Chanel Miller Quotes

Pain, when examined closely, became clarity... He believed he could break us, but from this day forward, I would begin to build.

I am not a burden. I am not limited, I am ever expanding. Your suffering means something. You are worth more than three months. They could never truly have rejected me since they had never fully known me. You are worth more than three months. The assault was never all of me.

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.

Whatever past you came from, you don't have to go back.

As a survivor, I feel a duty to provide a realistic view of the complexity of recovery. I am not here to rebrand the mess he made on campus. It is not my responsibility to alchemize what he did into healing words society can digest. I do not exist to be the eternal flame, the beacon, the flowers that bloom in your garden.

To deny my messiness would be to deny my humanity. I don't believe there is such a thing as an immaculate past or a perfect victim. Yet now I felt I was being upheld to an impossible standard of purity, worried that failing to meet it would justify Brock raping me. His attorney would simplify, generalize, and mislabel my history.

How do you come after me, when it is all of us? One of the greatest dangers of victimhood is the singling out; all of your attributes and anecdotes assigned blame. In court they'll try to make you believe you are unlike the others, you are different, an exception. You are dirtier, more stupid, more promiscuous. But it's a trick. The assault is never personal, the blaming is.

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 can be.

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.

There have been numerous times I have not brought up my case because I do not want to upset anybody or spoil the mood. Because I want to preserve your comfort...You will find society asking you for the happy ending, saying come back when you're better, when what you say can make us feel good, when you have something more uplifting, affirming.

...I've found that victims identify more with pain than platitudes. When I write about weakness, about how I am barely getting through this, my hope is that they feel better, because it aligns with the truth they are living...I write because the most healing words I have been given are It's okay not to be okay...

I was reminded that having extra needs does not make you too difficult, too time consuming, but worthy of compassion and love.

I am a victim, I have no qualms with this word, only with the idea that it is all that I am.

They were not asked to adhere to the same rules. If there were countless guidelines women had to follow; cover your drink, stick close to others, don't wear short skirts. Their behaviour was the constant, while we were the variable expected to change. When did it become our job to do all the preventing and managing? And if houses existed where many girls got hurt, shouldn't we hold guys to a higher standard instead of reprimanding the girl? Why was passing out considered more reprehensible than fingering the passed out person?

In the past year, snow had fallen and melted, my hair had been cut and grown, the world kept moving, and I could've continued to move on with it, yet I had returned. What did it mean, that I kept finding myself in this tiny room, abandoning an orderly life to keep fighting. Didn't this count for something?

In fact I need you to know it was all true. 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. That's the terrifying part.

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.

When I listened to her, I understood: 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.

If a victim speaks but no one acknowledges her, does she make a sound?

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.

Victims are often, automatically, accused of lying. But when a perpetrator is exposed of 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 actons?

It would take me a long time to realize that history is happening now, and we are a part of it. History is where you will find people who have been through what you are experiencing.
Not only been there, but survived it. Not only survived it, but changed it.

Most people say developing is linear, but for survivors it is cyclic. People grow up, victims grow around; we strengthen around the place that hurt, become older and fuller, but the vulnerable core is never gone.

No matter how awful and long your journey, I can promise you the turn. One day it will lift.

Privilege accompanies the light skinned, helped maintained his belief that consequences did not apply to him. In this system who is untouchable, who is disposable, whose lives are we intent on preserving, who goes unaccounted for, who is the true disrupter, the one firing, the one fingering, who created a problem where there never was one?

I learned the divide between unthinkable violence and ordinary life was paper thin.

And finally, to girls everywhere, I am with you. On nights when you feel alone, I am with you. When people doubt you or dismiss you, I am with you. I fought everyday for you. So never stop fighting, I believe you.

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.

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.

They seemed angry that I'd made myself vulnerable, more than the fact that he'd acted on my vulnerability. Drinking is not inherently immoral: a night of heavy drinking calls for Advil and water. But being drunk and raped seemed to call for condemnation.

I knew I did not deserve help, because this was not real trauma. He was a kid, not a criminal. Accomplished, not dangerous. He was the one who lost everything. I was just the nobody it happened to.

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 a 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.

I used to shrink at harsh tones, used to be afraid. Until I learned it takes nothing to be hostile. Nothing. It is easy to be the one yelling, chucking words that burn like coals, neon red, meant to harm. I have learned I am water. The coals sizzle, extinguishing when they reach me. I see how, those fiery coals are just black stones, sinking to the bottom.

The barricades that held us down will not work anymore. And when silence and shame are gone, there will be nothing to stop us. We will not stand by as our mouths are covered, bodies entered. We will speak, we will speak, we will speak.

My pain was never more valuable than his potential.