Category Archives: Naked Pictures of Faceless People

Naked Pictures of Faceless People: Inside and Out

Welcome to RMB’s Naked Pictures of Faceless People, a series of guest posts from diverse anonymous writers. (Read more about NPFP’s origins.) These are the posts that are jumping to get out of us, but for whatever reason — safety, embarrassment, conflict of interest, protection of loved ones’ reputations or feelings, or so on — we don’t or won’t or can’t post at our own blogs. Anyone, whether blogger or reader only, is welcome to submit or discuss a potential post by emailing me at arwyn at raisingmyboychick dot com.

Trigger Warning: There is a trigger warning on this post for fear of and references to sexual/physical assault.

Inside and Out

I’m afraid of being seen.

I want to be seen.

When I leave the house, I rarely talk anymore, afraid of my voice giving away the unbearable truth of my history, the bulge in my crotch, the knot in my throat. Afraid of facing more violence, of the crack of knuckles against my skin. Of the wrong words applied to my body. Of that look that says exactly what you think of me.

Of seeking hands, again, feeling inside my clothes for a truth I can’t reveal, a desire I can’t satisfy. Again.

But I’m afraid inside, too. Living too much in this virtual world, feeling too much, everywhere. Afraid of losing my ability to work, afraid of not being clever, competent, together. Having to produce, be better, faster, more insightful.

Of being found out. Of being a huge fucking mess sometimes. Of being ridiculous, overly dramatic, sentimental, immature. Falling just for the rush of it, wanting just for the feel of it. Aching, yearning, needing I not know what.

Knowing:
how often I cry
how hard it is to sleep
how much pain there is

that there is precious little space to talk about this, of needing there to be.

but that’s when we would be free….

——————————

Please support the Naked Pictures of Faceless People project by commenting on the posts. Comments which attack or attempt to guess the identity or any aspect of the identity of the blogger will be deleted, however. Protect and respect this space as though it were your own work on display here, naked and faceless.

Anonymous comments are welcome on NPFP posts. Simply put “Anonymous” or any pseudonym in Name, and either your own or a fake email addresses (ex me@me.com) as the email. NOTE: If you have a Gravatar associated with your email address, it will show up even with an anonymous name, in which case please use a different or a fake email address.

5 Comments | Posted on 27 July 2011 by Arwyn | Category: Body, Naked Pictures of Faceless People | Tags: , , ,
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Naked Pictures of Faceless People: Taking the long way home

Welcome to RMB’s Naked Pictures of Faceless People, a series of guest posts from diverse anonymous writers. (Read more about NPFP’s origins.) These are the posts that are jumping to get out of us, but for whatever reason — safety, embarrassment, conflict of interest, protection of loved ones’ reputations or feelings, or so on — we don’t or won’t or can’t post at our own blogs. Anyone is welcome to submit or discuss a potential post by emailing me at arwyn at raisingmyboychick dot com.

Trigger Warning: There is a trigger warning on this post for explicit descriptions of sexual and emotional abuse of a minor.

Taking the long way home

Therapy is a deep well from which to dip replenishment. But, sometimes there are things unseen beneath the deepest waters. I began having nightmares after a session where I was trying to figure out why when things are at their most difficult, I turn away from what heals me and run headlong into the suffering. The nightmares were about a bright light shining in my eyes while dozens of large black spiders with long segmented legs pried my jaws apart. Then I started having the dreams flash on me while I was awake. Then memories began flashing.

Being the only child of a single, narcissistic parent, I’m pretty good at keying in to other people. I’ve been told that when I focus on someone in a conversation, they feel like they’re the center of the universe and that I really care about what they’re saying. And it’s true. I do find people and their passions fascinating. As a child, it was a coping mechanism in dealing with the only adult I had to rely on however inconsistently that love was returned. It was a constant shift between intensity and abject neglect both physically and emotionally. I was a latchkey kid from the time I was six years old. My afternoons were mine to do with as I pleased. There was usually an empty fridge at home, but we had plenty of neighbors. Any mention to my mother about feeling hungry were ignored or brushed aside. Actually any feelings that were not of interest to her vision of reality were pushed away or belittled.

