Intimacy and Trauma
Intimacy and Trauma explores the relationship that the two have with each other. Before working on this series, I discovered how trauma can result in an overdrive of intimacy for some. Upon realizing this, I decided to revisit my history of intimate encounters, how they corresponded with traumatic events that I experienced, and how space relates to these experiences.
I begin this journey with the start of my trauma: outside of the location where my mom had her brain aneurysm. I then transition to where my I “lost” my virginity to my male best friend at the time as an attempt to feel some form of comfort as the one year anniversary of my mom’s aneurysm approached. This flows to the location where I was sexually assaulted, two months after, by someone else who claimed that they loved and cared for me. Intimacy and Trauma closes with an array of depictions of sexual experiences, intimacy and different locations of where I used to have sex when I lived in Florida.
I didn't understand that I was using intimacy as a way to heal from my trauma, until about two years ago. I thought that I was going through the promiscuous phase that everyone goes through at some point in their life; until someone asked me how do I cope. I instantly thought 'sex' and, for me, I did not feel content with that thought. I realized that I was using sex as a coping mechanism. I just wanted to feel wanted and comfort by someone, and I thought that sex was the way to receive that. When in reality, it just made me feel worse because I never truly felt the comfort I was desiring.