“Ego Death”

The last time I wrote about I May Destroy You, I had to stop watching because the episode was so triggering. And I’m glad I did (thank you, boyfriend). The other day, I finally finished it, and I’m SO glad I did.

A couple weeks ago, there was a night that I slept for 12 hours (ya girl was tired, okay?), and during those 12 hours, all of my dreams involved my rapist. Needless to say, waking up the next morning was not fun. I dream about my rapist every now and then, and sometimes the dreams are terrifying, other times they’re disturbing, and almost all the time, they’re weird.

I think I had those dreams because I’ve been writing more about my rape recently. I’ve been trying to tell that story for years now, and I’m back to revisiting it. But I was feeling pretty stuck, so I decided to return to I May Destroy You, and holy f***ing sh**, y’all! I know I’m behind on this, but Michaela Coel! Can we just take a moment to recognize her greatness?

Thank you.

I think I watched the last episode, “Ego Death,” with my mouth open the entire time. I laughed, and I gasped, but I didn’t cry. The crying came the second the episode ended. I turned to my boyfriend and tried to say, “Wow, I feel so seen.” All that came out was, “Wow….*tears*… *laughing at the tears* … *more tears* … *more laughter*…” for about five minutes.

I have never seen any representation of the process of healing after a rape quite like what Michaela Coel created.

After I was raped, I dreamt up the moment I would see my rapist again over and over in my head. When that moment actually happened, I had a panic attack where all I could say was, “What the fuck?!” repeatedly while hyperventilating and sobbing. And even after that, I still dream up the moment I will see him yet again now that I’m in a different stage of healing. And I’ve never seen that experience told on screen. Until this episode.

So often on screen we see rape as either: A. a plot device to help the story along, usually to help a male character be seen as a hero or a villain, or B. a revenge story, where getting revenge on their rapist suddenly turns a victim into a survivor. I can tell you from experience, the journey from victim to survivor is not that easy or linear, and Michaela Coel knows this.

“Ego Death” is all about that nonlinear, weird, and overwhelming journey, told through a series of scenarios Arabella (Michaela Coel’s character) dreams up where she finally meets her rapist again.

Arabella’s first fantasy is the narrative we’re fed so often with rape stories: violent revenge.

I was actually surprised that I never really felt this impulse after my rape. We’ve seen that story so often that it honestly made me feel like I should have wanted revenge. It made me question the legitimacy of my rape when I didn’t want to beat him to pulp or see him raped after what he did to me. Almost everyone close to me, particularly the men in my life, wanted that (side note: this is what I loved about Promising Young Woman, the honesty in wanting revenge for your friend), but I never did.

Did it ever cross my mind? Of course. Anytime someone offered to beat him up, for the slightest of seconds I would picture his face covered in bruises like my body was, but I didn’t actually want that. That wasn’t going to bring me any kind of closure. And that’s what Arabella realizes as well.

So she scraps that idea and fantasizes about another narrative we’re often fed: that rapists are men who have been abused by someone else in their past, explaining away their current violence. It’s brilliantly written. We go from laughing at a coked out Arabella tricking this man into getting caught, to immediate fear for her safety, to shock/confusion/maybe more laughter at the ridiculousness of his angry rant that devolves into tears. But again, it doesn’t bring closure.

Then the third fantasy. This one moves away from Arabella’s personal experience and shows her fantasizing more about the world, rape culture, consent, and what all of that has meant throughout her life.

This is another aspect of this show that I could write an entire post about because I related so much. Shortly after I was raped, I went HARD into research and doom-scrolling and online activism against rape culture. I even wrote a play about it. It was necessary and helpful in my journey, but now that I’m further away from that time I can also see how it was an escape mechanism. If I can focus on the world’s problems, then I don’t have to dive as deep into my own, right?

If you had talked to me during that time, I probably seemed to be in a good place with it. I could talk about it without feeling triggered, I could have intellectual discussions about rape culture and tell you every statistic I had memorized, but I was also deeply angry. In episode 9, “Social Media Is a Great Way to Connect” (brilliant title, btw), Arabella does the same thing. She becomes an online activist, and her followers praise her for sharing so openly and for speaking up about these issues, but we as an audience get a glimpse into her real life, where she is way too attached to her phone and is deeply unhappy. She even crosses a line with her best friend, Kwame, and lashes out at him for being part of the problem, when he’s also a victim. I’ve done this exact thing. I went off on a man in my life during an argument about a famous rape case, and he was so hurt by what I said that he confessed that he was sexually abused as a child, something that I don’t think he’s ever told anyone. I felt awful for assuming that this person didn’t understand what I was going through.

To end this last fantasy, Michaela Coel takes it a step further. We see Arabella and her rapist have sex, this time with her being in power. This is a response to rape that I don’t think most people talk about, but it can be fairly common. It’s an impulse to rewrite that experience for yourself, this time with you at the wheel and in control - something that was stripped of you when you were raped.

But even after all that - literally beating him death, knowing the “why” behind her rape (he was raped as well), and rewriting their sex with herself in control - it still doesn’t bring closure. It’s still not the end of her journey from victim to survivor. That comes later, after time has passed, after she stops trying to find her rapist at the bar, after she’s gone through a rollercoaster of healing that finally leads to her telling her story. And then… a breath. She takes a breath, and we cut to her frolicking on the beach.

COME ON! I mean, the beauty in that journey and seeing it to its end, especially for a Black woman… WE LOVE TO SEE IT! So this is my huge thank you to Michaela Coel for making me feel truly seen as a survivor. The power behind that feeling is incredible.

I’m gonna leave you with her acceptance speech for the Emmy for Best Writing of a Limited Series because, let’s be honest, we could all hear it again: