Know My Name: A Memoir

by Chanel Miller

But resilience required rest. For the next eight months I was going to fall back. The most important thing to remember was that to be at the rear, to be slower, did not mean you were not a leader.

The dictionary definition of deny is to refuse to admit the truth or existence of. This refusal is another harm in itself. I deny your truth, it is not real, it does not exist. This will tinker with your sanity.

And boys are people, they have minds, live in a society with laws. Groping others was not a natural reflex, biologically built in. It was a cognitive action they were capable of controlling.

When a woman is assaulted, one of the first questions people ask is, Did you say no? This question assumes that the answer was always yes, and that it is her job to revoke the agreement. To defuse the bomb she was given. But why are they allowed to touch us until we physically fight them off? Why is the door open until we have to slam it shut?

Why weren’t my boundaries inherent?

This was so small. But I was sad because it was so small, and I couldn’t even do it.

For months after the assault, I’d been carrying around this little piece of tape, planning to patch everything up on my

own. But it would not be enough. You need to tell somebody, you need to seal the holes, restore your warmth, stop cleaning up the feathers. The next day, I agreed to go to therapy.

What we needed to raise in others was this instinct. The ability to recognize, in an instant, right from wrong. The clarity of mind to face it rather than ignore it. I learned that before they had chased Brock, they had checked on me. Masculinity is often defined by physicality, but that initial kneeling is as powerful as the

leg sweep, the tackling. Masculinity is found in the vulnerability, the crying.

At the hearing, both Swedes had shown up to testify. I discovered that the night of the assault, they’d bolted him to the ground, and said: What the fuck are you doing? She’s unconscious. Do you think this is OK? What are you smiling about? Say sorry to her. I do not attribute surviving to willpower or optimism because none of this I had. It would take weeks to recover, depression would take over. But that October, the Swedes had introduced this new voic...

The anniversary of the assault marked a year of treading water. At the trial, we’d start all over again.

Trauma was refusing to adhere to any schedule, didn’t seem to align itself with time. Some days it was distant as a star and other days it could wholly engulf me.

It was not for me, but at the expense of me, that we’d be able to get there.

He had not been aware of my one rule: I decide what I am capable of. Whenever I am underestimated, I think, you mistake my quietness for weakness. If you can’t imagine me on a stage, I’ll get on one.

Now I wanted to show myself that the one crying in court was the same one who would be funny onstage. Both existed in me.

You have to hold out to see how your life unfolds, because it is most likely beyond what you can imagine. It is not a question of if you will survive this, but what beautiful things await you when you do. I had to believe her, because she was living proof. Then she said, Good and bad things come from the universe holding hands. Wait for the good to come.

It had never occurred to me that the system itself could be wrong, could be

changed or improved. Victims could ask for more. We could be treated better. Which meant my onerous experiences were not useless, they were illuminating.

No longer a bang, but an ache. If kids getting killed by trains became normalized, anything could.

These rules were fascinating to me; the body dictating what you must do. I had fallen into the habit of neglecting my body, often forgetting to feed it, and when I was assaulted I refused even to look at it. Now my body was saying, you have to listen to me. You have to respect my needs. We have to work together or you will end up hurt.

People believed I was enjoying my afternoon, when in reality I was about to face my rapist. How creepy it was that we could conceal these stories. How easy it was to pretend. The slivers we show, the mountains we hide.

It hadn’t even occurred to me to assert myself, to do anything other than blindly obey.

Memory is often perceived as the victim’s weakness, but I believe memory is a victim’s greatest strength. Trauma provides a special way of moving through time; years fall away in an instant, we can summon terrorizing feelings as if they are happening in the present.

Shut it down with truth.

I may not know how many yards away from the house I peed, or what I’d eaten earlier on that January day. But I will always know this answer. I was finally answering the question he’d never bothered to ask.

Victims are often, automatically, accused of lying. But when a perpetrator is exposed for lying, the stigma doesn’t stick. Why is it that we’re wary of victims making false

accusations, but rarely consider how many men have blatantly lied about, downplayed, or manipulated others to cover their own actions?

He had given himself permission to enter me again, this time stuffing words into my mouth. He made me his real-life ventriloquist doll, put his hands inside me and made me speak.

The friendly guy who helps you move and assists senior citizens in the pool is the same guy who assaulted me. One person can be capable of both. Society often fails to wrap its head around the fact that these truths often coexist, they are not mutually exclusive. Bad qualities can hide inside a good person.

It’s not okay, never okay, for someone to hurt you. There are no asterisks, no exceptions, to this statement.

For so long I believed I needed permission to return to my life, waiting for validation. I promised myself I would never question whether I deserved better. The answer would always be yes and yes and yes.

I thought my body wasn’t worth anything. I thought I didn’t matter, but I do.

I was surrounded by survivors, I was part of a we. They had never been tricked into seeing me as a minor character, a mute body; I was the leader on the front line fighting, with an entire infantry behind me. They had been waiting for me to find justice. This victory would be celebrated quietly in rooms in towns in states I had never even been to.

For so long, I’d imagined myself wandering across a dry, empty plain. This card was the puddle. The realization that just below the surface, more water led to streams to rivers to oceans. That this was only the beginning. I was not alone. They had found me.

