Know My Name: A Memoir

by Chanel Miller

When a victim does go for help, she is seen as attacking the assailant. These are separate; seeking aid is her primary motive, his fallout is a secondary effect. But we are taught, if you speak, something bad happens to him. You will be blamed for every job he doesn’t get, every game he doesn’t play. His family, friends, community, team, will unleash hell on you, are you sure you want that? We force her to think hard about what this will mean for his life, even though he never considered what his actions would do to her. Inherently the victim is outnumbered. She is the sole object of his sexual aggression, expected to single-handedly undo all of their staunch beliefs, backed by years of amiable stories. They’ll say, We’ve never seen him behave that way, so you must be lying. This sentiment was echoed in Brock’s sister’s statement: The evidence presented during his trial and the conclusions that were made about his character were only from one night of his life, from strangers that didn’t know him: a fraction of a fraction of his existence. Victims are not fractions; we are whole.

When in fact, we live to live. That’s it. He upended that life, and we tried to keep going, but couldn’t. Each time a survivor resurfaced, people were quick to say what does she want, why did it take her so long, why now, why not then, why not faster. But damage does not stick to deadlines. If she emerges, why don’t we ask her how it was possible she lived with that hurt for so long, ask who taught her to never uncover it.

We don’t fight for our own happy endings. We fight to say you can’t. We fight for accountability. We fight to establish precedent. We fight because we pray we’ll be the last ones to feel this kind of pain.

Little girls don’t stay little forever, Kyle Stephens said. They turn into strong women who return to destroy your world.

Social change is a marathon, she’d said. Not a sprint. You do all you can in the time that you have.

People grow up, victims grow around; we strengthen around that place of hurt, become older and fuller, but the vulnerable core is never gone. More than becoming a frog, I believe surviving means learning to live forever with this trembling tadpole.

The agony is incessant, unyielding, but when you get to the point where you feel like everything’s gone, there’s a little twist, a flame, a small shift. It is subtle, it comes when you least expect it. Wait for it. This is the rule of the universe, this is the one thing in life I know to be true. No matter how awful and long your journey, I can promise you the turn.

Victims exist in a society that tells us our purpose is to be an inspiring story. But sometimes the best we can do is tell you we’re still here, and that should be enough. Denying darkness does not bring anyone closer to the light. When you hear a story about rape, all the graphic and unsettling details, resist the instinct to turn away; instead look closer, because beneath the gore and the police reports is a whole, beautiful person, looking for ways to be in the world again.

What they were really saying is, victims can’t write. Victims aren’t smart, capable, or independent. They need external help to articulate their thoughts, needs, and demands. They are too emotional to compose anything coherent. It cannot be the same drunk girl who was found unconscious, the one who the media said uncontrollably sobbed throughout testimony. On a deep level, they wanted to take away my writing, which I would not give up so easily.

Throughout my childhood, my mom worked at the dry cleaners, as an aerobics instructor, crossing guard, at the flower shop, Frame-O-Rama, local newspaper, as a real estate agent, but every night, I saw her sitting in the dark living room, blanket around her shoulders, in front of the glow of the computer screen, writing. When my dad took us to school every morning, I’d pass her door, see her asleep. Once I found her crying; her Chinese website with her writing had been banned and shut down. I was unaware speech could not be free.

My writing is sophisticated because I had a head start, because I am years in the making, because I am my mother and her mother before. When I write, I have the privilege of using a language that she fought her whole life to understand. When I speak in opposition, I am grateful my voice is uncensored. I do not take my freedom of speech, my abundance of books, my access to education, my ease of first language for granted. My mom is a writer. The difference is, she spent the first twenty years of her life surviving. I am a writer, who spent twenty years of my life fed and loved in a home and classroom.

the world is not fixed.

I am not sure exactly what healing is or looks like, what form it comes in, what it should feel like. I do know that when I was four I could not lift a gallon of milk, could not believe how heavy it was, that white sloshing boulder. I’d pull up a wooden chair to stand over the counter, pouring the milk with two shaking arms, wetting the cereal, spilling. Looking back I don’t remember the day I lifted it with ease. All I know is that now I do it without thinking, can do it one-handed, on the phone, in a rush. I believe the same rules apply, that one day I’ll be able to tell this story without it shaking my foundation. Each time will not require an entire production, a spilling, a sweating forehead, a mess to clean up, sopping paper towels. It will just be a part of my life, every day lighter to lift.

Ram Dass said, Allow that you are at this moment not in the wrong place in your life. Consider the possibility that there have been no errors in the game. Just consider it. Consider that there is not an error, and everything that’s come down on your plate is the way it is and here we are.

If you’re wondering if I’ve forgiven him, I can only say hate is a heavy thing to carry, takes up too much space inside the self. It’s true that I’ll never stop hoping that he learns. If we don’t learn, what is life for? If I have forgiven him, it’s not because I’m holy. It’s because I need to clear a space inside myself where hard feelings can be put to rest.

We may spend half our time wandering around, wondering what we’re even doing here, why it’s worth the effort. But living is an incredible thing, just to have been here, to have felt, if only briefly, the volume and depth of others’ empathy. I wrote, most of all, to tell you I have seen how good the world could be.

Awful feelings may remain the same, but my capacity to handle them has grown. I can’t tell you what happens next because I have not yet lived it. This book does not have a happy ending. The happy part is there is no ending, because I’ll always find a way to keep going.

Do not become the ones who hurt you. Stay tender with your power. Never fight to injure, fight to uplift. Fight because you know that in this life, you deserve safety, joy, and freedom. Fight because it is your life. Not anyone else’s. I did it, I am here. Looking back, all the ones who doubted or hurt or nearly conquered me faded away, and I am the only one standing. So now, the time has come. I dust myself off, and go on.

I kept coming back to a line from one of Lao Tzu’s poems: He who stands on tiptoe doesn’t stand firm. I could not spend my life tiptoeing.