By Katy Mullins
Editor for Songs of Survival
Have a story you’d like to share about survival? Submit your piece, whether it be poetry, prose, art, or photography, to our literary journal, Songs of Survival!
In June 2016, Buzzfeed published a victim impact statement penned by the so-called ‘Stanford Victim’. At that point still anonymous, the statement quickly circulated the internet and not only united survivors of the public and legal scrutinization that the victim had endured, but everyone who understood what it meant to experience sexual violence. Perhaps most importantly, it educated those who didn’t; never before had such a bold and accurate telling of exactly what it means to be victimized been so accessible.
Chanel Miller would eventually go on to reveal her identity with the publication of her 2019 memoir, Know My Name. When that book fell into my hands, I knew that it was something special. From the very first lines, I felt that Know My Name was not only Chanel’s story, but my story. It’s a story of victimization, of running away, of hitting rock bottom – but it’s also a story of victory in the face of adversity. It’s the story of how writing (and all forms of self-expression) present an invaluable opportunity for exploring not only what has happened to us, but who we are.
In January 2016, I turned seventeen years old. I spent my birthday in a courtroom, staring at a total stranger who had, in the span of five minutes two years prior, changed the course of my life. I listened to his lawyer make excuses: he had followed me and broken into my house to steal something, not to hurt me; he was under the influence of drugs. Of course, he did not steal anything, and I could attest to the fact that rather than searching my house for something to steal, he had been searching the house for me. It has been more than five years since it happened, but every day I remember the sound of his footsteps coming down the hallway, opening every door until he found mine. I was fifteen years old, and I had just walked home from school. I was standing in my lime green bedroom papered over with One Direction posters, picking out what clothes I would wear to school the next day. Flash forward to 2016: I sat in the courtroom, staring at him, wondering, why don’t I get to tell them that? Why does he get to tell everyone excuses, but I don’t get to say anything back? My role was to sit there silently and accept everything that was happening around me.
What changed everything for me was, just like in Chanel’s case, the opportunity to write a victim impact statement. I got to speak for some inconsequential period of time – maybe five minutes, maybe even less – but it was entirely the opposite of inconsequential. I got to speak to the stranger who had (as I thought at the time) ruined my entire life. I told him what it meant to have to drop out of school because I was overwhelmed with the fear of someone following me; what it was like to be hospitalized with dangerously low body weight because of the trigger that came from simply putting food in my mouth. I told him what he had taken from me, and that was everything.
After I did that, something special happened: I experienced a physical sensation of relief that is to this day utterly indescribable. It was as if the weight of everything that had happened in the two years before that day lifted from my shoulders. I felt relieved of it. It wasn’t my burden to carry anymore – and maybe it was even his.
In Know My Name, Chanel describes her experience with the same process: the struggle to put such a complex subject into words that do it justice, the anxiety of reading it out loud, the discomfort that comes from telling this kind of story as it is. When I read Chanel’s book, I truthfully hadn’t thought of my victim impact statement or the feelings involved with it in years. When I did, it brought back a flood of overpowering emotions and memories – ones I realized I should not be locking away. In fact, the inspiration I felt reading Chanel’s story is what motivated me to use my own experience to help others by joining an organization that supports survivors. This is how I became an editor for Songs of Survival.
Writing and self-expression have been extremely important to me as a tool for healing. Even if it isn’t heard out loud, and even if no one ever reads it, to write down the unapologetic story of who you are and what has made you into that person is a powerful act of reclamation. Whether it takes the form of poetry, prose, art, music, or any other medium, Chanel Miller’s Know My Name teaches that there is power in simply telling the world who you are.
Katy Mullins
My name is Katy, and I am a political science student, a history aficionado, a world traveler, and a survivor. In the lead up to the sentencing of the person who assaulted me, I was tasked with writing a victim impact statement. While it seemed daunting at first, I found that once I sat down and began to write, the words instantly poured out onto the page, and when they did, I gained a feeling of peace that changed my life for the better. Since the very day that I read my statement in that courtroom – my seventeenth birthday – it has been my mission to help others find their voices too. I wouldn’t be where I am today without the healing that writing provided me, and it’s for this reason that I joined Songs of Survival as an editor. No matter how sexual violence has impacted you, I hope that we can help you share your work in a way that brings you peace and healing too.
Thank you for sharing. This was so insightful, inspiring, and emotional.