I remember my mother telling me when I was ten that my grandfather died. Papa, as I called him, was the father figure in my life. I began crying and my mom moved over to hug me, as she began sobbing over how horrible it was for her that her father was dead. She needed comfort from me and I gave all I could until she was done, at which point she decided it was time to buck up and put on a brave face.

Shortly after this, my mother decided this brave face was going to need braces. My fairly straight teeth needed to be straighter, I suppose. Up until this therapy appointment I mentioned in the beginning, I’ve had zero memory of having braces or anything about going to the orthodontist. I knew I had braces because there were photos, but I have no connection to that girl in those pictures. I chalked it up as more of the hazy blur that most of my life is to me. But, for some reason the memory came up that she chose an orthodontist who was a few miles away so I would be able to ride my bike to appointments.

Those dreams were haunting my waking hours and memories were coming back in disjointed sensory snapshots. Bright light. Heavy breathing. Painful fingers pulling and pushing at my lips and jaws. Then it was back, like a key slipping into the right lock. My orthodontist enjoyed causing me pain. He told me how much he liked pulling on my lips and pushing against my gums. I understood that I should give an adult what they needed. I think I was 11 the first time he put his flaccid penis in my mouth. I told my mother but she didn’t believe me. It didn’t fit in with her image of who a daughter of hers should be. So, I never talked about it again.

I think I was twelve when he began putting his hands and dental tools inside my vagina. He liked to make me sore. He liked to crush my labia between his fingers. He like knowing he could push on my vulva and I would feel sore the next day. He liked to make my braces extra tight, so that my mouth would be sore longer.

I looked forward to my regular adjustments. I began equating suffering with being real. The rest of my life I wasn’t real. I was an adjunct to someone else’s whim.

I would to take the long way home over the gravel road on my bike from these appointments to keep the soreness that little bit longer.

When I was fourteen, I took an entire bottle of aspirin and went to bed. But, I couldn’t sleep because I was worried it wasn’t enough to kill me. So, I told my mother. I remember the drive to the hospital where she told me how furious she was at me for scaring her so badly and that I was a spoiled brat who would do anything for attention. I remember her disgust with me when I was induced to vomit at the hospital. I remember telling the hospital therapist, “I wasn’t trying to kill myself. I was looking for attention,” as my mother looked on.

I was sixteen when we moved and my mother took me to a new orthodontist. He was angry with how crooked my teeth had become due to the poor work on my braces. He recommended having them removed entirely and starting over again. I passively agreed. He removed them and I never returned to get them replaced.

I have not told anyone who knows me about this yet. Sharing this with my partner will be another burden he’ll willingly bear. That is the type of person he is. He is carrying so many of his family’s burdens right now that I’m not ready to add another of mine to his load. Sharing this with my therapist will change things and I’m not ready for that yet. I’d like to keep this in my well just a little while longer. Knowing that others will read it will help me feel real. It will give me time to heal some of the soreness.

My teeth are still crooked and I’m embarrassed by them. But, I know that their crookedness doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with me. And now I know why I turn away from the things that heal me when times are at their most difficult. It’s because I still take the long way home over the gravel road.

——————————

Please support the Naked Pictures of Faceless People project by commenting on the posts. Comments which attack or attempt to guess the identity or any aspect of the identity of the blogger will be deleted, however. Protect and respect this space as though it were your own work on display here, naked and faceless.

Anonymous comments are welcome on NPFP posts. Simply put “Anonymous” or any pseudonym in Name, and either your own or a fake email addresses (ex me@me.com) as the email. NOTE: If you have a Gravatar associated with your email address, it will show up even with an anonymous name, in which case please use a different or a fake email address.

