*trigger warning* I was 8 in the initial photograph, I keep this photo in my home & think of
*trigger warning* I was 8 in the initial photograph, I keep this photo in my home & think of it often. It was taken in the local aquarium to where I grew up, which is still the closest one to where I live now. I don’t go there anymore. When I think of that photo, the first thing that comes to mind is my eyes. Hard, scarred, apprehensive. Perhaps someone who didn’t know, would simply think it a product of a child who was nervously smiling for a photograph. But I see the same look in all of my childhood photos & know exactly where it comes from. I know I was sexually & physically abused, & I know that the services who would have rehomed me did not. I know that most of my family has disowned me for speaking out about it, when I did at all, or didn’t have the ears for my voice in the first place. These days I treat myself for my trauma on a bountiful basis; one of the things I do are baths, where I will use herbs & meditation to mimic a womb structure so I can reprogram my woes. After one of these particular treatments that was especially rocking, I was in child’s pose on the floor when one of my facial piercings fell out & began to bleed. Looking to the draining bathtub at my left, that brought me straight back to being about the same age where the first photo was taken. My mind flashed to my head slamming against the tile as my abuser stood over me & the chalky memories that came with. So, I’ll tell you what I did. I let the blood dry on my face, grabbed my DSLR camera, & reenacted the entire damn thing in my present day place. It was one of the most liberating, confrontational, honest, ugly, beautiful, & humbling works I have ever participated in. Now I can say, performance art for yourself & by yourself can be used to make a point of purging your pains. This is what I mean when I say “HEALING ARTS.” (at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) -- source link
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