This work visualizes the temporal disjunction and affective turbulence associated with CPTSD. By positioning figures representing different stages of life along a spiraling staircase, the artist utilizes the architectural structure as metaphor for psychological states. The spiral evokes both the ascensional drama of Baroque compositions and the recursive, fragmented subjectivities explored in modern and contemporary representations of trauma.

At the center of the image, the mutual gaze between the primary figure and the infant below becomes the conceptual hinge of the entire composition. This “eye to eye” encounter recalls the centrality of the gaze in psychoanalytic and feminist art history, where looking constitutes a site of rupture, recognition, and the reassembly of the self. Within the context of CPTSD, this gaze embodies the layered affects of fear, regret, longing, and tentative compassion, suggesting a fragile negotiation between the present self and the dislocated temporalities of traumatic memory.