Taking the long way home

14 Comments | Posted on 19 June 2011 by Arwyn | Category: Body, Naked Pictures of Faceless People | Tags: , ,
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NPFP Guest Post: After The World Stopped Turning

Welcome to RMB’s Naked Pictures of Faceless People, a series of guest posts from diverse anonymous bloggers. (Read more about NPFP’s origins.) These are the posts that are jumping to get out of us, but for whatever reason — safety, embarrassment, conflict of interest, protection of loved ones’ reputations or feelings, or so on — we don’t or won’t or can’t post at our own blogs. Anyone, whether blogger or reader only, is welcome to submit or discuss a potential post by emailing me at arwyn at raisingmyboychick dot com.

Trigger Warning: There is a trigger warning on this post for stillbirth and suicide ideation.

After The World Stopped Turning

We had been sequestered in our home for days. I was so fragile that I could crack and crumble to the floor if I began thinking about anything more than breathing in and out. I had my husband, but he didn’t understand. I had my 14 month old, but he didn’t understand. I had friends who might understand, but I wouldn’t let them help me.

I ventured out of the house because the fall weather was calling to my 14 month old and I couldn’t keep him from life even though I was no longer with the living. I strapped him into his carseat tightly and took him to the playground.

He couldn’t wait to be free of me as I lowered him to the grass at the side of the car. He ran toward the slide and I panicked. I slammed the car door shut and quickly caught up his hand in mind. He smiled his sunlit smile and I tried to respond like I used to.

I climbed to the heights above the smallest slide, placed my son carefully on my lap and slowly slid down, cradling him tightly against me to protect him. I made certain not to allow any of his limbs to extend outward because a broken joint could happen so quickly on a slide.

When my feet touched the ground, he squirmed away from me and ran back to the steps. I struggled to catch him up, but he was already climbing up and there were children between us. He was at the top of the towering play structure, a full three feet off the ground, and I knew I was about to watch my child die.

I watched from my trapped mind as he fell those three feet onto the padded, recycled tire covering around the play structure. I saw with my horror-filled imagination as his head hit the padding and crushed his life away. In my imagination, I couldn’t get to him in time to save him.

As he slid down the slide and ran up behind me giggling, I was frozen in my horrible panicked fantasy. My 14 month old son would die within my imagination just as surely as my daughter had died within my body a few days earlier. She was twenty-three weeks when her heart failed. I knew she was already dead when I gave birth to her body unassisted at home.

If I was going to let my son live, then I needed to stop hovering. Walking 10 feet away from the play structure to sit on the bench was hard. I wasn’t sure I would make it without crumbling apart, but I did it. I could do that for my son, if not for myself.

I did crumble when a playgroup arrived shortly after with three heavily pregnant mothers, smiling and unknowing how painful it was to see them. I cried silently behind my Jackie O sunglasses and watched my son play. I still believed that he would fall to his death at any moment.

Once I had myself together enough to gather up my son and get back to the car, we returned to our house and I began my new plan. I was staying alive to give my son breastmilk, but if I pumped and built up a large enough freezer stash, I felt I could be free to end my life.

Unfortunately, my husband was warned by my midwife to watch me for such a plan. He told me to get some professional help. I fought against it, but agreed to do it as long as I could continue unhindered in my milk-stash plan.

I saw a therapist who specialized in birth PTSD. She helped me a little, but my body had other therapy planned for me. I discovered I was pregnant for a third time. I knew it was a boy and I knew my body can nurture and birth boys well. I may still not have been be sure whether I’m meant to stay here, but I knew this growing healthy boy was.

*******

I look back on this time after having birthed two more thriving baby boys. If my daughter had survived, I would not have my second and third sons. I have not reconciled my desire for all four of my children to be alive with me. But, I have found a sort of peace in the exercise of letting my children run and play without a hovering mom. It is getting easier, even though it is not getting better. I no longer keep any milk stashed in my freezer.

——————————

Please support the Naked Pictures of Faceless People project by commenting on the posts. Comments which attack or attempt to guess the identity or any aspect of the identity of the blogger will be deleted, however. Protect and respect this space as though it were your own work on display here, naked and faceless.

