It’s one of those stories told through a sole picture, yet captures a time & place I’ll never forget. The old cliché; a picture can tell a thousand stories. Well, this one can tell one of those.

I was happy & sad, the two co-existed. A duality of such extreme emotions. The dress was of fabric so constrained, in my head I held the image of my Godmother when I witnessed her forced into a straightjacket when she was committed to the asylum. The one so derelict & haunting.

I was dictated to in the same ways I saw the nurses treat Nouna…the shouting, the noise, the pushing, touching, all feeling like restraints.
The lies I told, mirrored her lies. Denying suffering & hiding behind a mask. Glassy eyed hooked on *******. You see, it kept me thin in that “Size Zero” era. If your bones didn’t show, you didn’t show. Fashion & modelling was never a passion, it was more a necessity, even an addiction.

In this picture, the dress was used for a dark auteurist film exposing the true nature of obsession. Voyeurism haunted me. Blissfully unaware I roamed the streets, kept the blinds to my apartment unclosed. It was then I realised; unless a flash of a camera were present, I felt alone. Disturbingly alone. With no lights I was nothing. I became as addicted to the paparazzi as I had to the drugs I was inhaling each morning, noon & night.
I was terrified by fame, & terrified by the fear of being forgotten. I sold my soul to the devil & in true honesty, I never got it back.

Back then I was chained & shackled, a spirit as broken as an elephants. I may not have been beaten with sticks or chains. I was broken. I became submissive. A simple puppet of the play called “Life.” At least, the only life I knew.

© Sia Jane