Arch City perspective
My Body, My Self After a series of miscarriages, I lost trust in my body. A compassionate photographer helped me regain it. By Zoë Brigley
On a frosty, winter day, I drive down to Clintonville with my passenger seat piled high with lingerie, stockings, underwear. You’d be forgiven for thinking that I’m on my way to an assignation. But no, this is an appointment with myself and a woman with a camera, and it is to test how far I have come in learning to love my own body. I am about to pose completely nude in front of a stranger. It has taken many years to come to this moment of reclaiming my body. At the time of this appointment, I am recovering from a miscarriage. I have had four miscarriages in total, and the doctors have never been able to explain why, despite all the tests. 28
It is a great joy to me that out of six pregnancies, my two sons did survive. But still, I have in the past blamed myself for the losses and asked why my body had to fail while others’ succeeded. I have never been a churchgoer, but there were times when I began praying because I was so afraid that my body would let me down again. My lost pregnancies are not the only time I have felt my body was hijacked. It began as a teenager with body dysmorphia, a condition where a person cannot stop thinking about flaws they perceive in their body, which may be minimal or invisible to other people. I didn’t know it then, but I was suffering from quiet bor-
derline personality disorder, a condition that causes not only body dysmorphia but also extremely low self-esteem, fear of abandonment and mood swings. My experience was different from regular borderline personality disorder, because there were no angry outbursts. Instead, I turned a withering dislike on myself. Looking in the mirror, I believed I was monstrously ugly, although I know now that I was just an average, awkward teenage girl. The condition often causes people to go to great lengths to prevent abandonment or separation. At age 14, I fell under the spell of an older man who would exploit that tendency. The abusive behavior started only when I was completely dependent on him, and it meant having sex whether I wanted to or not. For a long time, because of my disorder, I couldn’t leave him, no matter what he did. Despite the coercion and violence, I thought I would die if he left me, so I sacrificed my body, and it was mine no longer.
photo: Kate Sweeney
Zoë Brigley
Columbus Monthly DECEMBER 2020
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