Anonymous comments are welcome on NPFP posts. Simply put “Anonymous” or any pseudonym in Name, and either your own or a fake email addresses (ex me@me.com) as the email. NOTE: If you have a Gravatar associated with your email address, it will show up even with an anonymous name, in which case please use a different or a fake email address.

11 Comments | Posted on 29 April 2011 by Arwyn | Category: Body, Naked Pictures of Faceless People, Parenting | Tags: , , , , , ,
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NPFP Guest Post: Broken

Welcome to RMB’s Naked Pictures of Faceless People, a series of guest posts from diverse anonymous bloggers. (Read more about NPFP’s origins.) These are the posts that are jumping to get out of us, but for whatever reason — safety, embarrassment, conflict of interest, protection of loved ones’ reputations or feelings, or so on — we don’t or won’t or can’t post at our own blogs. Anyone, whether blogger or reader only, is welcome to submit or discuss a potential post by emailing me at arwyn at raisingmyboychick dot com.

Trigger Warning: There is a trigger warning on this post for sexual assault, surgery, and sexual dysfunction.

Broken

By Kristin Lai1

I’ve been broken since I was thirteen when my grade nine boyfriend sexually coerced me, triggering my first major depression. I spent the rest of grade nine and all of grade ten being called a slut and a square, depending on who you talked to and sometimes within the same breath. There’s nothing quite like being slut-shamed and prude-shamed at the same time. After that boyfriend my interest in physical intimacy of any kind slowly waned with each successive relationship. My boundaries were shaped more by my trauma than by my desires. I’m pretty damn sure that I would have tried to lose my virginity earlier, with my first truly amazing boyfriend, had I not been so affected by that early sexual assault – and make no mistake, coercion is assault. What I didn’t understand then was that even if I had wanted to “pop my cherry” it wouldn’t have been possible.

You know what I’ve always wanted to be able to do? Wear a tampon. When I was sixteen I mentioned to my doctor that I couldn’t even put in a tampon and she said I might have an unusually tight hymen, the technical term for it is “imperforate hymen”. She told me that I could get surgery for it but she never actually examined me so it all remained hypothetical – and FYI for all of those medical professionals out there, it is entirely unfair to require that a teenage girl be proactive in advocating for herself when it comes to sexual healthcare, it’s your job to pay attention, take notes and ask follow up questions – that doctor never again mentioned it and neither did I.

When I finally tried to get my first pelvic exam it was impossible. It hurt so much when she tried that she had to give up, and yet she had no suggestions or even comments about this fact.

Somewhere along the line I decided that I must have vaginismus, all the while still scared of sex, afraid of being taken back to that bedroom in grade nine; having to explain to each and every boyfriend why I couldn’t “do that” and why I sometimes cried for no apparent reason. I became defined not only by my trauma but by my brokenness.

I read so much shit about female sexual dysfunction I could recite it in my sleep. I even went to a sex therapist who did little more than diagnose me as “pre-orgasmic” rather than “an-orgasmic” and refer me to Lonnie Barbach’s “For Yourself” which assumes that if a woman is not getting into the sex it’s because she’s been taught that “nice girls don’t do that”. This so did not apply to me.

It wasn’t until I was twenty-six and married (that’s right, someone actually married my broken ass) that a doctor actually gave a shit. First doctor in my life to take me seriously about anything. He sent me to a brilliant gynaecologist who was quite impressed with exactly how imperforate my hymen was, she immediately scheduled my surgery and I had that little piece of skin excised (if you’re curious it’s called a hymenectomy).

I went through surgery and hobbled around for three freakin’ weeks (eighteen days longer than predicted) only to find that while I could now get an uncomfortable pap smear I still could not have “the sex” without a great deal of work and discomfort if not outright pain. Also, although I could get a tampon in I could feel the stupid string so, no thanks.

Believe it or not we somehow managed to get me pregnant: it was a goddamn chore, and it hurt. Sex should not be like that. Your partner should not have to ask you repeatedly, “Are you okay? Should I stop?” but he did ask, and he hated that it was hurting me but I grit my teeth and took the pain because I wanted that baby.

