CONTENT WARNING: the following video and feature contain reference to trauma & non-consensual acts of abuse.
Trauma doesn’t happen in a moment; it’s the nebulous space that follows of processing, living, coping, and surviving.
‘Baited,’ the new video release from Neck, basks in that space. It’s a jarring, vivid depiction of uncertainty, terror, intrigue, and embrasure. The visual elements are familiar fodder in the horror genre and the manifestation of one’s psyche; vivid, poisonous colors saturate with overlapping, flashing images of trick-of-the-eye movement. The video, created by Kit Castagne and directed by bandmember Bailey Hein, is a “movie-style daydream” that was as much technical experiment as direct translation. There’s the demon lurking in the back of your brain come to life, created by Zoe Lober, sister of bandmember Kira McSpice, and the seductive, evilest parts of you, taking possession of you, drawing you in with their thorny beauty. It’s incredibly personal but a familiar space for most survivors to dwell in and return to.
“The psychological damage from abuse never really leaves you, and it’s important to realize trauma sneaks up on you in waves, in cycles,” Bailey says, summarizing a key component to living with PTSD in as casual a manner as any. “You can choose any route for coping—substance abuse, isolation, running away from your life to travel for extended periods, confronting the abuser, medication, therapy—nothing will change the past. You have to take care of yourself and acknowledge how your past has shaped you, then love the strong and resilient person you’ve become.”
The work they talk about doesn’t come from a place of altruism, it’s ugly and ‘self-centered’ and completely valid. Dealing with trauma isn’t about putting on a brave face, it’s about unlearning and redefining strength to come to terms with what has happened to you. To process is to embrace without being consumed, and the visual display of this in ‘Baited’ is just as strong as any.
The members of Neck dwelled in the anxiety of that darkness to translate that message both emotionally and practically. Filming was done during a Nor-easter, skin was split dragging feet against cement, workplaces were co-opted and turned into processing spaces, and the shrine, built by Kira, was made in a dusty basement of discarded Valentine’s Day flowers. Self-awareness never fleeting, Bailey begins her email to me with, “There’s nothing more ‘Neck’ than forgoing self-care!”
It’s a sentiment often associated with the artistic process; I hesitate to encourage it across the board but for Neck it seems to work. Open process can be a cathartic method of artist expression that allows for entrance and exploration, an exposure therapy of sorts. “I hope survivors of sexual assault feel they don’t have to only focus on healing and moving on—that they can be angry and hurt and share the brutal, uncomfortable side of what’s happened to them.”
Sharing doesn’t always come naturally, and certainly not when dealing with such intimate circumstances. My own trauma was something I kept to myself, silently suffered through, until discussion with another survivor allowed me to regard my experiences as valid. It was the same validity I felt when watching ‘Baited,’ a kinship through experiences that reshape and reinforce our sense of self and inner strength.