#PillPals is a new segment where contributing writers and artists share mental health-related work on Take Your Pills. If you would like to contribute art or writing, please send an email to dom@take-your-pills.com for consideration! Thank you!
+++
“Noise”
By: Georgia Simone Levy
Black people usually tell me, "you don't sound black enough."
White people tend to make jokes, "You're such a white girl." Which isn't funny to me.
I learned many years ago beautiful women are women who have white skin and are never overweight. Women should have long hair and know how to take direction.
I heard that last part in a Drake song.
I want to change. I want to change how I look. I want to change how I think and speak.
I'm a black-Jewish woman. I suffer from bipolar, depression, anxiety, ADD and ADHD. Will there ever be a fair representation of myself or something similar in the media?
The women I see in music videos and on Instagram don't look, think or act like me. This makes me feel weird and alone. For years I was seeing images and messages that weren't conducive to loving myself. I decided to unfollow brands and people on Instagram because of this. I also deactivated my Facebook account because it left me feeling bad about myself. I'm very different from what I was subliminally being told to look like. This left me feeling confused.
My name is Georgia Simone Levy. I was born in April of 1989. My birth mother had me in Atlanta, Georgia when she was sixteen. I was adopted at three weeks old into an all-white Jewish family. Here's what I know, it was a closed adoption, so I was immediately taken from my mother and put in foster care. Sometimes I think about what type of woman I'd be today if my birth mom got to hold me that day. Anyways, a white-Jewish single mother from Manhattan New York adopted me. That's my mom. She's my mom. That's who raised me, so it's just what I know. Before adopting me, she relocated to St. Paul Minnesota. My mom is a theater director and professor. She is a feminist and an advocate. My mom had a daughter prior to adopting me but found out the father had a wife and family in a different state already. My mom decided she didn't need a man to have another child. Then, pow! She adopted a black baby. #trendsetter
This single mother of two would face certain hardships due to raising a child-of-color. I wish I could ask my mom what she was thinking and feeling at this time.
I remember my childhood; I remember being truly happy. I remember hearing Allen Sherman and Bobby McFerrin playing from our record player in our home. Just the three of us. We whistled along and performed made-up choreography while singing, "hello muddah..."
My sister is my best friend. When we were younger, we were on a JCC swim team. There used to be this chubby white-Jewish kid on our team who would come to practice wearing a speedo. Naturally, my mom ended up marrying his father. Great.
I wondered why my mom didn't run this by me first.
Side note, the guy my mom married, my pops, was previously married. That woman came out that she was a lesbian a little after their son, my brother, was born.
When he married my mom, pops made the decision to legally adopt my sister and I as his own. My sisters biological father even signed over his rights to be her father.
Cute, huh?
Now we are one big happy family. The Levy-Berkowitz's. The big five. And I’m the belle of this ball...
+++
ABOUT GEORGIA SIMONE LEVY: Georgia Simone Levy is a music enthusiast who lives in Los Angeles, California. Georgia is pursuing a career in A&R/artist development and currently works for a record label. She loves all things creative.
She is in the process of obtaining a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and Public Relations from California State University, Northridge. Georgia received an Associate of Arts degree in merchandise marketing in 2012, at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising.