The Stages of Emily Doe

Acknowledgments

In order to tell this story properly, I must acknowledge those involved–

All those who thread my pain together in the blanket that kept me hidden, to those who poked holes in the blanket’s thick wool to let the light hit my face. Some faces I still remember, and others will be burned in my hippocampus until my body meets the ground. It’s important to note that without those people who made me experience what hell feels like, I would not be who I am…but it is because of the people that made me see the possibility of heaven that I am still here.

I would first like to acknowledge the state of Kentucky. A place that was never meant for colored kids with big dreams and big hair. I would like to acknowledge your ignorance in choosing to live as a confederate state long after The Civil War. You overlooked that Jim Crow died and continued to quietly push black people into too-small enclaves out of ear shot– where our screams overlap one another like the bodies in slave ships. Within these enclaves we have learned how to protect each other but your southern pride is built on being a threat to the enclaves you created. You had a hand in my abuse by making the playing field uneven 400 years ago for my ancestors, brothers, sisters, me, and all of our descendants. Without you, I wouldn’t have gone through all that I did…I wouldn’t have learned how bad systemic hate could affect me and therefore I would have never found my passion in life. Thank you for choosing to be ignorant so that I could gain knowledge. I would also like to acknowledge the systems in place that made it possible for sexual abuse to thrive in the same environment children grew up in. I remember you the most in moments when I reflect on conversations where girls were always made to be more responsible than the boys that would end up hurting them. You taught us to keep our hands, thoughts, minds, bodies, and pain to ourselves…if we were the owners of vaginas. You taught us that boys can be boys…that the code of conduct for how they played with toys was the same on how they were allowed to play with girls. Reckless, wild, and with no boundaries you gave them permission to never grow up or think of others and how their actions could affect people and you let them sit in playtime on and off the football field while we were forced to grow up…because they are boys. Because of you I have the hands of several boys tattooed into my skin and in my brain and for that I can never thank you enough.

While all of this was happening, my father gave me the nickname “diamond.” He wanted me to know how a woman, how I, should be treated. It is because of what you put me through and what you made acceptable that I will never forget how a diamond is made, priced, and valued.

Thank you to all of my female classmates who may have suffered the same fate as I and still hide in the night of silence. I want to acknowledge your presence on this earth, for you, too, live. I write for us all. Thank you to the teachers that ignored and overlooked this abuse and all of the perpetrators who perpetuated it. You made survivors. All of you made the pain visceral, but there are beings who made it disappear.

I would like to acknowledge my parents. The two people who made me out of love and have never shown me anything less. Now while you may not have had all the tools to save me from a world with no rules, you loved me enough to guide me while I was temporarily blind. There will never be a love to replace what I have in you. Dad, watching you love Mom in a way that comes as a sacrifice to yourself everyday has made me see that I should never lower myself to chase after the cracks on the sidewalk when I could run with my head held high on streets made of gold. Mom, you are a warrior with armor no one but you can fit. And you still have room to love me in a way that can heal the sick. To my sisters, we have grown up feeling one another's pain as if we shared the same body. We share the same thoughts and the pain that runs through one of us, the rest of us feel. While I may have felt alone, I was never by myself. There is no greater gift than having siblings who are your best friends.

I want to acknowledge the strong Black and Filipino women on my fathers side. You taught me what it's like to be bulletproof and still vulnerable. I have learned of the power of duality through watching you. That power now lives in me.

To my Therapist, you encouraged me to speak, and without you this story would have died with me. You are my hero.

To my Alexa, you are an inspiration to me, and to this world. You have inspired me to speak on behalf of the girls who life broke…but you have had a hand in putting me back together. You made this story a broken masterpiece. I will forever be grateful to you.

To my Joel, who loved me before I was aware that love had a definition that applied to me, you gave me a reason to find healing and in you I have found freedom. Thank you for showing me that love should never have a price tag. You are loved by me forever.

To my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, you deserve all of the acknowledgments. You made this journey for me when you crafted me in my mother’s womb, and you knew it would come to this moment when it was time to share the journey with others. I used to believe there was a moment in time when you chose to not look at me, in writing this I have been able to feel you in every single moment oxygen fills my lungs. May your will be done with this piece and may the systems that failed me learn from The Pharaoh Ramses.

