When I was twelve, I walked into the garage and found my mother slumped over in the driver’s seat of her car, the engine running and the garage door closed. That image will stay with me for the rest of my life. I realize that that is quite a bold and somewhat off putting way to start a story. But, it does demand attention as any discussion about mental illness, or the impact of suicide on surviving family members should.
February 15, 1986, is the day that sent my life spiraling on a tangent that I had no control over. In the mid 80’s mental illness and suicide were not talked about as openly as they are today. In fact, at the time of my mother’s death, we were told that if anyone asked, that my mother died in a car accident. When I reflect on that now, I cannot believe just how far we have come in terms of openly discussing mental health, but we have so much further to go. Hotlines, talk days, open forums, etc. Oh how things have changed. Following my mother’s death, we did not discuss it, we did not seek counseling, we carried on as if nothing happened. My brothers and I were reconnected with our biological father and were uprooted from what was familiar and comfortable to the unknown, and dysfunctional. Obviously this tactic took its toll on myself and my two younger brothers. Each of us processing and dealing with the grief in our very own unhealthy ways. We kept all of our emotions and feelings inside and never fully grieved the loss of our mother.
It wasn’t until my mid-thirties after leaving my career as an Occupational Therapist for an unspecified career as a creative that I began the process of release. I began playing with my camera. Initially, I was motivated to learn the ins and outs of my camera in order to take better photographs of my two young boys. I enrolled in a community basic photography course and started to take photos of everything. The drop of water of a leaf, raindrops on window panes, sunsets, sports, shadows. An undeniable excitement began to flutter around inside me. I enrolled in a creative workshop run by a photography named Brooke Shaden. This workshop forced me to look inward in ways I was never able to do. We meditated, we pushed ourselves out of our comfort zones, we created in ways I had never done before. During our mediation sessions, I began seeing images….strange and bizarre in nature. I saw a woman on the beach surrounded by black birds, I saw a woman laying on the ground underneath a pile of snow, I saw a woman with her head in a cloud of smoke. Rather than ignore these visions, I wrote them down in a journal.
After the workshop, I continued to meditate in an unorthodox way. I quieted my mind, and then asked God, or “the universe” in my case to show me the way. To show me my path, to where was unknown. Sometimes these images were crystal clear and sometimes they were foggy and unclear. After I had about five of these “meditative visions”, I reviewed my notes, searching for meaning. What I realized was that these “visions” represented many of the fears, emotions, and unexpressed grief that I had suppressed for years. I researched the meaning of specific things I had noted. For example, in some cultures black birds represent imminent death. So the image of the woman on the beach surrounded with black birds started to have meaning for me. Was it me, standing alone on a beach, wearing a white dress, with my hands over my eyes? If black birds represented imminent death, my hands over my eyes must represent my inability to see and the white dress represented my innocence. I won’t lie, this was both exciting and terrifying at the same time. What would I discover that I have suppressed for so long? Did I want to relive those feelings and emotions?
I decided to trust the process and recreate these images in a photographic series which I titled “My Secret”. Using myself as the subject, I created clouds made out of quilters cotton, I collected eggshells for months and reached out to friends and family asking them to save their eggshells. Bizarre request I realized, but to my amazement people supported me without questioning my reason. People just randomly left containers of eggshells on my porch.
This act of “photo journaling” if you will, allowed me to explore my deepest, darkest fears and anxieties in a way that felt both safe and therapeutic. I began using my camera to journal my feelings in a way that I was unable to articulate verbally or through traditional forms of written journaling.
My hope in sharing both my images and story behind the images is that they resonate with someone and let them know that they are not alone in the world.
To see the series in its entirety, visit my website https://www.mooreimages.ca/fine-art/portfolio/my-secret/
Proceeds from the sale of images from this series are donated to the Toronto Distress Centre supporting the Survivor Support program.
All posts are intended strictly for educational purposes. It is not intended to make any representations or warranties about the outcome of any product/service.
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