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JC
Joanna Cacao @ TCAF #2021 / 📣 Pre-order THE SQUAD
@jocabako.bsky.social
Cartoonist/Illustrator for KidLit www.joannacacao.com The Secret of the Ravens (2023) The Tryout (2022), The Squad (2024) ✨ she/her ✨ || Repped by Tara Gilbert
150 followers74 following138 posts
JCjocabako.bsky.social

Neglect 3/4

I was eleven when they started treating me like an adult. Neglect for me was being forced to feel the weight of societal shame. Neglect was making me believe that I couldn't have any male friends. Neglect for me, was the expectation that I had to be on the honour roll, that it was my duty to babysit three children after school. Neglect was stealing my childhood freedom away.
I was thirteen years old when they convinced me to get a part time job. Only to be berated for the dishes in the sink, for the dog having an accident because he wasn't walked, or for the rice that still had to be made. Even if I was the last to get in, and there were four adults sitting comfortably in the living room.
Neglect is feeling like you shouldn't share your feelings to the world, to hide behind a smile like so many others. It's a privilege to say the only neglect I've experienced in my life was attention. But that neglect still stings... it still scars.
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JCjocabako.bsky.social

Neglect 4/4

And still many, many years later I reflect and I feel the emotions of that neglect. I'm only now acknowledging that it WAS neglect.
There is a silver lining, there is room to grow from neglect, to heal, to bounce back.
Growing and healing means to talk about the things that have hurt you, even if it's only to a few friends, or a few strangers, or even into the void.
So here's to tomorrow, and a personal promise to pay attention to the feelings of others, as well as my own. I'm still learning, and will continue to do so, everything step of the way.
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JC
Joanna Cacao @ TCAF #2021 / 📣 Pre-order THE SQUAD
@jocabako.bsky.social
Cartoonist/Illustrator for KidLit www.joannacacao.com The Secret of the Ravens (2023) The Tryout (2022), The Squad (2024) ✨ she/her ✨ || Repped by Tara Gilbert
150 followers74 following138 posts
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