I still remember my very first modeling gig. I had just gotten out of a long relationship that I tried to breathe life into long after it was dead, and I was desperate to feel something and I was desperate to feel nothing. Breakups can be like that, I guess. Back then, I was able to talk myself into shoving all of the unanswered questions, rejection and heartache into a pretty little box that I liked to call “a new chapter.” Little did I know that I was shoving all of those things into a pretty little box life liked to call “we’ll deal with this later.”
The photographer I was shooting with had reached out to me after I posted a few amateur modeling photos to a modeling networking site. If I remember correctly, I think I headlined my profile with a brilliant one-liner like “looking for new opportunities,” but I should have just raised my hand and said, hi, I’m Jenna and I’m gonna need you to make me feel good about myself again. But hey, transparency wasn’t really my thing back then.
I borrowed two dresses from my sister’s closet; she was a size zero. I was not a size zero. Perhaps that should been the first red flag that I was stepping into a world of make-believe, but red flags weren’t really my thing back then either. I brought my mom along to be the voice of reason and because if you’ve ever met my mom, you’d know that no one would dare try to kidnap me in front of her. That woman has tried to “gift” me pepper spray more times than I can count. The photographer took us to a public park in Minneapolis where I spent the next two hours spinning in high heels, applying layers of lipstick, allowing some strange man to fix my hair, switching poses from hand on the left hip to hand on the right hip, and pulling my much too-tight dress down to look public park-appropriate. It. was. the. worst.
But you wouldn’t know that, now would you? Because I curated a Facebook post worthy of almost 200 likes that included 20 highly edited photos complete with an inspirational message about this new journey I was pursuing. My primary weapon of defense against rejection is to reaffirm that I’m liked and accepted by at least 10 other people. That’s easily accomplished through Facebook and Instagram, but it turns out that a Facebook like is acknowledgment, and acknowledgment and acceptance are not the same thing, nor do they feel the same.
Words of affirmation and approval developed into an obsession for me. A superficial way of coping with rejection and heartache was born. A wayward path around feelings of insecurity was discovered. I had found a way to outrun my feelings and that New Chapter box? It was holding everything in that I needed it to.
I went on to model for the next three years. And in those three years, the lines got blurrier, the swimsuits got smaller and my hard no’s became less sure one small step over the line at a time. I stopped bringing my mom to my photo shoots and instead, brought along friends who were less likely to call out from the corner and remind me of boundaries. And soon I stopped bringing people altogether, stepping alone into studios and sometimes people’s homes to do photo shoots. There were plenty of awkward moments and plenty of situations where I was pressured to step beyond my boundaries. And yes, the fact that I chased my self worth so far as to place myself in several uncomfortable dangerous situations is not lost on me—at least it isn’t anymore.
I’m cringing as I write this. This is really not something that I want to share with all of you. You know how some people use money or their status to feel relevant? My body became the currency that I used to feel worthy. The process looked a little like this: photographer reaches out with a generic note about how he “loves my look” and would love to shoot some time. I respond with a potential date and location. He responds with a “theme” or idea that he’d like to shoot. I reply with a firm reminder that I don’t do lingerie or nude modeling. He suggests a swimsuit shoot. I reply with a less sure “okay” and here we are in the gray area. I arrive at the shoot location and walk into a building, a home, a garage where I spend the next couple of hours alternating between smiling and serious, hair up and hair down, looking over the left shoulder and looking over the right shoulder—all while feeling like a lifeless puppet pulled into formation by strings that I had little control over.
Later I’d post the photos on social media and wait for the likes, the comments and the private messages. I would also wait for the feelings of some sort of significance to come. The likes would inevitably come, but the wait for significance left me standing out in the rain every time.
Modeling became the SOS flag that I waved high in the air begging people to notice me. To see me. I wanted to be recognized. To be noticed. To be heard. I would have settled for that. I did settle for that. And in doing so, I sacrificed the pursuit of an identity that would have been rooted in something much less shaky than the approval of people. What I really wanted was to be understood. Accepted. Relevant. I wanted to belong. To someone. To anyone. And to be honest, the Facebook likes and the compliments from eccentric photographers weren’t getting me there.
Modeling wasn’t the only arena that I chased in search of myself. I placed my self-hood in relationships, too. Each time I felt lonely or unloved or invisible, I ran around with fragmented pieces of my identity and dumped them into the next person’s arms, expecting them to piece me back together. But each time they misplaced a piece or couldn’t figure out where a piece fit, I felt deeply misunderstood. When I felt deeply misunderstood, I felt deeply rejected all over again.
For far too long, I searched for identity in the way I looked, in how I was received by other people, and from my own achievements. I didn’t just allow people to build an identity for me, I forced them to. No one in my life signed up for that or was up for the job. I decided what I was and wasn’t good at based on the approval and applause from other people. That crookedly pointed me in the direction of my self worth. And if my self esteem and sense of security was held recklessly and unknowingly in the hands of other people, it meant that the purpose of my existence was, too.
This isn’t a story about the model who didn’t feel pretty. This story isn’t actually about modeling at all, although I could tell you plenty of those. This is a story about the places and faces that we look to to fix what’s broken. This is a story about the lengths many of us would go to to be liked, to feel important or wanted. This is a story about what we’d do to feel loved or invited.
But this is also a story that has a happy ending, or at least, it’s on its way to having one. Sit tight and next week-(ish), we can talk about what happened to change the narrative for me.