CRAZY BLISS

Crazy Bliss deals with adoption and trauma's influence on self concept, and how the past informs the present. Grainy monochrome imagery emulates the fuzziness of emotion, memory, and trauma.

March 12, 1999, I came to existence and was named Megan Alexis Conway. I was brought home to chaos. Addiction was everywhere. It lined the walls, it came out of the floorboards. Mom and Dad were sick, addiction had taken control of their lives and made them act in ways that were unsafe, neglectful, and loveless. Sometimes they wanted me, but when they turned a corner addiction was there waiting, captivating them, and keeping them hooked. I wanted their love, I needed it. How could I make them choose me, love me, over their disease?

I was never a child. I learned early how to survive. Mom’s passed out in bed and my baby brother is on the floor screaming so loud his face is red. I am three years old. My parent’s love came in blips, sober moments filled with remorseful love. They would buy me toys, and we would eat good food, not just corner store honeybuns and yogurt cups with dried fruit at the bottom. Addiction never went away; it was always there waiting for a vulnerable point to make an appearance again. My brother and I were like toys they could play with for a little while before they moved onto something else, remembering and forgetting us cyclically. I learned how to act so I could become what they needed. From what I knew, need equated to love. They needed alcohol, they needed drugs, I would figure out how they could need me. I taught myself to be mutable, I could be whoever anyone wanted me to be. I did not matter until I was needed. Whoever mom and dad, the social workers, or the foster-parents needed or wanted me to be, I would be. I learned young how to read people’s emotions. Was Mom angry today? What did she look like? How does her voice sound? This is how I survived.

When I was placed in Foster Care for the last time, I knew I had to be a child that was desirable, a child that a stranger would like to take home and make theirs. I had to transform if I wanted to be chosen. There were three other foster children in the home The State placed my brother and I in. All our lives are suspended, we were collateral in our parents lives and now we were all waiting for someone to want us, and take care of us. We all wanted a home. We all wanted to feel loved. Who was coming to love us? Everything about myself had become surviving.

September 30, 2005, Annmarie and Peter Farretta were brought to my brother and I as potential adoptive parents. This was it, what I had been desperately hoping for. They were so excited to meet us. I felt excited but equally terrified. What if they decided they did not want us? Would I feel safe again? What is to become of my life? I wanted to go home. I did not have one yet, but I was ready to go when I found one. I wore my nicest outfit, a two-piece Strawberry Shortcake skirt and shirt. My foster mother did my hair, a half-up-half-down ponytail. My brother wore a crisp white sweatshirt emblazoned with various Hot-Wheels cars. We looked as good as we could. When we finally meet Annmarie and Peter, they immediately hug us, and they really don’t want to let go. They wanted us, and we wanted love and stability, so we all try to impress each other, and it works.

Suddenly we have a future, and we have a family, a huge one, and I finally know all the things that were missing before. In time, Annmarie and Peter adopt us officially, and legally they become ours and we, theirs. My name changes to Megan Alexis Conway Farretta, and nothing is the same.

I am from Greenfield, Massachusetts. I moved 90 miles away to Needham, Massachusetts where I joined Ms.Alison’s first grade class in the middle of the year, and everyday after school except Wednesday and Friday, I went to the YMCA. Everything is different, but I adapt. This is what I know how to do. I know how to survive, and so I do. I acclimate to my new environment almost seamlessly. I take whatever is thrown at me and work with it. I will always prevail. I know how to fit in, be liked, needed. None of my classmates are like me, they do not know the things I know, and feel, nor have they seen the things I have. I want them to perceive me as ‘normal’, so I take my past and I put it in a shoebox and shove it under my bed. I create a duality to protect myself. I am so scared of losing all that our adoption has brought us that I deny my past. I leave it with Megan Alexis Conway. I was now Megan Alexis Conway Farretta, and I existed as an amalgamation of what others needed and wanted me to be. My self concept was tied to external validation and the actions of others, and I would be whoever anyone wanted me to be if it meant that I was surviving.

