Category: mapping the vulnerable

I should have known from the beginning, but I enjoyed the attention. 

Why do we get a high when a friend of our ex sends us a message?

I mean, I definitely wasn’t interested, but he didn’t seem to mind. “Just want to be friends,” he said.

“Friends.” 

Why not? We would be starting school together in the Fall. Besides, it would be nice to know someone other than the guy who broke my heart just a week earlier. Plus, the two of them would be living together. Maybe then I can show my ex that I am definitely not boring.

I still remember the feeling when he said that. The man I loved thought I was boring. My tied-together self-esteem shattered completely. There was no way I could put it back together this time.

I cringe when I think back to that night. I was already drunk even though I was only halfway through my second drink; those light-weight high school days. I was in the washroom changing from shorts to pants, getting ready for the bonfire, when he walked in. I remember laughing, thinking he was trying to get a glimpse of my body, but he just sat on the toilet seat and started crying. 

“We can be friends.”

I remember begging him not to leave, but he did and all I could do was hug the toilet and wait for my friends to find me.

What an asshole.

I went home that night, drunk and shattered. Looking back, I don’t know if I was more upset that he dumped me or that he thought I was boring.

Those words followed me into the Fall. New school, new friends, new freedom, and all I could worry about was not being boring. So, I drank until I wasn’t. I was that girl who knew where every party was, every night of the week. And I made sure he knew about it. 

His roommate and I became friends. Yes, the one who slid into my DMs during the summer. We were in the same class, we liked the same tv show, and I enjoyed having a direct resource that could let my ex know exactly how fun I was. Besides, it was the first year of university; everybody just wanted to be friends with everybody else. Or at least everybody was just trying to be more popular than everybody else.

I guess so was I.

I still remember when I got his text. It was nearing two in the morning. I was laying in my tiny cardboard-like residence bed waiting for the booze to guide me into a deep sleep.

He wanted to come over and hang out.

I told him no. I was too tired, and I wanted to be alone.

He came anyway.

I heard the knocking on the lounge floor door and the last thing I needed was him to wake up my room mates. So, I let him in, told him we could hang out for a little bit, but then he had to leave.

I turned on our favourite tv show. We weren’t even five minutes into the show when he leaned over and tried to kiss me.

I shoved him away.

He tried to persuade me at first. Pretended to be hurt that I didn’t feel the same way about him.

That’s when he reached for the waist band of my pyjama pants.

All I remember is that I kept saying the word, “no.” 

Over and over again, that’s all I could say. I remember squeezing my legs together, hoping that my thighs could save me.

I blacked out. 

I woke up on the floor, hugging my trembling body, trying not to scream. I tried to remember what happened, but my mind refused to look back. I was confused. I know I wasn’t drugged because I didn’t drink anything. Google explained that our minds can go into something that sounds to me like a ‘self-defence mode’. The mind blocks out the trauma, refusing to put your body through that pain again.

It was terrifying that I didn’t know what had happened to me. All I knew was that I didn’t want anyone to know.

I was ashamed.

I was ashamed because it felt like I just let him. I could have screamed but my body was frozen. I kept asking myself, why did I let him beat me?

Anytime I had heard a story about this happening to another, it was always “if you’re careful, you’ll be safe,” “if you stay away from scary places, you’ll be safe,” “if you cover your body, you’ll be safe.” No one ever mentioned, “be careful, a friend might take advantage of you in your own house.”

I just want to go back and protect 18-year-old me. 

An entire year passed before I told anyone.

A friend of mine was a photographer and needed a model to grow his portfolio for his graphic design aspirations. It was in the midst of the shoot when he came walking through the apartment door. My entire body froze. I don’t remember breathing. That photographer was the first person I told. I told him, because I needed to get out of there.

Something released.

That’s what I felt when I finally got the words out. Near the beginning, the words I kept choosing were, ‘sexually assaulted’. I wasn’t ready to say what it really was out loud. The word ‘rape’ made it feel like I was victimizing myself and the last thing I wanted was to have people make a big deal out of it. I didn’t want to talk about it; still don’t.