Let my people go.

Forward

Chanel Miller. You are my muse.

I do hope that it is alright that I used your story as building blocks for my own story. What started as a journal I was given through therapy became not only a roadmap, but it became an ode, a microphone, a weapon, a tool, a mirror, a love letter, a prayer, healing, and freedom. Through this piece I found grace and when I found grace I found each stage in which Emily Doe moves.

7.21.21

Therapy Writing Prompt

According to your personal experience, what are the stages of trauma related to your past abuse? Explain each stage. What stages have you already conquered? What stage are you currently in? In 6 months from now, which stage would you like to be in?

The Stages of Emily Doe

On January 18th, 2015, Brock Turner savagely raped a

woman behind a dumpster who had walked outside to pee. Both were attendances at the same frat party that night but she was significantly more intoxicated. He was able to get her alone to quite literally steal something that didn’t belong to him. Unfortunately, unconscious body language is not a “good enough no” for a man like him.

Men like him.

She was found unconscious; Unable to speak on her own behalf, she was rebirthed in the media as “Emily Doe.” It had been 10 days since she blacked out and woke up before she found out about her own assault through the news. At this point, she wanted to remain anonymous considering the world had already known her to be Emily Doe and she really had no choice but to assimilate to the anonymity of her own victimhood considering her previous identity was ripped from her by a white boy’s greedy privileged hands. When the time willed it to be so, Emily Doe was reintroduced as Chanel Miller.

The girl whose I.D. became the likeness of a frat house dumpster.

Emily Doe was like a body bag for Chanel forced on her by her abuser and the public. She became a ghost in her own anonymity with no outlet for healing to where she had to make a conscious decision to piece herself back together and choose to be Chanel once and for all. Emily, and all that came with her, took over every crevice and corner of Chanel’s mind, and eventually, Chanel became a shadow you only saw when she stepped outside— A walking coffin to house remains that continue to decay overtime in silence.

I was 15 when this case made national news and 20 when Chanel’s memoir detailing her account of this event and her journey as Emily Doe was released. It wasn’t until July of 2021 when I discovered that I too had felt the still emptiness that anonymity brings...I too was a woman reduced to the subtotal of what someone else did to her.

Jane Doe.

A moniker given to an unknown being in a court case or, in most scenarios, a corpse when the identity is unknown.

Emily Doe.

A moniker given to a young college girl who went through a different kind of death.

The kind one can only experience when they are living. The death of one’s ego, pride, humanity, confidence, and quite literally one’s self. A death one can only feel when they are living, but the only death you can resurrect from.

I know Emily Doe. I am Emily Doe. And even now, the lines still blur between who will be in charge of my footsteps as the days pass on. I’d imagine that those who have encountered her may have had different interactions than I, for there is no roadmap for healing from abuse. The older I get, the more I get to know her, and in turn, the more she gets to know me. This is my Emily Doe.

I cannot speak for everyone, for my pen only has one owner with one voice, but in writing this, I hope that Emily Doe will become clear to all who she affects, and I hope she will open the eyes to people who will never have to meet her.

I don’t remember exactly when sexual aggression forced its way into my personal space, but in that same moment Emily was also subtly introduced when my back was turned. She was invisible at first, peering from the crevices of rooms where testosterone and estrogen swirled together in the atmosphere, but later she crept from those corners she hid in...silently screaming.

She is always present when uncontrolled sexual aggression is in the air.

She is that feeling you get in your stomach when you laugh at a sexual joke that isn’t funny.

Unfortunately there is no “Navigating a Sexually Aggressive World for Dummies,” so just like most kids my age, I was ill-equipped and unarmed to properly defend myself against the jungle that is the real world. Like most innocent young girls my age, I was mauled by the blood-thirsty sexual appetites around me, and the constant bullying I was experiencing simultaneously made me an easy target. The boys my age were similar to dogs with rabies— they could smell fear. They could smell pain and low self esteem. They knew who to choose. They knew what to say. And they knew that the environment played in their favor, so they knew they could get away with it. The reason why thieves move so well at night is because the night makes it easy. Lack of accountability and no self control was, and maybe still is, the driving force that ran the male population of my highschool on Jenkins Rd in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. The culture that cultivated in the environment that I was in made it easy to take advantage of young girls and then make them responsible for their own abuse by over-policing a biased dress code, never teaching sexual-assault prevention, and even embarrassing us for being the humans that needed to use pads and tampons. The culture was making us feel ashamed for bodies we weren’t responsible for creating. A culture that was unsafe but felt normal.

I was 14 when I was first molested, and this went on consecutively until 17 by several of my male classmates at my highschool. I remained relatively silent about my abuse, considering on the rare occasion people did know about it or even saw it with their own eyes they didn’t believe me. And to make things worse, my list of abusers was far too long. This vow of silence I took created a mindset that made me believe that what happened to me was somehow 100% my fault. That I was to blame. Hands that never knew how to keep to themselves were the hands I would sit in the palms of. My whole entire existence belonged to the palms of my male classmates who knew they had the upper hand in having hands with rules that didn’t apply to them.

I had no clue that what I was going through was nonconsensual, illegal sexual conduct that I did not deserve, or ask for but she knew. While I thought this was normal and even something I deserved, she knew it wasn’t. She knew that what was happening was in no way my fault because condoning abuse and blaming a child for their own abuse was never something that should have been accepted.

Those are my earliest memories of my Emily. She started off as a silhouette I had no clue about and never even gave any thought to. I would feel her in times when I would transport to a different place when I was being abused. My soul would leave my body, and I would lock up like a deadbolt. My body would grow cold, and my skin would be coated with sweat. My body was no longer mine in those moments when my body belonged to whoever wanted it.

I’d like to believe that when my soul went looking for a place that felt safe, she took my place.

She filled the void that was left when my soul vanished, just so I didn’t become a shell of myself. Only when I would go to the bathroom to clean myself up would she leave me with the tears I’d cry out of fear that my abuser would get to narrate and dictate my story with no co-author — and even then I didn’t know who she was. Still feeding off the lies that because I was born with a vagina it was my fault, when I was 16, I was raped and that was when Emily stepped into the light and let me see her face only for a split second. I can still hear drowned out echoes of myself saying “no” repeatedly and it meant nothing to that man who saw me as a transaction. I remember feeling like I needed new skin afterward and then spending the whole year convincing myself that that was love. Abuse disguises itself as the thing we want most. Abuse was the framework I was given for how women should be treated. A Brother’s Grimm fairytale times ten. Abuse shaped my belief that I was responsible for my abuse so Emily went back into her home in the shadows for a while, she buried herself so deep in the darkness that I forgot about her. I had forgotten ages 14 through 17, and I continued to act like those ages of my life were filled with consensual encounters I had brought upon myself, and therefore, I deserved the shame I felt afterward.

The shame I felt didn’t have just one messenger. It’s easy for people on the outside to tell abuse victims “just say no,” and “always speak up” because it’s easier to believe that things that heinous don’t happen as frequently as they do, and they sure don’t want to believe that they could have contributed to the toxic environment that left humans vulnerable and unsafe. It’s easier to ignore and shift blame than it is to actually accept blame. In other words, it’s easier to send the black girl to the principal's office for defending herself against the 6’2 football player who slammed her 90 pound body into the lockers to feed his own hunger for lust in front of the whole junior history class on the way to the library than it is actually sending the football player. If you send him, you would also have to send yourself.

For the watcher is never really innocent.

This type of violence against women was accepted and tolerated, so therefore, there was no room for #metoo. We don’t believe girls, and we forsure don’t believe the little mixed girl who won’t go far in life...A football player's career was worth way more than a little black girl who would amount to nothing—

It’s crazy how this thought process didn’t just apply to me—

There was no room for healing in the mess of the environment that I was in, and I have spent the last 6 years of my adult life blaming myself for things no one should ever have to feel at fault for.

It wasn’t until I was about 18 that Emily finally revealed who she was, and I viewed what had happened to me as something outside of me and my little bit of control. At first, she was just there. A separate entity with a dark face that made me feel empty. She wanted to make her presence known to me without actually letting me see her for who she was. I’d imagine that this stage is very similar to the stage one would be experiencing after a bad car accident. They don’t know what happened, they just know they were hit. As people rush to help them out of the car, they are still in shock, not realizing what happened moments before. They get out of their crushed vehicle to see the damage with their own eyes, and it finally hits them that they were hit with a force outside of their control.

