My name is Jayne Alexander Arreola. I was born in Arlington Heights, Illinois, a small town located about 30 minutes away from Chicago. I am 21 years old and I am an artist with things to say.
I was born in 2003 to my American mother and a Mexican father. I have a younger brother out there somewhere as well. We don't talk, but that's twin.
I've always been an artist, and if you want to know more about that, you can read this, where I go into more detail about what being an artist means to me.
On this page, I'm really gonna talk about my life, where I've been, and a little of what I've seen. Because it's my website lol why not.
Let's go back to childhood, like I said I was born in Illinois but I grew up in Wisconsin until I was like 5 or something, then we lived in Illinois, and then after my parents got divorced my mom wanted to go to Iowa. I remember, it was the day before I turned 9 we had made the move to Iowa, I was so depressed.
I adjusted well, I can be very outgoing and I think the way I can adapt to almost anything is one of the traits I admire most about myself, regardless this was really the first move that phased me. I was really sad. This was all on top of a fresh parental divorce too, but I've always been a pretty strong kid, it could've been worse and I knew that back then.
For the next few years I would continue to grow up in Iowa. During middle school I became a bit of a troublemaker but I always prioritized my grades. Middle school is when I really began to question my sexuality and began experimenting with different labels among my fellow queer friends. I also met my first partner, we dated for a little over two years and it's a very wholesome relationship to reflect on. They really helped introduce me to the online LGBTQ community and feel more comfortable acting against the status quo, which is something I usually tend to offer, not the other way around.
I kept it on the down low because my family had always been pretty vocal about how they felt. I was really into them though, and it's always been hard to hide when I'm into someone. Sometimes I would make comments or hint towards the fact that I might be gay; looking back, this relationship introduced me to what homophobia looked like and made me realize how being a little lesbian could start to have consequences.
In high school however, I reaaaallly became a troublemaker and found myself in trouble a little too often. I met my first love at the end of my freshman year, and she would prove to be extremely influential to who I am today. I still prioritized my grades and did really well, until COVID. When COVID hit, I was in 10th grade and my family situation really really escalated. My ex girlfriend really saved my life during this time, I was going through some really serious shit and honestly, I don't know how I would have turned out if it weren't for her shoulder to cry on.
My mental health was never great, but during 9th grade it plummeted at a rate I had never seen before. I had my first severe psychotic episode, without the vocabulary to identify what I was going through I began to slowly disintegrate over the course of a few months. Until things became dangerous and the adults in my life pushed for hospitalization. After that hospital trip, I would continue to struggle. I was extremely unstable and pretty dangerous to myself, which was really embarrassing to me and that made things a lot worse.
I attribute the majority of my mental health battle to my rigorous family background. I won't sit here and trauma dump on you guys, but my family dynamic and the abuse my brother and I were navigating at such a young age really took a toll on us. I knew I didn't have the time or mindset to worry about that though, I had to take care of my brother, I had to get good grades, and I had to do my best to survive, if we were gonna get out one day.
I always knew, I wanted to leave. I always knew, I needed to leave.
Backtracking to 10th grade when COVID started. The beginning of COVID was nice, no school, paid time off of work, I really dove back into my craft. After a really big blowup between my mother and my ex step father, I gave my mom an ultimatum. I told her that if she wants me to come back home, he needs to go. I started living with my ex girlfriend shortly after that.
Although that was a really good move to preserve my own sanity, I do regret leaving my little brother in that house by himself, it was selfish. At some point during this time, my father found out about my ex-girlfriend. He stopped talking to me.
The situation between my mom and this man just got worse and worse and worse. Until a summer night back in 2021 when we had inevitably come to our climax. This night that I am referencing aged me, a lot. Again, I won't trauma dump and honestly I don't even know what I can legally say but I stood up for my family and I really don't care how ugly things got that night.
After that night things got really dangerous and my already fragile mental health state had shattered. I lost my fucking mind. We weren't safe anymore and during the middle of my senior year we had to move across the country.
I was broken, suicidal, that was the rockiest of bottoms I had ever faced at the time. Alcohol and drugs were never something foreign to me. I started drinking and smoking at an embarrassingly young age and had experimented with lower grade drugs a handful of times during my early high school days. But during this time, my senior year, I didn't care anymore. You could have put anything in front of me and I would have taken it, I was always high, and not in the chill way.
Although it was just me, my mom, and my brother, the trauma left behind from my mom's ex-man really poisoned all 3 of us. Things weren't okay, After I eventually left, I would stop talking to my brother, and eventually, my mother as well.
I graduated in a small town in Maryland, I met my friend Breigh there and she's the only reason I can say I wasn't completely alone at my high school graduation. Shoutout to her, seriously she saved a really big part of me that day.
Literally the day after I graduated, I got on a plane and I came back to Iowa to live with my ex-girlfriend. I was still extremely traumatized and still had a really long road ahead of me in terms of managing all of this trauma. I started hanging around the wrong people and instead of falling into my art, I started falling into alcohol, substances I was familiar with, and substances that got harder and harder. I was a shitty partner, I couldn't look myself in the mirror, and there was still so so so much pain I was holding onto.
It was march of 2024, I started wanting to live. I received some news about my brother and I had an electrifying depressive episode. I realized that I need to get up, there's things I need to do, and they won't get done unless I change things about my life.
I started doing art again, I went to school, I prioritized my physical health, I started doing new things, I started making friends again, I started trying again. This is when I really pulled the plug on my connection to my family. Ever since then, I have done really well.
A few months ago, my ex-girlfriend and I broke up, and it was the hardest decision I have ever had to come to, and certainly an insane life change that I am currently navigating. I just want to find out who I am, again it's selfish. But that's where I am at right now, if you read this I hope you appreciate my vulnerability and found an artist that you want to stick around for.
My name is Jayne Alexander Arreola and this has been my life so far.