I assumed that if I mentioned this to anyone I would be given the same advice I’d heard a million times, “stretch it out with your fingers/dilater/butt plug” and frankly, I didn’t have enough of a libido to put that kind of daily work in. When I had to have an emergency c-section I was disappointed because I had hoped that the delivery would stretch me out to a normal size.

Eight years after my first surgery I finally mentioned it to my doctor and he sent me right on back to my lovely gynaecologist who examined me yet again and yet again she was truly impressed by just how broken my cooch was. She found that even the slightest brush with a soft little Q-tip was enough to make me cringe and wince, turns out that in addition to having been blessed with a truly imperforate hymen I had also been graced with an “exquisitely sensitive” bit of skin at the entrance to that most blessed of orifices.

My thoughts? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

Back to surgery to have, I kid you not, a skinning vulvectomy (I couldn’t make this shit up); a surgery usually performed to treat cancer. If you’re looking this up online, rest assured I did not have my labia or clitoris removed (Wikipedia nearly put my big sister into a fit, “Nobody’s cutting off my little sisters clit!!!”)

I healed much more quickly this time and promptly called big sis to proclaim, “They slit my snatch and my hoo-ha’s healing!” Once the healing was done I took my vajingo out for a test drive and lo and behold, I could put a small dildo in with no pain! I cried, I felt like for the first time in my life I wasn’t broken.

And yet… it’s been several months since my surgery and my partner and I are so used to not having sex, so used to there being issues and difficulties and, in my case, so tired of hoping that maybe just maybe this time it will be okay… that we still haven’t done it.

For a long time I told myself that it was all fine, we just did other stuff and that was enough and maybe for someone else it would have been. But to not have “the sex” because you can’t, because it hurts, because some part of your sexual self was stuffed into a box when you were thirteen, is not okay. To end every attempt at intimacy with the female equivalent of blue-balls; feeling guilty that you can’t be enough while your partner worries about hurting you or triggering you; not even being able to give yourself an orgasm, is not okay. And then the realization that the only way you’re likely to ever have an orgasm is through the one thing you can’t do. It’s heartbreaking.

I have spent my whole life repeating one simple prayer, “Please God let me not be broken anymore.”

***

I have always believed in being sex positive; sex is something to be enjoyed and talked about and no one should ever be made to feel shame or guilt about expressing and owning their sexuality. I believe that if we were truly a sex positive culture I probably wouldn’t have gone through all of this. I also believe that it was my sex positive position – that is, my willingness to openly talk about my boundaries – that protected me from further exploitation. That being said, when you are a sex positive person who’s not having sex it can be isolating and often painful to listen to others share their own experiences of sex and lust and eroticism. After so many years in the queer community it can become unbearable. That pain is where the following poem comes from:

Please stop talking about sex. Oh God please just shut up.
Don’t tell me that sex must be a part of any healthy marriage – you erase me. Don’t make jokes about ‘frigid’ women – you judge me.
Don’t conflate sex-positive with having sex – you mistake me.
Please just stop talking about sex.

I have spent countless hours in my life listening to friends regale me with their sex-capades.
Smile and nod.
“Oh my God I haven’t been laid in three months!”
You poor fucking baby.
There is no room in this room for my experience. So I keep my mouth shut.
This is what invisible feels like.

——————————

Please support the Naked Pictures of Faceless People project by commenting on the posts. Comments which attack or attempt to guess the identity or any aspect of the identity of the blogger will be deleted, however. Protect and respect this space as though it were your own work on display here, naked and faceless.

Anonymous comments are welcome on NPFP posts. Simply put “Anonymous” or any pseudonym in Name, and either your own or a fake email addresses (ex me@me.com) as the email. NOTE: If you have a Gravatar associated with your email address, it will show up even with an anonymous name, in which case please use a different or a fake email address.

