touch me right

The year before creating this film, I'd been deeply struggling with the after-effects of the sexual violence I experienced growing up. This film developed out of the flashbacks and pieces of memories that started returning to me. I was looking for an outlet to release the anger and confusion that had grown around my relationship to my body, and out of that flurry of emotions the treatment for this film was created. I needed to create something tangible that could help represent for myself the fragments of who I thought I was, and how it was shattered when I began to process my abuse.

The experience that I'm most trying to highlight with this piece is the cyclical nature that my own trauma leads me through. For a period of time, I would refuse to look at my whole face or body in the mirror. I suffered from intense body dysmorphia and felt I could practically feel the inside of my body rotting away if I thought about my abuse for too long. What remained from my experiences were pieces of memories, and ghosts of sensations that could strike me at any moment and lead me to spiral out of control. I would go through days without a thought concerning my trauma, until I would be suddenly triggered and thrust back into my abuse once again.

This lack of control that I felt about my life and my body was the feeling I was trying to express through this piece. I needed an outlet to convey the mashed up memories I harbored, and the anguish that seemed would not stop growing inside of me. Through the 1x1 frame, I wanted to create a claustrophobic space that I could let loose my rage of emotions and experiences. The film shows a girl avoiding her body: refusing to see herself naked, unable to stare at her whole face at once, only able to compartmentalize her features. This is intercut with prismatic memories of her abuse as she begins to fixate more and more on her body and what has been done. The episode that the girl goes through is narrated by the audio of a man feeling sexual pleasure, his arousal increasing alongside the girl's distress. Her trauma is punctuated by his climax, when the moment is over and she is finally able to calm herself temporarily.

Creating this film allowed for a release of the pent up emotions inside of me that needed a voice. I'm immensely grateful that I had the ability to take a project like this that I felt necessary to finish, and be granted the support and feedback from those close to me while working on this film. Having finished this piece has been like lifting a boulder off of my back, as though I've packaged some of my trauma up in the confines of this film. Making it felt like a necessary step towards letting go of the sexual trauma that I've allowed to damage me for so long.