… BEGINNING IS EVERYTHING.
For a long time, I have had much to say, but I have never quite known where to begin. So I won’t start with just the beginning. I will start with everything.
–
Let’s talk about Gaslighting. It’s a concept I didn’t understand until I went to a therapist in January of 2019. The funny thing is, Gaslighting was the reason for me even going to therapy. My then-boyfriend convinced me that all my normal thoughts, feelings, and instincts were projections. Of course, they didn’t feel like projections, but I didn’t want to lose him, so to the therapist I went.
I talked about past trauma, divorce, all the things I thought might be at the root of the issue. She said, “You seem well-adjusted. So tell me about your current relationship.” I did, and I also proceeded to give anecdotal evidence of all the times I had projected.
Her immediate response: “You’re not projecting. You’re being Gaslighted.”
“No, no, no,” I said, “I didn’t tell the story right.” I retold it in an effort to really convey that the issue was me.
She listened patiently, and then: “I’ll say it again. You’re being Gaslighted.”
I did my best to convince her that I wasn’t… but when I left the session, her words were all I could think about. In my mind, I played it all back. All the manipulation, all the questioning of my own memory, perception, and judgment… all intensified by a steady stream of criticism aimed to lower my self-esteem and eradicate any sense of self-worth. I was seeing the light.
I knew my therapist was right. And although I wasn’t ready to admit it, my heart had already been desperately trying to send me messages to leave this relationship. For months, I had been leaving myself notes at night that said, “Chanté, this doesn’t feel good. He doesn’t respect you. He doesn’t show you the love you deserve.” But come morning, I ignored those messages, telling myself I was being too emotional the night before, and that this was a new day—a better day.
But the days were all the same, and they never got better. The messages evolved to “Chanté, please remember how you felt last night. Don’t ignore the pain. Break up with him.”
It took a full month after that first session to gather my courage to end things. I did it on my way home from teaching a fitness class. I knew if I didn’t do it right then- at night- I’d have once more dismissed my feelings by morning. So I went to his house, and I broke up with him.
And within a week, I took it all back. Because abandonment issues are just as real as Gaslighting. Human nature seeks the familiar, no matter how painful or detrimental that familiarity may be.
Staying together didn’t last. It became more and more difficult to silence the pain. And since he was never interested in hearing my pain, it was just two months later that we broke up again—this time for good. I had no desire to be friends. I was hurt, I needed to heal… and deep down, I knew I couldn’t heal unless I got away from the toxicity.
But then my ex-boyfriend’s nephew died suddenly, and I knew he was hurting. My heart ached for him. I extended an olive branch; I extended my friendship. We began hanging out again.
After a few weeks of friendship, he came over. He got drunk. For this reason, from here on out, we will call my ex-boyfriend DJ— short for Don Julio, since he was drunk on tequila.
He asked if I wanted to fool around. I said no. I told him how I had been seeing someone else. I moved away from the couch to put distance between us, but he moved behind me. I was pinned on my stomach when he pulled my clothes down, penetrated me, then tried to sodomize me. I tried to push him away while pleading “no” multiple times. He stopped momentarily, but resumed the vaginal rape. When I realized he wasn’t going to stop, I went from fight to freeze.
And I cried.
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I want to interject here with a comment DJ made a year later: that the investigations I opened with both the police department and our HR department were a projection on my part.
Rape is a projection??
DJ, if you ever read this one day, I want you to know that the word you are looking for is not projection, it’s protection. I was 100% protecting. I was protecting when I said no. I was protecting when I tried to push you away. I was protecting when I pled for you to stop. I was protecting when I cried because you were physically and emotionally harming me. I was protecting my dignity then, just as I protect my dignity now. I am unafraid to stand up for myself.
P.S. Only a f***ing narcissist would make such a wildly distorted claim that rape is a projection.
–
When DJ’s body eased after raping me, I ran to the bathroom, locked the door and sobbed. Finally, I threw open the door to confront him. “How could you do this to me?? You know my past. You know my history.”
A shrug of the shoulders and the words “I’m drunk” are the only response I received (and have ever received). I sobbed harder.
And the truth is, I still sometimes sob. But the difference is that my tears are no longer wept in silence.
–
My silence was broken seven months after the incident, on March 5th, 2020. It was the day of my mental breakdown.
DJ had just told me that he planned to keep working at the same school as me the following year (I had thought maybe he would leave, considering he was 37, never-married, and only worked part-time. I mean, most people eventually grow up and find real jobs, right? Then again, I guess most people refers to normal people. And rapists are obviously not normal people. They’re motherf***ing rapists, after all.) When DJ told me he’d be returning, something inside me snapped. I could not imagine being triggered one more day of my life. I left work, and within the hour, I had enrolled in trauma therapy.
–
This was the moment I began to take back my power. This was the moment I began to trust myself again. This was the moment I began to heal.
And this was the moment I began to question my shame.
This was my beginning. And it is everything.