During trial I had shut down to make it through. Now came the release, my body helpless against the anguish passing through in waves. Each time it would rise in me like the need to vomit, and I’d lock myself in and hyperventilate, my eyes stinging. I was scared of the way my body kept dictating these episodes. I’d grip the sink, turning on the faucet to drown out the sounds. Why are you sad, I kept thinking, you won. I did not want Lucas to hear me, to realize that I was still broken, not ready to let all of this go.

She stood, a few feet from her attacker, fighting for her life in a foreign language in a foreign country, but was indirectly told, your problems are taking up too much time. The man, charged with battery causing serious bodily harm, had asked for a light punishment. She said, When I get beaten, can I ask for a better offer?

The incident. The unfortunate result. Twenty minutes of action. In swimming, one one-hundredth of a second is the difference between victory and loss. Yet they wanted to write off twenty minutes as insignificant. Twenty minutes was just the beginning: Who counts the six-hour flights we took back and forth across the country? Who counts the doctor visits, the hours spent wringing my hands in therapy, the nights spent lying awake? Who counts the trips to Kohl’s, wondering is this blouse too tight? Who counts the days devoid of writing or reading or creating, instead wondering why I should wake up in the morning? Who counts it?

We went around and shared stories of assault, harassment, virginities stolen not lost, unwanted touches, in a tent, at the dance, times we wished we had asked more for ourselves. We all had a story, many stories. I had come the furthest out of all of them in terms of getting justice. I suppose this is what justice looked like, sitting exhausted with a melted cup of dripping yogurt.

They tell you that if you’re assaulted, there’s a kingdom, a courthouse, high up on a mountain where justice can be found. Most victims are turned away at the base of the mountain, told they don’t have enough evidence to make the journey. Some victims sacrifice everything to make the climb, but are slain along the way, the burden of proof impossibly high. I set off, accompanied by a strong team, who helped carry the weight, until I made it, the summit, the place few victims reached, the promised land. We’d gotten an arrest, a guilty verdict, the small percentage that gets the conviction. It was time to see what justice looked like. We threw open the doors, and there was nothing. It took the breath out of me. Even worse was looking back down to the bottom of the mountain, where I imagined expectant victims looking up, waving, cheering, expectantly. What do you see? What does it feel like? What happens when you arrive? What could I tell them? A system does not exist for you. The pain of this process couldn’t be worth it. These crimes are not crimes but inconveniences. You can fight and fight and for what? When you are assaulted, run and never look back. This was not one bad sentence. This was the best we could hope for.

Not once was he forced to imagine the life of the human on the receiving end of his actions. If anything, the fight had cemented Brock inside his distortions, fortified his need to hold his ground.

You are worth more than three months. Again. You are worth more than three months.

A text from Tiffany: All it took for any ambiguous or mean or victim-blaming comments to disappear was your voice.

Assault buries the self. We lose sight of how and when we are allowed to occupy space. We are made to doubt our abilities, disparaged when we speak. My statement had blazed, erupted, was indomitable. But I was holding a secret fear, that there must be a cap, an end to this road, where they’d say, you have achieved enough, exit this way. I was waiting to be knocked back down to size, to the small place I imagined I belonged.

So if you come on the worst day of your life, my hope is to catch you, to gently guide you back.

Since no photos of me were published, I was curious about what photos would accompany the articles; a silhouette of a girl looking out a window, a teardrop on a cheek, duct tape over her mouth. All of this was accurate, in terms of the solitude, the silencing. But the incredible thing is that a victim is also the smiling girl in a green apron making your coffee, she just handed you your change. She just taught a class of first-graders. She has her headphones in, tapping her foot on the subway. Victims are all around you.

What I never say out loud is that rape makes you want to turn into wood, hard and impenetrable. The opposite of a body that is meant to be tender, porous, soft.

Even pigeons were having sex, understood that it was natural, not a shameful act.

There is no reason to deprive your body of love, beauty, creativity, and inspiration, Chopra said. I wrote out a collection of sensory memories from childhood, recalling how it felt to be nourished and soothed. Rice steaming, rain outside. Standing in a towel heated by the tall furnace, feet dripping on the hardwood floor. The smell of sun on asphalt. Cold water on my face in the morning. Eating a bowl of cereal at midnight. The sound of a page turning as I am being read to. The thud of a peach falling. The dusty smell of sand. The scorch of cocoa, the sticky film of melted marshmallow. Spongy insides of bread sopping up tomatoes and vodka sauce. I am reminded of what I am capable of feeling. The ways I consume, my senses opening to receive, at ease, indulgent.

I think of our backyard pond growing up. Of the goldfish we’d bring home, bobbing in plastic bags on the surface of the water. My dad explained they needed time to adjust to the temperature of the pond before being released. If such a small creature required such care, imagine the complex process a victim must work through in order to integrate back into daily life. There is no right way, there is only listening to what is good and comfortable for your body. Maybe now you are terrified, bobbing inside the clear plastic container around you, thinking, I am trapped, this is not how it’s supposed to be. Just remember: the temperature is slowly changing, you are adjusting. You will make it into that pond. With a little more time, you’ll be free.