All this effort to be ‘normal’ and my endless search for belonging was in vain because in surviving I was not true to myself. I alienated myself by suppressing my truth, and by not surrendering to what is beyond my control. I did not know how to feel happy without guilt or fear. I felt tethered to nothing inside of me. Everything felt multifaceted and layered when I lived in this duality. When I was denied love, I felt rocked. I would wonder what rendered me unloveable. Actions felt personal, every negative one was a failure from me. I had no idea how to live for myself, and choose me.

October 31, 2020, I hit a wall. I cried really hard, I was tired of being Megan Alexis Conway Farretta. It was exhaustingly painful and lonely. I felt like nothing. When I looked into the mirror I only saw a person. I was just existing. I was caught in a state of survival, constantly bracing myself for what was to come next. I built a fortitude around the past and now I had to break it down. Who was I outside of all this trauma? Who exactly was Megan Alexis Conway Farretta, and what kind of space did she take up? It was time for a change, I could not continue in the same ways I had and expect different results.

I began creating a sense of self. I needed to build something I could trust in enough to know when and how to choose myself. I had to accept my past and understand that what I experienced was out of my control. There is power in the control I always have over myself, through my thoughts, actions and behaviors. As I determined who I wanted to be, I had to have clear intentions and implement actions that reflected those intentions.

When I was able to do this, and trust in it, I felt confident in knowing who I was, and established a sense of self. I started to feel less affected by what was out of my control, and empowered myself to take the reins of my life back. The grief and pain that for so long felt overwhelmingly heavy and burdensome was shrinking because I wanted it to. I desired more love and bliss in my life, and wanted to own the space I took up. In knowing who I am, I can know more joy because I have all the power within to. I am all my experiences and more. I am who I want to be.

Once I am in tune with my sense of self, I can live with conviction, and be fearless against all that is not for me. Nothing and no one can take away what I know. Everyday I am a new culmination of my experiences, and so, I am always evolving, and transforming.

Other people's actions are not indicative of who I am. My intentions and actions define me. Even as my intentions change with life's reckonings, if I remain affixed to the connection between my wants and needs, to my actions, I will always be able to ground myself in who I am. When it is revealed to me that an action or behavior has not aligned with who I want to be, how I move forward informs the person I am. I have to open myself to varying perspectives and accept that what I perceive as true may conflict with others. When what I think I know about myself is challenged, I need to reflect on if what’s being challenged is important to what makes me who I am. If what is being challenged is true to my intentions, then I have to accept that I have stayed true to myself and let what is and is not for me be seen. If what’s being challenged doesn’t align with my desires for who I want to be, the onus is on me to accept that I have not met my own expectations, forgive myself, and take mindful action that resonates with my intentions. I have to trust that people who love me will only challenge what I know about myself because they love me and want to see me embody my best self.

Love is abundant. Love that is healthy, and good wants to support you. Crazy Bliss is returning to my body, my being, and honoring the person who exists inside that vessel. I started to recognize myself in childhood photographs, I could finally see my parent’s faces in mine. Crazy Bliss is living without guilt. I exonerate myself of my parent’s actions, and the voids they created. I choose love and joy and I release all the negativity inside myself. I am bigger than all that I have experienced. Crazy Bliss is feeling worthy of my suffering. I surrender to simply living. I rise above the painful currents within myself, and commit to trying to live a life full of love, and truth. It is very difficult and I often question everything, and want to give up. But I want to live, really live, so I try and try again. There is always goodness and light to be had, I just have to let myself be able to see and feel it.

Crazy Bliss is stepping into myself, and standing tall. Crazy Bliss is a radiant state of being. Crazy Bliss is taking love into the spaces. Crazy Bliss is embracing change. Crazy Bliss is sacred tenderness. Crazy Bliss is all the moments of joy found when I started living for myself.

SEE THE FULL WORK: www.meganfarretta.com/crazybliss