This feeling…the only way I can explain it is dying while living.

You see that you are damaged but feel no pain— In fact, you feel nothing. I felt nothing. I can’t even remember what breathing felt like. My body got used to the familiar feeling of numbness as if life had given me my very own dose of morphine.

At 18, I was molested one more time, and a month later the stages suddenly shifted. The morphine wore off, and my body felt the pain of my bone crushing accident. I was no longer Rian Mckenzi, I became Emily Doe. A new entity took over my body, or the shattered pieces that were left behind, that embodied loneliness and a constant state of being lost. I was under her control, and she had no problem being in control. My own footprints didn’t even look like my own— for the feet that made them never felt the ground. My clothes didn’t feel like they were made for my body anymore, and the thoughts I heard in my head belonged to a voice with no owner. The reflection I saw in the mirror belonged to the mask I put on to be digestible to other people and that girl I did not recognize. The only peace I found was in my sleep, and even that didn’t last for long. Mercy was a gift I was not granted—

God’s back and I were well acquainted.

I began trying to find my own identity and using my own voice. I found joy in speaking for others but also suffering in feeling like no one was speaking for me. How does one do that effectively when they have no identity that isn’t tied with abuse, and speaking the truth is not permitted? You cannot speak the truth when you have been muted. The truth means nothing when you aren’t believed. The black girl was never believed when it mattered the most, and when people finally believed her —

It was too late...because she was already dead.

Care has no benefits when you only care when it benefits you.

Joy grew into anger. A constant feeling of the color red. A fiery sensation that never stopped burning, and the fuel was her. Constantly reminding me that I had every reason to be pissed and stay pissed. She used me to fight for me and fought with fists that spoke with smoke. I was a fire hazard that stomped. I guess the control she had on me never really ceased, it just morphed into something less detectable. Something that could easily mesh with my broken personality to where I wouldn’t notice.

This is the stage I have struggled with for over six years. Grappling with the pain of being a victim has almost done more damage than the crime itself. The dark silhouette images I would get in my head 24/7 of my own suffering was the only pathway my brain functioned on. My anger radiated off my small frame so heavy you could grab it with both hands. That fury did not discriminate and showed no remorse in the people it affected. When I started to feel my footsteps once more, I walked with fury. This world creates the “Angry Black Woman” and acts clueless with their hands in the air, covered in blood as if they were faultless in her pain. I had to navigate my chaotic mind where the overarching theme seemed to be “my fault” and on my own...it was impossible. Trying to find a voice that isn’t laced with venom with the intent to kill has been a miracle only God himself can perform.

Emily speaks the most in my dreams, and for a while, she spoke a terrifying language. She spoke the most in my dreams, but dreams don't always happen in your sleep. For a couple months, she convinced me that my disdain for the entire male race was code for an attraction to women that I never had a predisposition to. I was in a state of confusion after my “vehicle accident”, where right felt wrong and wrong felt right and no one had the answers. I wandered into sexual confusion which mixed with my anger simply because I couldn’t understand my own chaos...better yet, I couldn’t understand her. When my brain was ready to play the quiet game, I gained clarity. Instead of fighting with her, I began trying to understand her whispers. She used sexual attraction as a tool to convey how my own hate was destroying me. I didn’t hate men...I hated what they had done and what they continue to do to little girls like me.

In a patriarchal society created by white men, there is no room for the word victim. Ironic enough, you are only a victim when you are a white man and it’s time to throw tea in the

Boston Harbor. You are never allowed to sit in the victim state if you identify as anything else. We live in a world that feeds off irony because only in America would it be acceptable to never stay in the victim state but “always speak up” when you’ve been violated. The total unraveling of one’s mind who is a victim and not a white man is the equivalent to a slinky getting tangled. If you do not go out and seek justice for yourself, for whatever reason— mine was quite clear: I wasn’t believed — you are left to untangle the mess on your own in a world where you do not fit the description of a victim. That’s when you get lost in the world of the anonymous...the place souls go when they have been separated from their bodies and their identity by an outside force and their voices have been muted.

The sunken place.

