Thanks, Virginia Giuffre.

On the cost and quagmire of speaking up.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.com

When I was a young child, I had one recurring nightmare.

In the dream, I was standing alone on a hotel balcony facing the ocean. It was a high floor, many stories above ground. I looked out at the water, and I saw the wave.

It was mammoth, enormous, much larger than the hotel itself. I knew it would swallow me. But I grasped onto the black wrought iron railing, telling myself if I just held on tight, I might survive it.

As the wave began to crest over my head, the dream ended. I never knew if I survived.

I had the dream over and over again.

It comes to me now as a metaphor for sexual assault. No matter how many decades pass, no matter what is said, no matter bravery or solidarity or perseverance, that wave still comes for us, again and again.

We hang on. It’s the only thing we can do.

Then one of us lets go. She quits fighting the insurmountable ocean.

---

Virginia Giuffre died by suicide last week. Ever since I read the first news report, I knew I’d write about her.

I could list a thousand things I’d rather write about. I feel totally inept, and determined to write anyway.

When a story captures my attention, I usually spend hours thinking before I pull out my laptop. I tend to have it mapped out, or at least a confidence that when I start writing, the words will lead me to the right place. It’s like my brain is a cookstove, and the essay simmers in a pot.

I have no such confidence tonight, because I’m unsure of my own mind. There seem to be too many contradictions that live in me.

In no way was my experience as large as Giuffre’s, and in no way did I have an impact on the world like she did.

But I have the experience of what it’s like to testify, and it comes in two parts: surviving the assault, and surviving the public.

If you think surviving Jeffrey Epstein is difficult, going public about him had to be worse than anyone could imagine. I think many women know this, but I want to underline it.

With a big fat Sharpie.

I realize I’m assuming many things about her, but it’s all I can do. I’ve experienced her story as it relates to my own.

---

Before I began, I double-checked Giuffre’s age. She was 41 years old.

I was stopped dead by the date of her birth. She was born six weeks after my first suicide attempt in 1983, on the night I was assaulted.

I was seventeen. Giuffre was sixteen when she was introduced to Epstein by Ghislaine Maxwell.

Numbers speak for themselves. Numbers don’t lie. Over forty years have passed, the entirety of her life. Despite everything she accomplished, she wanted to die.

There are reports she was in an abusive relationship with her husband, that he had a restraining order against her, and that she’d been unable to see her children for months. No matter what she was experiencing in the present, it was colored by what happened to her as a child. Of that I am certain.

She’s dead, and I don’t know how it’s possible I’m still alive.

---

I watched in awe as she went public about being trafficked and assaulted by the late Epstein. I’ve never watched an interview of her without wondering where she got the fortitude to speak up, or how she did so with such poise.

I couldn’t help comparing myself to her. She seemed to have a confidence that completely eluded me. She was graceful, without a whiff of shame about her.

Shame is always the killer.

I also felt confused by her. Removed. I couldn’t quite process how public she was, how self-assured, how preternaturally focused and clear she seemed.

I was jealous. I spent my life questioning myself for speaking up, and she seemed to have none of my self-doubt.

I should have known better.

---

I spent the entirety of #MeToo wondering why my experience was so different from women who were able to find solidarity in their pain. Why I was an outlier.

I put it down to age. I’m a generation older than Giuffre.

I told myself it’s a new generation who’ve found a way to survive the men who exploited them. Their experience is not mine, but thankfully it doesn’t need to be. They know they aren’t to blame.

I don’t know if I ever completely got to that place. But I did consider that my experience helped them.

I spoke up before there was DNA, before the term “date rape” was in the vernacular, and certainly before I was offered public support. Perhaps I contributed to this movement. Maybe I was a tiny part of what got them to this powerful place, a drop in the bucket.

Then I read she’d died by suicide.

And I thought, nothing changes. Nothing. Women who are assaulted are condemned to a life of suffering.

And this really, really pisses me off.

---

I’ve seen a news article questioning whether she died by suicide. A relative is asking that her death be investigated.

There will be people who won’t believe she killed herself. They’d rather believe she was a survivor who could endure anything.

I am not one of them.

I imagine there are women who recover after being sexually assaulted as a minor, and there might be a few who recover after the double-blow of reporting it.

As strange as it seems, I might be one of them. If so, it’s because I’ve accepted my situation is impossible.

I’ve learned to live with dichotomy.

There’s how I feel about myself, and how I am doing. They are two entirely different parts of the equation. The trick to staying alive is remembering that how I feel doesn’t determine whether life is worth living.

Being useful counts. So does having a purpose.

---

I’m doing great.

It’s been almost a decade since I’ve hurt myself, and I participate in a group of people all working to stay well. I don’t drink and I don’t self-medicate. I’m fortunate enough to have an excellent therapist. She understands the situation.

I do things I thought I’d never learn, like cooking vegetables to feed myself and exercising regularly. I don’t even scream every time I’m woken up anymore.

I’m one of the few people I know in a good marriage, with a man who has witnessed my recovery. He could not be more supportive of exactly who I am. That means all the parts of me, not just the ones that benefit him.

I have excellent friends. I talk to them, and I laugh with them. I laugh a lot, because in case you haven’t noticed, life is ridiculous.

