In Their Own Skin: Cat

WELCOME TO THE “IN THEIR OWN SKIN” SERIES.

One of the biggest honors of my job as a boudoir photographer is hearing the stories clients share with me. While these stories are not mine to share on a public platform, I hold them close in my heart. They bring me inspiration, strength, and light in a way that only true humanity and vulnerability can. 

I created the “In Their Own Skin” series to share some of these stories with you. The “In Their Own Skin” participants graciously consented to share their stories (told in their own words) alongside their boudoir pictures. My sincere hope is that these stories and pictures will bring you moments of strength, uplift your soul, and encourage you to keep moving forward, especially as we navigate these challenging times. 

I am so excited to introduce you to Cat today! Cat tells her story of healing and growth through trauma with wisdom and self-reflection. I love how she speaks about her journey with a sense of gentle acceptance and love for herself. Here are her words.

“My name is Cat. I am 30 years old and a mother of two. I live in Mounds View, and for work I do many creative pursuits in tandem with spiritual coaching.” 

“I love my resiliency.”

“I’m both very proud of and thankful for my intellect and attention to intellectual detail.  And I have a very good sense of humor -- it’s a mix between raunchy sarcasm and dad humor, and I like those two things together! 

“I also love my resiliency. In terms of Human Design, everybody has a different profile line, and mine is the 3/5, which is called Martyr Heretic.  Essentially, we’re meant to bump into shit in life, do it the incorrect way, and absolutely fall on our face so that we can turn around to the collective and be like, ‘No no no, don’t do that, I did that, it went very poorly. Try it this way instead!’ 

“When I learned that, that was very validating -- and it just is so true, even in my work. When you work in spiritual coaching or in coaching of any type, you end up attracting people who are going through what you’ve gone through. You can really turn around and be like, ‘Okay, here’s what we’re going to do, here’s what I see in you, and here’s how I think you can grow and change from that.’” 

“No one could dislike me.”  

“I experienced a lot of abuse when I was growing up. That abuse led me to be very dissociated both from my body and from who I am as a person. I can hardly remember any memories from my childhood except for big life moments. I can’t remember anything from a lot of high school. 

“My personality was very much the sum of the people I was hanging out with. I was very enigmatic, and I didn’t have any strong opinions in any direction. Nobody could dislike me; that was a very unsafe thing for me to feel. 

“I got married in college to someone that I didn’t love, and that ended relatively quickly. I moved all over the place, mostly kind of harboring myself in relationships. When you’re that dissociative, you don’t know you’re doing it -- you know, you’re like, ‘Ah, this version of me is who I am today, here we go.’ 

“I met my son’s father and we moved from Pennsylvania back to Minnesota and got pregnant (despite being on two different forms of birth control!). Shortly after that, my son’s father started to go downhill with drug usage. At some point, I was just like, ‘Well, I really don’t want to do that.’

“Corey (my now-husband) and I finally got together the winter after that. We went to our work’s holiday party and we weren't together yet, but we spent the whole night together. He hung out all night with me, and it was very cutesy. 

“We went to an art gallery opening the next night. After that we had pizza at his house and stayed up all night and were talking. At some point we were both lying down and wordlessly looking at each other with the pizza in between us… after a certain point, I was like, ‘Well, I’m just gonna go ahead and go for it then!’ And I kissed him.”  

“I remain curious and open to new information about my body.” 

“There’s just been so much unraveling of the dissociation I experience. I have C-PTSD, which is complex posttraumatic stress disorder. Corey and I split up a few times, and I was like, ‘I’m not doing it this way anymore. While I know there are things that are his to handle, there’s a lot that’s mine to handle that I’m not handling.’ 

“It was taking a very long time, and I didn’t want it to take a very long time. So I did EMDR, I did somatic therapy, I did a little bit of sex therapy. I did acupuncture. When I walked out of acupuncture, I was like, ‘Is this how heavy a human body is?’ It slammed me back into my body. 

“I felt like my emotional and mental wellbeing really changed a lot. Now I’m actually unraveling the body part. For especially the last three years (but the better part of ten), I’ve been struggling with chronic illness that no one can diagnose. Looking at my medical astrology chart, it’s clear that it’s psychosomatic trauma-borne things. Which makes sense, but it is frustrating to go to the doctor over and over again and be told, ‘You’re too young for that,’ or, ‘There’s no way that’s happening,’ or, ‘We just have no earthly idea, let’s try all these things!’ 

“Over the last year and a half, I’ve gained 50 pounds -- I’ve changed nothing. My body is in a lot of pain most of the time. I got married, and the next day I couldn’t get out of bed all day because my body was just so inflamed and so sore. 

“That’s been definitely a journey, both with the weight gain and having my body look different after having two children. I’ve had to buy a new wardrobe over and over again as I’m going up sizes. And then there’s the piece of it that feels like being betrayed by my body a bit. That’s been very challenging, and it’s something that I’m currently working on right now. 

It’s clear that I’m getting messages, and it’s also clear that I don’t quite understand what it wants from me yet. I’m having a ton of mystery food allergies out of nowhere that never existed before -- all kinds of weird stuff. It’s just like my body’s like, ‘Alarm!’ Two of my affirmations are, ‘I remain curious and open to new information about my body,’ and, ‘I’m working together to decode the messaging between my body and my mind.’”  

Cat, thank you so much for trusting me with your boudoir portraits. You have such a creative soul, and your serene inner light just radiates in these photos! I so admire the way you show yourself and others gentle, loving acceptance in all ways. I hope our paths cross again in the future!