A photographer has captured the heartache of having a child with autism in a series of provocative images.
Entitled ‘Women who cry quietly: A mother’s turmoil‘, the pictures are the brainchild of Queensland woman Tanya Giles-Hilder, the founder of Beyond the Spectrum Photography, and mum to a beautiful son who has autism.
Tanya teamed up with two friends to shoot several women, all struggling with their own personal crises, to help others understand that it is okay to cry.
“How often, as women, do we open our hearts to each other without judgement?” Tanya says. “There are many women who cry quietly, who are too ashamed or embarrassed to share their feelings, or fear they will be judged, so suffer in silence.
“Life with a child with special needs is filled with light and love, but also with dark thoughts and much turmoil. I know from experience that you need help to move through those dark places and that is what this collection is about: sharing the darkness of our thoughts so we can all say, together, that everything is okay.”
“Broken. In the light of day, in the face of my life, I am the strength. I am the calm. I am everything. 8,760 hours a year. I hold it together. I cannot yell. I cannot scream. I cannot break. In the quiet, in the darkness … this is me.”
“Everything: I can’t get it out! The fear, the anxiety, the guilt, the shame, the stress, the pressure, the EVERYTHING!!!”
“Hide. I hide. I don’t realise I hide, but I hide. I eat, I eat and I don’t stop. I don’t stop because: right now, in this minute, there is no reason to.”
“Me too. In order for us to reach out to one another and connect, we have to take a step into the land of vulnerability.”
“Do I exist? Or am I a mere continuation of those around me? Where do I begin? Where does everything around me end? It pulls …”
“Where are the tears? I hold back the tears of heartbreak, the tears of grief, the tears of fatigue, the tears of pain, the tears of guilt … I wait for the tears of hope.”
“I am chaos. A thousand cicadas are buzzing in my head. Their tiny legs, rubbing against my skin. My throat is closing over, my jaw is locked. A focus point. That is what I need … If I can just get everything into that one point of pain, then it will be quiet long enough for me to take control back over my being.”
The beginning.
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