  1. Kristin has chosen semi-anonymity, to balance her need for privacy with her desire to not “hide”. ↩
18 Comments | Posted on 4 April 2011 by Arwyn | Category: Body, Naked Pictures of Faceless People | Tags: , , , , ,
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NPFP Guest Post: If wishes were horses…

Welcome to RMB’s Naked Pictures of Faceless People, a series of guest posts from diverse anonymous bloggers. (Read more about NPFP’s origins.) These are the posts that are jumping to get out of us, but for whatever reason — safety, embarrassment, conflict of interest, protection of loved ones’ reputations or feelings, or so on — we don’t or won’t or can’t post at our own blogs. Anyone, whether blogger or reader only, is welcome to submit or discuss a potential post by emailing me at arwyn at raisingmyboychick dot com.

Trigger Warning: There is a trigger warning on this post for mentions of self injury and related coping mechanisms.

If wishes were horses…

Tonight is a bad night. It is well past midnight and while my two-year-old is soundly asleep in the bed next to me, I am wide awake, my thoughts a jumble of flashbacks, my body remembering the years of torturous abuse it suffered at the hands of “friends”. I desperately want this to end. Between memories, my mind goes back to all the ways I have coped in the past – heroin, cutting myself, anorexia, suicide attempts. It takes every ounce of strength I can muster to stop myself from doing something drastic. I keep reminding myself that if something were to happen, that if this was the time I finally went too far and my body gave up on me, that this beautiful, perfect angel sleeping next to me would be left alone and scared and unsafe in our apartment until some one noticed I was missing and came to find me.

I wish there was some one I could talk to about these feelings, but there is not. Sure, I go to counseling and my therapist is amazing, but I can never be truly honest with her. You see, I have already been labeled as deficient by society. I am young, poor, single, queer and mentally ill. While I will readily admit that I have white privilege, I doubt this is enough to compensate for the seemingly insurmountable mountain of crap I have working against me. I am scared that if I were to ever be truly, completely, 100% honest about how I feel, about what I struggle with, they they would take my baby, my Reason, away from me. There are days when the depressed part of me thinks this might not be such a bad thing. The depressed, traumatized part of me injects doubt into every facet of my life, telling me that I am shitty parent, that my child would be better with some one who doesn’t have the struggles I have.

This message is, of course, reinforced by every image of parenting that surrounds me. White, married, heterosexual, neurotypical, upper middle class is touted as the ideal, the norm. And of you are not those things, well then you better keep your legs closed, ho. You have no business adding another leech to the system. It breaks my heart to write that, to recognize that that is what my beautiful, kind, compassionate, funny, creative, loving little person is reduced to: a leech. All because of who I am and the choices I have made. I also worry that there are components of this that are genetic and that I have doomed by baby to someday go through the hell I am going through right now. Just thinking about this is almost more than my heart can bear.

I am sick of living this life. I am sick of denying my pain, of pretending like it doesn’t exist. I should not have to choose between being able to keep my child and healing the very real, very deep emotional wounds I carry. I am sick of being made to feel like less than by a society that tell me that my parenting, my body, my being is defective simply because of the way my brain chemicals work.

I wish this story had a happy ending. I wish I could say that I pulled myself up by my bootstraps like I have been urged to do so many times by clueless people. I wish, I wish, I wish… sadly, it seems like wishes are all I have.

——————————

Please support the Naked Pictures of Faceless People project by commenting on the posts. Comments which attack or attempt to guess the identity or any aspect of the identity of the blogger will be deleted, however. Protect and respect this space as though it were your own work on display here, naked and faceless.

Anonymous comments are welcome on NPFP posts. Simply put “Anonymous” or any pseudonym in Name, and either your own or a fake email addresses (ex me@me.com) as the email. NOTE: If you have a Gravatar associated with your email address, it will show up even with an anonymous name, in which case please use a different or a fake email address.

8 Comments | Posted on 14 March 2011 by Arwyn | Category: Body, Naked Pictures of Faceless People, Parenting | Tags: , , ,
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