I make cartoon watercolors because my system won’t let me keep it all inside. When something is too much, too absurd, too violating, or too flat-out dismissive, I feel compelled to get it out on paper. It’s not an intellectual decision, but survival. My body says: this cannot stay locked in here.

Putting it into images changes the way I carry it. On the page, it’s contained. I can step back and look at it, instead of drowning in it. The experience moves from being something done to me to something I define and shape. I control the story. That shift matters.

My style, cartoonish, exaggerated, and humorous, is intentional. The things I lived through are so grotesque that drawing them straight wouldn’t be survivable. Humor makes it possible to approach the horror without being swallowed by it. Satire lets me name what was done and how wrong it was, while also protecting me.

When I draw, I’m using all of me: words, pictures, feelings, body sensations. Those pieces don’t always talk to each other in trauma. Drawing brings them into the same space, which makes them easier to digest.

Making the art serves me. It gives me relief, a voice, and gives me back some agency after having so much stripped away. And it reminds me that what happened wasn’t just “my personal problem.” These images resonate because they speak to a wider reality of how our systems treat people. That sense of connection, knowing others can see themselves in the work, matters for regulation too.

Sharing the images takes it another step. When I post them or show them to people, I’m not alone with it anymore. Someone else has seen what I saw and felt some of what I felt. That breaks the isolation that trauma locks you in. It means my pain isn’t invisible. It implies the absurdity and harm aren’t just mine to carry. And when others say, “Yes, that happened to me too,” or “This captures what I could never say,” my system feels a kind of resonance that no amount of silence or pretending could ever bring.

So when people ask why I keep making and sharing these cartoons, the answer is simple: because my body needs me to. Because this is how I metabolize experiences that were never meant to be held in silence. Because turning it into art and letting it be seen is one way I stay alive despite the repeated cruelty and contempt from those charged with my care.