“I’m sorry that happened to you.” It’s whatever.

I later found out that most sexual assault and rape cases go untold, because the victim feels embarrassed by the event. When I first found this out, I felt relieved that I wasn’t the only one. Then I was angry. 

Why the fuck are we so afraid to stand up for ourselves when someone else hurts us.

Maybe this bullshit goes back to kindergarten when you got in trouble for being a ‘tattle tale’. We have been accustomed to letting bad people get away with bad things, because we don’t want to be that ‘tattle tale’.

Or maybe we’re afraid that if we tell someone, they will shun us for ‘not being careful enough,’ for ‘hanging out with the wrong crowd,’ for ‘not watching our drinks closely enough.’

The second time I told anyone was to my group of coworkers at a restaurant. There were only four of us who worked in the coffee shop, so we had grown to be really close. 

The one’s reaction was exactly as I had always feared: “Why didn’t you do anything about it?”

Another one shut her down so fast, I didn’t have time to feel bad about myself: “No one knows what their bodies will do when they’re in shock, until it happens.” I had never been so grateful for anyone in my life up until that point.

I understood her question though.

“Why didn’t you do anything about it?”

I, myself, have thought those very words when reading about other people who have been raped.

I had asked myself that same question so many times. I felt like I was just giving myself excuses.

For three years I kept telling myself that maybe he just didn’t hear me when I told him no.

For three years I kept telling myself that a friend wouldn’t do that on purpose, it must have been an accident.

It took my three years to convince myself otherwise.

***

Two months ago, I received a text message from an unknown number.

“hey”

I simply replied, “hey sorry, who is this?”

“It’s Paul”.

when I was 18 I was raped by someone I thought was my friend.

As my fascination with the shower experience which shifts the body into a reset or a sense of relief, grew, I have become interested in photographic journaling.

I began to photograph my mouth as I tell the stories of my own vulnerabilities.

This first one is entitled, When I was 18, I was raped by someone I thought was a friend.

I want to take the viewers on a story throughout this period in my life where ‘alive’ was not what I want to be.

I had been awaken to the fears of the world and stripped from the ideas of “if you’re careful, you will be safe”, “if you cover your body, you will be safe”, “if you don’t walk alone, you will be safe”.

However, it has come to my attention that I do not want the viewer to know the story or the title of the work when they first see the exhibition. I want to take them on a journey.

This has inspired an exhibition of photo albums. The albums will be filled with personal photographs of the year this event happened to me, although my face will be cut out of them; ‘protecting the victim’.

There will be text regarding this event throughout the photo albums, slightly getting darker and sadder until the last pages, which we reveal the event in its fullest.

There is something that happens to my mind when I come out of the shower: My body begins to have control again, letting the anxiety fall into the background. The hot steam shifts me as I become aware of every molecule of steam. It’s a reset.

Mapping these moments with long-exposed photographs have allowed me to demonstrate my body language throughout this peaceful period of time.

My mind is clear again.

It is vulnerable and yet it is empowered.

I have realized that asking strangers for their vulnerabilities was simply just research.

I wanted to know what made others feel vulnerable, what they thought about vulnerability, and most importantly how they acted when they became vulnerable by answering the question.

The answer I found was empowerment.

I want to feel empowered. I, myself, want to represent this release of empowerment through my art.

I am beginning a new work: I will map my body as I dry off from the shower.

I think I’m excited.

I tested my project proposal.

I was not satisfied.

There is something so beautiful between two strangers sharing their deepest fears; their deepest vulnerabilities. This thing, this moment cannot become tangible; no matter how hard I force it too. I can’t recreate this moment of purity. More importantly I can’t recreate the moment of relief that comes after the confession; the moment the weight was lifted.

I have decided the moment is the work.

I never thought I would do a performance piece. I don’t have the courage. Slowly these strangers gave me the courage; gave me the freedom to be vulnerable with them. Many of these moments are ones that I will never forget. And for that, I thank you strangers. Thank you for sharing a moment with me even though we didn’t know each others’ names.

For everyone else, I wish you could have been there.