Finding HopeFinding Home and Finding Hope
Posted on September 13, 2017
Last night I got to see Cecilia Knapp perform her one woman show, Finding Home, for the second time. It’s a show that discusses some of the really big stuff, like family, growing up, loss, suicide, and hope, and again, I was completely blown away. She’s an incredible writer, an incredible poet. It’s a fantastic show and if you’re able to see it, you really should.
This post could easily be a list of reasons why I love Cecilia, and her writing, and I’d quite happily write that but that wasn’t why I wanted to write this post. I wanted to write this post because she’s doing something really important. She advocates using writing, and creativity in general, to share stories and to help us cope with the things that happen to us, and this is something I’ve always really thought too. I think it can change everything; it certainly has for me. Writing has given me a way to make intangible things tangible and process things that had always felt too big to think about. I can’t say it better than Cecilia does here, in her TED Talk:
And on the other side of that, I also want to highlight the power of art and words, and the effect they can have. I’ve been in a pretty bad place for the last few months and I’ve really struggled with feeling hopeless. But listening to those words, it kind of felt like all of the colour had rushed back into my life, all of the feeling back into my body. I felt alive again. And that was amazing.
Of course, one experience can’t alleviate depression but what is change but a series of experiences? And regardless of whether or not this feeling lasts, it won’t be any less special if it doesn’t. I’ll keep the memory safe and replay it whenever I need to remind myself of that moment, that feeling. Given this experience, I’m even prouder that this blog’s title was inspired by this show.
You can find out more about Cecilia and her work here.
Behind The Scars
Posted on September 9, 2017
A little while ago, I discovered Sophie Mayanne’s Behind The Scars photography project. I was scrolling through Instagram, probably procrastinating, when I saw a photo of a young woman unashamedly showing off her scars. I was intrigued by the story behind that post – while I’ve never been actively told to hide my own scars, it often feels like I’m expected to cover them up. This is particularly true of self harm scars, I think. As I said, I’ve never had someone specifically tell me to hide them but I still feel that there is an expectation that I should, either because I should be ashamed of them or because they might upset people. I protest this and so does Behind The Scars. This ever-growing collection of photos allows people to show their scars and tell the stories behind them. I don’t think I can describe it better than Sophie herself does: “Behind The Scars is a celebration of beauty, of flaws, of battles won and obstacles overcome. It is about survival, living beyond that and capturing the memories. It is a truly honest depiction of how our history, shown through these scars, does not define us but compels us.”
I was instantly a fan and applied to take part. It took a bit of planning and rearranging but come the day of the shoot, I arrived with only a little anxiety. I’ve had photos taken before, for my music projects, but they’ve always been taken by people I already know. So I was a bit nervous about that. I had also been nervous about my difficulty with eye contact (thank you for that, ASD) but Sophie was very reassuring and put that fear to bed very quickly.
The shoot itself was a very positive experience and made much easier by the presence of a little dog, Carla. Animals always put me at ease (to the point where both my cat and my dog frequently accompany me to therapy sessions) so that was a lovely surprise and did make me feel less anxious. Anyway. I had expected to feel very self-conscious but I didn’t. In fact, I felt strangely in control and comfortable in my body and that is something I’m really grateful for, grateful to this project for. And even though I often get very anxious about not knowing how to do something, I didn’t feel that as strongly as I sometimes do: Sophie was great, telling me where to stand and what she wanted me to do. I never felt judged and if a particular pose felt unnatural, we were on to the next one straight away. And suddenly we were done.
The other part of the project involves writing a little bit about your scars or your experience of having scars. I thought a lot about what I wanted to say and eventually, I came up with this:
“I’ve struggled with self harm on and off for about eight years but it’s gotten worse as my mental health has worsened. The compulsion, for me, is two fold. Because of my Autism, I feel emotions really strongly and when it gets completely overwhelming, the only thing that helps is self harming, like all the emotions can escape. It’s like my version of a pressure valve. I also do it when something very upsetting happens, like I’m trying to represent that distress in a tangible way and show that it’s changed me. I think a lot of people don’t understand it and almost don’t want to because it’s a hard thing to think about but I think the only way to help someone who is self harming is to try and understand it. I didn’t talk about it for a long time because I didn’t have the words but then I realised how much it would’ve meant to my younger self to know that other people were struggling with the same things. So it’s time to find the words.”
My lasting impression of Behind the Scars, and of Sophie, is sincerity, and personally, I can’t give it higher praise than that. It’s been a couple of weeks now since the shoot and I love the photos. They look like me. I know that sounds odd, but how many photos have you seen of yourself that just don’t look like you? But these do. These photos look like me.
“If these images help us to think differently about scarring, and for those that “wear” these scars, to look differently at not only the imperfections, but the individuality these marks might engender, then for me, I would deem the project a success.” – Sophie Mayanne
A massive thank you to Sophie for taking these photos and for the Behind the Scars project as a whole. You can see more of the photos from the project here and here and, if you’d like to help her get Behind the Scars to New York, you can find the Kickstarter here.
Finding Hope 