In 2021, a coalition of national museum and library associations awarded the Peale (Baltimore, Maryland) a Communities for Immunity grant. The goal of the project is for trusted, local institutions to engage their communities in order to boost COVID-19 vaccine confidence. Since being awarded the grant, we've been gathering stories from people about their experiences with COVID and getting the vaccine. This story was recorded in partnership with our friends at the Stoop Storytelling Series, here in Baltimore.
Nefer (00:06): All right. Hello, people.
Audience (00:12): Hello.
Nefer (00:13): Just a fair warning, trigger warning, COVID, March 2020. Geez, I can't wrap my head around that was two years ago, but COVID was hard. Before COVID, I was dealing with depression and I just regretted living. And everywhere I went, it was just that burning feeling that "I'm not supposed to be here." I had been sexually assaulted multiple times, and my parents divorced. It was so much stuff that was just collecting. I didn't confront it. I didn't handle it or anything before COVID. So all of that just Inside of me. COVID came around, no friends. I was always in my room. I was what I call a loner. I was alone with my thoughts and the built-up pressure and aggression. And all of these emotions just built up inside of me and now it's like, because I'm alone in my room, it's like all of those emotions, all of those negative feelings just came out. I was hurting a lot. Well, it raised the question, why am I here?
Nefer (02:44): And because of that question, I wanted to not be here. It was to the point where I was suffering every single day, and school wasn't any help because my school decided to give us so much work. And I had so much on my plate. It just added more and more and more and more. Again, no friends, no people to talk to, but another thing is, I did not want to tell anybody because I didn't want to burden them. So it was mostly my fault for being all in a bubble, but I was left with all of these feelings and emotions. Well, I used to self-harm and I would beat up a brick wall until my knuckles bled, because it was just like I was hurting and I didn't know how to handle it. So this one time, I was taking a bath. I thought that the bath would help me, would help cleanse or release all of that negative energy and those negative emotions, but what it really did was... It just gave me the opportunity to, I guess, let go.
Asset ID: 2022.05.26
Find a complete transcript on the Peale's website.
Photo by Aaron Curtis
The views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in the recordings for this project do not necessarily represent those of the Peale or the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
