‘I Don’t Talk Shit About You on the Internet’: Allowing my Abuser Anonymity

Photo by Markus Winkler VIA Pexels

The summer I turned 21, I rode my bike everywhere. 

Slick with sweat, my legs pumping hard and an iced coffee in the cup holder, I would ride around town in the early hours of the morning and listen to music. 

That was the summer I went swimming every day for a month straight. That was the summer I read horror novels on river rocks while I chain-smoked. That was the summer of the deli job with the shit air conditioning. The summer of the buzzcut. 

That summer, a few weeks after I had turned 21, Billie Eilish’s second album came out. I listened to it once and decided the title track, “Happier Than Ever,” was the only one worth listening to again. It became my biking song. I would sail around corners blaring it in my earbuds, speeding up as the song did, my body propelled by the beat. 

That summer, I learned that my abuser and their sister had been talking about me. I discovered this through a girl I vaguely knew, a friend of a friend, who had overheard some things — out of context at best, straight up lies at worst. When I found out my story had been twisted into something unrecognizable and irredeemable, I sobbed hysterically. 

As the weeks went by, I felt resentment festering. Freshly 21 and wounds reopened, what else was I supposed to do but find solace in Billie’s angry lyrics? The way she sang, “I don’t relate to you, no / Because I’d never treat me this shitty / You made me hate this city” struck a chord deep inside of me. The anger I had been swallowing for so long came up — the same way bile does, all bitter and caustic — and I found myself biking as catharsis. 

As I biked, wind against my shorn scalp, knuckles white as I gripped the handlebars, I would let myself remember, telling myself my own story until it sounded just as solid as the lies my abuser and their sister were spreading.

I let myself remember the day my abuser asked if I was going to press charges.

It had been a snowy, mid-winter day, and as we wandered our shared neighborhood, we talked about what had just happened only a few days prior. 

What had happened, in the bluntest of terms, is this: My abuser sexually assaulted me while I was passed out from a seizure. I have no memory of the event, but I do remember with horrifying clarity waking up to my sweatpants balled up at the foot of my bed. 

I didn’t press charges, and I didn’t tell people. Most of my friends still don’t even know about it to this day. They don’t know about the nights when insomnia overtakes me; the nights of sleep paralysis and nightmares of hands; the nights I ask my boyfriend not to touch me while I’m asleep just to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen again.

That’s the reality of trauma — long nights and anxiety. Isolation and disconnect. These are the kinds of things that are hard to even think about, let alone admit out loud. 

So, when my abuser asked if I was going to press charges, I said no.

I think about that moment a lot. I was a deer in headlights. I can’t help but wonder if I should have said “yes.”

I debate this with myself often. I hem and haw, mulling over all the should’ve/would’ve/could’ve’s of our relationship and the messy breakup. I kept quiet; I kept things private; I gave minimal details about what was happening while it was going on and few more when it was over. So now, in the aftermath of everything, I wonder: Was I right for not pressing charges? For not yelling my truth from the rooftops? For not naming them, even now, as I write this? 

Is it a disservice to my past self and the trauma I endured? 

This is what I asked myself that summer, riding my bike around town, listening intently as “Happier Than Ever” crescendoed, with Billie singing: “I don’t talk shit about you on the internet / Never told anyone anything bad.”

I have allowed my abuser freedom and anonymity in my silence — the only true repercussion of their behavior is their own guilt. The many times I did seriously consider taking them to court, letting the vultures of a jury on them, my main reason for not doing so was simple: self-preservation. 

I did not want to drag myself through the wringer of the judicial system, to have my life picked apart, to be asked questions I did not want to answer in front of a crowd. I don’t know if I have it in me to tell my story in front of strangers. 

Billie is right when she sings, “That shit’s embarrassing,” because yes, on some level, I think my experiences are. When I look back on my abusive relationship, part of me is ashamed. 

It’s hard to admit out loud that I stayed after my abuser told me I was hard to love. That my pleas to get them to stop doing drugs were not enough. That they would coerce me into raw sex, that merely asking for a condom was a heavy weight on my chest every night. 

I remember one time I was chatting about exes with a friend. I made a joke: “Can’t believe I let a motherfucker who looked like JoJo from Horton Hears a Who abuse me.” The joke did not land the way I wanted it to, and my friend shook their head and said: “You didn’t let them abuse you. They abused you.”  

As much as I will tell people — and myself, for that matter — that I kept things private for my own sake, it is not the whole reason.

I kept things quiet for them too.

I could have eviscerated them. I could have ruined their life. I’ve done the research: I’ve looked into the types of assault, their definitions and their punishments.

I could have put sexual offender on their record. It would be hard for them to get a job, to procure housing; I could demolish respect for them in their community. 

I have the power to bring hellfire, yet I allow my abuser anonymity. 

I suppose it boils down to that I am a firm believer that people can change. Forever an optimist, I cling to the hope that my abuser will look back at our relationship and decide to do better. To BE better. Ruining their life would not allow for growth.

Maybe that’s naive of me. Maybe the brave thing to do would be to out them publicly, to take them to court, to let the world pick them apart for their wrongdoings against me. 

When I see other victims — other survivors — out their abuser and take legal action, I am in awe. They are so brave. I have the utmost respect for those people for being so vulnerable with their stories. They have courage unlike anything I will ever know. 

I just don’t think I can be like those people, not right now.  

I dream that my abuser is getting better. That I was a turning point in their life. I want to live in a world where they can be angry without throwing things and insults, where they won’t jump in front of a car to scare someone into apologizing the way they once did with me. 

Perhaps they have changed. Whether they have or have not, I want no part in it. But there is something so beautiful about the potential for it. 

Even when it is for them on some level, keeping quiet about being abused is fully for me. It always will be. It is my choice. I hold the power in my hands. 

For the first time in our relationship, I am the one in control. But I refuse to be like them. I hold the power, but I do not lash out. I stay calm, and I stay gentle. I hold onto my anger, but I hold harder onto hope. 

That’s all this is — I am protecting myself, yes, but mostly, I am giving them the space to be better. In my silence, I hope they grow.  I know I have.