing I could do, was to listen, just let myself feel it inside of me, in this space that was created by the music. It came out. It got a space. Like this space that I’m creating with this podcast. But a bit different. That was the only space I had for many years.

Yeah, because on the outside I was expected to somehow be the same. This optimistic, happy, bright child. That was just going farther and farther from who I actually was. Inside I was in turmoil since I had no place to express it. I felt like I would drown in it if I didn’t have this outlet, through music and also through movies and games and media that I think many of us use as tools to process. As children we use play. Games that children play help them to process their lives. And aspects of it that they can’t verbalize, [or] understand. And as we grow older and play is becoming less accessible we have to find other places like stories, movies, music.

At thirteen I remember feeling that the world started to seem darker and darker, based on the news that I was exposed to daily through my parents who read newspapers, watched TV, discussed what they read. I came to the conclusion that the environment was completely destroyed beyond repair and the world would collapse at any moment so what was the use of even trying? It all seemed very hopeless and very dark. No wonder I showed a sour face if someone dared to suggest to me that I was being too negative and asked, “oh, what happened to that sweet, kind girl?”

I felt like the adults must be insane. How could they act like everything was normal while simultaneously the world was broken beyond repair and we were beyond the point of no return because humans destroyed the earth. I awoke into this awareness, or this view of the world at thirteen, and I couldn’t connect to the world that my parents and the adult world presented me with. I didn’t want to live in their world, so I made my own, in my imagination. Through stories, through works of art that other creators had created for me. The worlds that were created from different vantage points and different points of view. I decided that if the adults had created this kind of a world for me to grow up into, I wouldn’t live in it. I don’t need to. I will create my own. I found so many contradictions in their world. You should “Follow the news. Be aware of what’s going on. Be a good, respectable citizen. You should be aware of the way of the world and exert your effort trying to make it better.” But there was no space for anger and sorrow and for mourning the death of the sunny days of my childhood. Or sunny days of the earth as it had seemingly been before it was destroyed (?)

Mind you, this was all the bubble I was living in as I was growing into my teens. Now later on, my views have changed after I have found other bubbles, additional filters or view points. But at that point it seemed like that was the only world view that was available and only darkness was found there, but at the same time no darkness was supposed to be visible. And my pain over the state of the world had no space, while that pain was actually coming from a deep love for the world.

So, my only way out, was in. Into the world of stories, into myself. Imaginary beings. Stories that others had created but also my own writings and comics and music. And they were imaginations that were distinctly dark. They had to be, since I desperately needed a space where all my emotions would be allowed, also my darker sides, and where I could process those feelings. I needed a space where I was not being “too sensitive, too awkward, too angry, too anxious, too rude, too loud”. Not too anything, but where I could be. Just be and feel what I felt. Be exactly as I was. My imaginary place had to be dark in order to carry the darkness for me and to help me process the dark things that had suddenly been presented to me. That had creeped into my world through this thirteen-year-old portal. These dark things that I was not supposed to know or, god forbid, talk about out loud. But that existed, nonethelsess.

And now, here is that space.

Do you need it too? Did you need it when you were thirteen? Did you create your own space? Or were you not able to, allowed to?

I open my door. I open the portal for you. I welcome you to connect your space, or your need for space, with this space. Or simply to step through the door and join me here.

For all the well-meaning adults, and all others, that could not provide us with this space to grow, and be, for all those that could not hold space for us, for all of us, including the pain and the darkness: It is all right. We have the space now. We take the space. We carry it. We create it. We hold it for ourselves, and for each other. And I hold it for myself. And I hold it for you. And for everyone who needs it. For all the teenagers that are curently waking up to a new world, to new awareness. Emotions. Wildness. Darkness. I hold this space for you. You are just as you need to be. You are feeling what you need to feel. Your feelings are valid. They have space here. All of it.

I hold this space, right here, right now. We can hold this space together, for each other.

And with that, I want to thank you for joining me in this space.

And now, let’s fill this space with new sounds.