There are no words to describe the amount of anger that would consume my soul when I would hear abuse survivors say they weren’t victims. My soul would cry out in agony for all of the lost and stolen pieces of me that could claim victimization. If there were no suspects there would be no victims, and therefore, #metoo would have no need to exist. I couldn’t grapple with the “survivor mentality” because I couldn’t get over that I was a victim. My abuse lived rent free in my head, and I never could let go of the fact that I was wronged in so many ways. I was struggling with the complex maze that is anonymity. Getting lost in the place where anonymous ghosts exist. Anonymity was given to me by force and it became a new identity I had to become because I wasn’t given the platform to be truthful. Anonymity

stole my face, my name, and my truth...how do you survive after you have died? It wasn’t until I picked up my pen to give my pain a voice when I finally understood what being a survivor meant.

It’s funny...for the last several years of my journey of mental consciousness as it pertains to my abuse, I thought that Emily was working against me. I thought she was using me against me to destroy me, and in these last few months, I have found the opposite. Her favorite form of communication is irony, and she has worked to reveal and remind me of my truth, knowing that the truth would brew hate. She has made me learn how to release said hate for the betterment of others and myself. Emily Doe is an identity that was used to identify the anonymous and I realized that I too saw her when I looked in the mirror. Inspired by the beautiful Chanel Miller, I had to give this journey a name. One’s journey through the pathway on Emily Doe is a place where rebirth exists, but there is no need to walk alone anymore.

She is someone you never intended to meet.

Someone you wish would disappear.

Someone who morphed into an identity you put on to survive the day.

Someone who, for some, may become a friend who helps you fight for a better reality

I’m in a place right now where peace exists. Where I now feel like I am breathing with both lungs. My greatest strength is being able to use Emily Doe to help others but also walk in freedom. My future is no longer clouded by what was.

For I am blinded by the sun.

Afterword

Greif is the price you pay for love.

Grief is the price I paid for the love of others and the price I paid for self love. This process for grief is one that comes with great pain in order to find reasons to love once again. I wanted to give the readers something tangible they could relate too and take away from and maybe in giving the steps a name we can began to irritcate rape culture in fear of anyone else having to suffer these stages again. These stages are interchangeable and the way they manifest will differ for every single individual that is affected but I am a firm believer in giving the giant a name. Once the giant has a name, the stones you have to slay it know which direction to fly in.

The Stages Of Emily Doe: A guide to navigating and healing from sexual abuse and dealing with victem annoymity.

Awareness- When one becomes aware and fully conscious of their abuse in all of its magnitude.

Repression- The body’s rapid response to traumatic events which involves burying said events to the point of forgetfulness to avoid dealing with pain.

Denial- The response that follows after repression ceases and the truth is revealed; The feeling one gets when recognizing the magnitude of their abuse and don’t want to believe that something that horrifying was allowed to happen to them. This stage can become more difficult when a person is pushed into isolation and shame by themselves or an outside force where they can doubt the validity of their truth.

Isolation- A space where a victim is pushed due to what has happened to them where the only company that they keep is themselves. The space leaves room for interpretation, manipulation, reflection, confusion, and darkness.

Emptiness- Emptiness or the feeling of being a hollow shell goes hand in hand with isolation except this stage allows for possession of a new identity for a period of time, new uncontrolled and confusing emotions, and, in some cases, a new being altogether.

Bargaining and depression- Similar to grief over the loss of a loved one,one who has suffered sexual abuse also grieves over the parts of them that were stolen. They may bargain with God in order to attain those pieces once more but depression will accompany this barder stage when one realizes that, in some small ways, they are going through a living death that cannot be reversed.

Anger/Hate- The backbone of this particular healing process. Like an infection, if left undealt with this can further push an individual into any of these stages to linger further thus prolonging the healing process. This stage, for some, could also lead to self destruction. Festering anger cannot be controlled.

Sexual confusion- This may be a symptom of hate and anger for some when one confuses the hate for what happened to them as a hate for the gender in which their abuser identifies with.

Acceptance- To become one with one’s trauma; the beginning stages of releasing oneself of bondage that is their own memories.

Survivor- To no longer let one’s story become them. The finishing stages of a long lived battle where the victor puts on their own metal. This and acceptance live in the same environment and you’ll know when you are at this stage when you are overcome with peace.