We are all familiar with the cliche of the influencer narrating their daily routines \u2013 or should I say, their journey? \u2013 and trying to convince us, and perhaps themselves, they are living their best life. We know, too, about the websites offering intimate access in exchange for cash.<\/p>\n
But what if the online medium were put to more honest purposes? What if, instead of endless positivity, it presented a painful recovery from trauma?<\/p>\n
Haunted \u2026 Verona Verbakel in OnlyFans for Therapy. Photograph: Soraya Azbiri<\/p>\n
It would, suggests writer and performer Verona Verbakel<\/a>, be cheaper than paying for therapy. After a back-of-the-envelope calculation, she estimates she would need 2,599 sessions with a psychiatrist at \u00a370 a time to get her through a lifetime of recovery. The cost, either in cash or in continued trauma, has to be paid by someone.<\/p>\n The exposure in her solo show, OnlyFans for Therapy, is of the emotional not the naked body kind. It concerns a woman haunted by the abuse she suffered as a five-year-old and the additional anguish of an investigation when she was 18. Confident and assured one minute, she crumbles the next \u2013 the damage for ever just beneath the surface, raw and inescapable.<\/p>\n Part of the Big in Belgium programme, Karolien De Bleser\u2019s production has a characteristically Belgian disregard for theatrical convention. Verbakel\u2019s role is to sit, stony-faced at a laptop, occasionally catching our eye, and seemingly indifferent to the content of the first-person videos she shows in sequence.<\/p>\n At turns upbeat and tearful, Verbakel appears in videos that vary from lying in bed wearing a sleep mask and reciting a drily comic list of emotional triggers to the actor making painful expeditions to the scene of the original abuse and breaking down as she does so. The direct-to-camera honesty of the online world makes the pain all the more vivid in a brave, unsettling show.<\/p>\n At Zoo Playground, Edinburgh<\/a>, until 30 August In the UK, the NSPCC<\/a> offers support to children on 0800 1111, and adults concerned about a child on 0808 800 5000. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Napac<\/a>) offers support for adult survivors on 0808 801 0331. In the US, call or text the Childhelp<\/a> abuse hotline on 800-422-4453. In Australia, children, young adults, parents and teachers can contact the Kids Helpline<\/a> on 1800 55 1800; adult survivors can seek help at Blue Knot Foundation<\/a> on 1300 657 380. Other sources of help can be found at Child Helpline International<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We are all familiar with the cliche of the influencer narrating their daily routines \u2013 or should I…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":579809,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[163,85,46,522,523],"class_list":["post-579808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-health","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/579809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
All our Edinburgh festival reviews<\/a><\/p>\n