Forever Yung

Photos + Video By Megan Magdalena

Essay By Emily

About 5 months ago I got dumped. There have been a lot of ups and downs since. In some ways I feel like I knew what I was getting into before we started dating. He was newly clean. I feel like I should have known better. I remember what it was like being newly sober; I was still looking for selfish gratification everywhere. I was looking for anything to take away having to live with myself - just like an active drug addict. I did whatever I needed to do in order to get what I thought I needed. I fell in love very hard and very fast; I got vulnerable almost right away. He helped me through a lot of sexual fear, and for the first time in my life I felt really comfortable.

Through most of my pre-teen years I was sexuality molested. I hid almost every painful feeling and traumatic experience I could with drugs and alcohol until I just ended up sick. I got sober when I was 16, and along with that I was confronted with a lot of truth. The pain of early sobriety was intense and I felt pretty psychotic, but I strangely had a lot of fun; I ate a lot of sugar, played a lot of dress up and met some great girlfriends. I even went back to high school and graduated. I joined a spiritual program to help me stay sober and to work on my codependent behaviors, and it worked…for the most part.

When I got dumped, my whole "plan": all my character defects, my addiction to people, my bad habits, hair pulling; everything that I thought I had to soothe me and keep safe stopped working. To be honest, I was really pissed off about all of this. I felt like I had been hit in the heart with a baseball bat. I was resisting healing, and resisting asking for help because I was in so much pain. My thoughts started to really scare me, and I had to learn the difference between wanting to die and really planning your own death. I got honest with my love ones and now I'm slowly opening up to healing; I am trying to take action. I stopped seeing some old friends that I grew up with. It's not easy and I feel very guilty putting my self first, but I've run out of choices. I try and twiddle my toes rather then pull my hair, and every time I do that I give my self a sticker of a gold star.

Lately the sex I’m having is full of pleasure, but most of the time rather just be alone. Trying to work through PTSD and my body’s memories is painful. It's very over whelming and I just lay there holding onto the floor. The human and spiritual connection is the only thing standing in front of me from using again. I only have today. I know more then ever now that I can't do life alone, and that doesn't mean being single. It means without others, and without help, I wouldn't be here. If there's one thing I've really learned lately it’s that pain and pleasure coexist; one does not exist without the other.

I like to say my art is made with love, but it is created from feeling; good and bad. Today, through my art, I am able to create fantasy out of the deep amount of sadness I feel.

Credits:

filmed, directed, edited by Megan Magdalena

written by and starring Emily (@yungemilyxx)

music for the film composed by Kyle Schick (@teenageroftheyear)

styled be Emily & Megan

clothing by Yung Future Clothing (@yung.future.clothing) Dolls Kill (@dollskill) & Nikki Lipstick (@nikkilipstick)

make by Megan using Lime Crime (@limecrimemakeup)

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