Most surprisingly (and not surprising at all) I’ve become a writer. I make money writing, although I look forward to making more.

I’ve finished my first book, and have sent a proposal to a literary agent. I have hope that I’ll find an agent, and they’ll sell the book.

Even I can look at these facts and give myself an A+.

Then there’s how I feel.

---

I know there’s been a day or two when I’ve woken up and immediately felt happy, but I couldn’t tell you when. Even before I open my eyes, I feel doomed. I’m still struggling to keep my head above water. It is exhausting.

But I’ve learned the trick of observation. I can now say to myself,

“Oh, look. Here’s your brain telling you all is hopeless, that it’s impossible to get up, that taking a bath is inconceivable, and good luck brushing your teeth.

Everything hurts. I’m old and will get into more physical pain until it swallows me whole. Oh, and I’m fat, and thus worthless.

Absolutely no one on earth feels like this, or if they do, they’re not saying so.

It doesn’t matter. I could care less if I ever talk to a human again. It’s all bullshit, anyway.

(Pause where I momentarily consider whether it’s worth staying alive.)

Okay. No matter how much it hurts, it’s temporary. Get up and make a cup of coffee. This feeling is not permanent. Go turn on NPR. You’ll get mad when you hear the news, and that will help.”

Then I get up, make coffee, take a bath, and make the bed. As soon as I turn on NPR, I remember that life is not just about me, and there are billions of people in worse shape than I.

The important part is not to listen to what my brain is telling me, because if I do, I’m doomed.

And here’s the kicker. I am well aware of how privileged I am to have all the help I’ve got. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think of the women who don’t have my resources, who show up to life with a history like mine or worse, with no support at all.

It is terrifying that I’m one of the lucky ones.

---

Nobody wants to talk about sexual assault, and nobody wants to hear it.

Hey, people—I don’t blame you a bit for not wanting to talk. Truly, no judgment. I don’t want to hear it either. It’s depressing as hell, and there is enough to depress us right now. Donald Trump is president.

But worse than that is it keeps happening. It happened to my grandmother’s generation, and my mother’s, and mine, and now yours, and I’d very much like it to stop.

So we’ve got to discuss it. And occasionally, a story people are willing to hear does come along.

It needs to be a victory story, told by a woman who is usually white. It helps if she’s attractive. It needs a happy-ish ending, and all that it implies:

Peace of mind. A sense of justice served. Perseverance that pays off. Overcoming insurmountable obstacles, body and brain intact. If it’s an interview, there’s at least one walk on the beach.

People just might listen to an uplifting version of the unspeakable. And who better to tell that story than Virginia Giuffre, who slayed the royal dragon.

This was exactly how her story was packaged to us. It killed her anyway.

---

A friend asked me why I felt obliged to write about this. It’s a good question.

I want to point out that Virginia Giuffre was in an impossible position, right along with all the rest of us.

I’ve learned to live with dichotomy in myself. What’s harder is living in a society that hangs women out to dry and makes little attempt to correct itself.

If someone steals my car, everyone is outraged. If someone breaks into my house and takes my things, people are incensed. If I am shot, stabbed, or beaten, my friends cannot wait till the bad guy is arrested, put in jail, and they better not let him out on bond.

You know what happens if you’re sexually assaulted by a man, go public about it, and win a judgment against him in court?

Just ask E. Jean Carroll. He gets elected president, that’s what.

---

Many years ago, a sixteen-year-old Virginia Giuffre was working at Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump’s estate in Florida. She met Ghislaine Maxwell there.

Maxwell groomed her for Epstein. Giuffre was then trafficked to Maxwell’s pal Prince Andrew, at the age of seventeen.

Very recently, white women, women who look like Virginia Giuffre and me, voted for Trump over Harris by a ten percent margin, because eggs are too expensive.

As usual, Black women were smarter, with more than 90% of them voting for Harris.

It both enrages and devastates me so many white women voted for Trump, because it’s an indicator of how afraid we are to let go of the white male patriarchy as leadership.

I know self-hatred when I see it, and I see a lot of self-hatred in us, along with a large dose of racism. How else could Trump beat Harris?

---

Dichotomy is always present, because hope lives in me.

I think of the incredible Gisèle Pelicot, who waived her anonymity at the rape trial of her husband and 49 other men, saying,

“The shame isn’t ours to feel, it’s theirs.”

I believe her. Something shifted in me by watching her look those men in the eye.

I remember that despite being elected president, Donald Trump still owes E. Jean Carroll five million dollars.

They’re both women older than I, not younger. So perhaps there is hope for me to get to the place they are. Perhaps I’m mistaken, and it’s not generational, but something else.

Maybe it’s a practice, the practice of knowing my value despite everything the world taught me.

---

Virginia Giuffre died, but she did remarkable work while she was here, for as long as she was able. Donald Trump may be president, but her story put Prince Andrew out of business.

She, E. Jean, Gisèle, and I are all a part of a whole.

But if you are someone who has stayed silent, I understand why. In a million years I would never judge you for it, or encourage you to speak up.

You’re part of the whole as well. Self-preservation is no small accomplishment. If Virginia Giuffre’s death teaches us anything, perhaps it’s that.