Your Stories - Caoimhe

Content Warning: These stories contain mentions of body dysmorphia, body image struggles, pregnancy loss, fertility struggles and gendered violence. If you find any of the below triggering, please find a list of helpful and free resources below:

DV/SV: 1800 RESPECT

Mental Health: https://www.beyondblue.org.au/

Eating Disorders and Body Image Issues: Butterfly Foundation 1800 ED HOPE

There is something so admirable about people who do the work. Caoimhe is the perfect example. The perfect mix of wiley, tough, and gorgeously sweet. If you ever get the pleasure of meeting her it would break your heart hearing what she’s gone through and you’ll feel an overwhelming sense of protectiveness to fight for her justice and healing. She had a transient childhood, moving from place to place and adjusting to cultures as she went, and struggled to fit or feel at home anywhere. Growing up in the era of fatphobic language across tabloids and toxic mantras designed to restrict eating and criminalise having a normal body it can be hard not to take that on board. She experienced horrific bullying and found herself seriously battling with her mental health. 

I’m going to add an excerpt written perfectly from her Model Call application. Caoimhe listed so many things that felt so familiar and relatable, and yet described a prison of existence that too many of us experience. She wrote: 

“Ultimately I took on a feeling of not being good enough. This has been a driving force in personal and professional life, as well as how I felt in myself. I was never pretty enough, skinny enough, sexy enough. As a bisexual white woman, I struggled to find my voice as I wasn’t struggling enough. I wasn’t a person who had grown up without privilege. I shouldn’t need help. There are people who need support so much more than me who deserve it more.”

Despite grappling with whether or not she deserved it, she decided enough was enough and she was making a change. After some trial and error she has found her therapist who has “allowed me to find a home I love. Me.”. 

Doing our Model Call was about having something that she can look at and remind herself that “I am good enough” when I times are tough.  To look at and just go “fuck yes” every day.

If her images are anything to go by, I think we succeeded. Caiomhe, thank you so much for including us on your journey. If anyone is ever mean to you, we’re comin’ for them. 

has this way of speaking that tells you she’s done the work. Not in a shiny, tied-up-with-a-bow way, in a real way. The kind where you’ve had to move through a lot of noise just to hear your own voice again.

She grew up moving between places and cultures, trying to land somewhere that felt like home. Then came the teenage years in the UK, where people can be brutally creative with their cruelty, and she carried that “not good enough” feeling for a long time. It seeped into everything, including how she saw herself and how hard she tried to earn her place.

Over time, she started choosing herself. She found therapy that actually fit, a life in WA that gave her room to breathe, and pole dancing, which makes perfect sense for her because it’s strength and joy all at once.

Pole gave Caoimhe a new relationship with her body. She could feel what it could do. She could trust it. She could enjoy it. She could give it space and stop treating it like something that needed to be constantly corrected.

It captured the version of her she’s been building, the one who takes up space on purpose and lets herself be seen. The one who can look at an image and feel that deep, grounded “yes, that’s me”.

She wanted something she could come back to when her brain gets loud again. Something that brings her back into herself. Something that makes her grin and think, “Of course I’m good enough.”

Caoimhe, you are magnetic. It was such a privilege to photograph you in a way that matches the woman you’re becoming, and the home you’ve made in yourself.