Sexual Assault & Power: I May Destroy You
Photo: BBC
Caution! Spoilers below.
Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You (IMDY) is a powerful, intense series about a young writer, Arabella, who is raped one night by an acquaintance who spikes her drink at a bar. It follows Arabella’s journey as she attempts to understand what happened to her and how to heal; it also follows her close relationships with friends Terry and Kwame, and their own travails with complicated sexual experiences. Apart from assault and relationships, the show includes themes on overcoming trauma and rebuilding a life that’s been shattered, while also attempting to keep all the elements of that life - friendships, career, family, self - as intact as possible. Perhaps even more broadly, I May Destroy You seems to be about power. More specifically: the power each of us possesses inside ourselves and how to discover and connect with that power rather than letting that power destroy us and everything we hold dear.
It’s important to note that IMDY is based on Michaela Coel’s own history with rape. When I finished the series, I found myself feeling a sense of catharsis (there were tears!) and also feeling completely overwhelmed about how to do justice to do this show in a Journal post. I felt incapable of honoring Michaela’s genius and bravery, of capturing the essence of trauma and healing, of sharing my psychologically informed views on this stunning show. As I stepped back, I realized this was (psych lingo ahead!) similar to a parallel process, and that my reactions contained glimmers of what it’s like to engage in trauma healing: feeling overwhelmed, uncertain, unprepared, fearful, unworthy. Yet, as I tell clients, and myself as the clinician, when beginning trauma work, all we can do in those moments is dive in, take a leap, trust ourselves, and get ready to get our hands dirty. And that’s precisely what I found so compelling about IMDY: Arabella shows us what it means to dive into trauma, and how it’s possible to resurface once this happens.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, trauma is so destabilizing because it threatens our understanding of reality, of ourselves, and of the world around us. At its essence, trauma strips us of our own power. One of the things people get wrong about rape / sexual assault is that it’s about sex. It’s not - it’s about power. Just like with other forms of abuse, sexual assault is about asserting control and domination over another. And so, when attempting to heal from rape and assault, regaining a sense of control and power is essential to recovering a sense of agency and wholeness. This is Arabella’s most important journey in the show. In the beginning, though, it’s hard to imagine how she’ll regain power. We see the powerlessness she feels in Episodes 1 and 2 as she attempts to piece together what happened, since her memory is distorted as a result of the drugs put into her drink by her rapist, David; we see the same powerlessness when she’s at the police station at the end of Episode 2, realizing that the memories she is piecing together confirm she was raped.
And yet throughout the show, we also begin to see moments - small at first - where Arabella begins to take her power back. In the early episodes, Arabella experiences flashbacks of her rapist above her, but in Episode 5, suddenly the flashback switches and where she would usually picture David, she sees herself. In the Ep 5 scenes that follow, she exposes a young man, Zain, who in Episode 4 is hired to help her with her book, but who instead sexually assaults Arabella by engaging in non consensual condom removal. Exposing Zain is one of the first indications of Arabella taking control and refusing to stay silent after experiencing (another) sexual assault. Silence is one of the reasons trauma is so insidious: when something unspeakably terrible happens, letting it remain ensconced in silence only causes it to become more monstrous. But how can we blame ourselves for wanting to stay silent? How do we speak the unspeakable? In this case, we see Arabella gain resolve in exposing Zain after she learns a colleague experienced something similar; just as in the #metoo movement, there is power in numbers, and perpetrators of sexual violence usually don’t engage in isolated incidents. Connecting with another survivor gives her the courage to speak out; speaking out gives Arabella power, and likely empowers others too.
While this is an important step in her journey, what Arabella really needs, just like all survivors of trauma, is to dive deep into her trauma. Arabella starts therapy in Episode 4 but we don’t see many therapy sessions that follow - it’s not uncommon for trauma survivors to engage in emotional avoidance in order to numb the impact of trauma, which sometimes means avoiding therapy altogether. To her credit, Arabella attempts to engage in other healthy coping strategies: she participates in lots of self care activities - yoga, exercise, art; she makes a police report (very rare); she seeks support from her friends and in a support group; she uses her platform on social media to raise awareness. But it isn’t until the end of Episode 8, when Arabella seems at rock bottom after learning her police case has been closed with no resolution or justice, plus a failed attempt to seek comfort from a former boyfriend, that we see hints of her getting ready to dive in (somewhat symbolically, as Michaela shares in this clip).
An analogy I use with clients in therapy about diving into trauma is that of a lake with layers of muck underneath (sort of gross, but perhaps captures the inherent unpleasantness of trauma work!). The trauma lake may appear calm at the surface, but there’s likely lots of guck and grime underneath - so much so that it can feel terrifying, overwhelming, and impossible to dip so much as a toe beyond the surface. Avoidance may be fine initially, but it tends to become exhausting, consuming - the trauma continues to control your life. Once you dive in, however, you take control, because you get to make choices: about how to clear out the muck, help it settle, and allow what’s underneath to better match the surface. Trauma is so difficult because we don’t get to make a choice about what happens to us (a traumatic event is never. ever. the victim’s fault) or about how we initially respond (these responses are based on key survival mechanisms). And then, we’re left with the aftermath. But taking power back means recognizing the power of choice in that aftermath, and diving in is one of those choices.
The benefit of diving in during therapy is that you don’t have to do it alone - hopefully, therapy allows you to be in a space of safety with a trusted and caring therapist who can dive in with you, and help you build emotional muscles and coping skills. But in my experience, arriving to this ‘dive in’ point is a process all on its own. In Episode 9, after getting a CT scan to make sure she “isn’t crazy”, falling down the black hole of social media, and fighting with her friends, we see Arabella struggle to understand who she has become and appear more undone than ever. She visits with her therapist again (I’ll touch upon this scene some more in a bit) where she realizes the need to “go under”, to integrate the surface level Arabella with the Arabella underneath it all. To clear out the muck.
As she does this, we learn a lot more about Arabella’s buried pain and other unspeakable moments, especially in Episodes 9 and 10. We learn about a long ago terminated pregnancy which she knows was the right choice to make but never let herself speak or think of afterwards. We step back in time to learn of her absent father, and see the disappointed little girl exhibiting patterns the adult Arabella continues to perpetuate. We learn of the shock teenage Arabella felt when realizing the depths of her parents’ complicated relationship, but which was never discussed openly until Arabella starts to speak the unspeakable to her mother in Episode 10. Diving in often uncovers additional pain that we have buried - which makes trauma work both very scary and wholly healing. In Episode 11 we see Arabella learn to forgive those around her, and perhaps this allows her to forgive herself for her complicated path, for pain she may have caused herself and others. We see her begin to integrate all these parts of herself into one cohesive whole. And this is the true marker of taking back power: integration. In Episode 9’s therapy session, Arabella draws a visual symbol of integration; ultimately, this visual depiction becomes the cover of her book in Episode 12 - the book she has been struggling to complete all throughout the series.
There is so, so much more to say about I May Destroy You. The complex ending; the murky waters of consent; the exploration of layers of identity including race, gender identity, sexual orientation, masculinity & misogyny; the symbolism of water - this series requires an entire syllabus! In the end, IMDY is a courageous and fearless dive into the muck and discomfort of trauma. It is about rape and sexual assault, yes, but also about the urgency with which we need to claim and reclaim our power throughout our lives.
**A note on the the therapy scene in Episode 9: In this episode, Arabella is clearly suffering and feeling isolated; we learn that she calls an “emergency line”, and we see her immediately end up at her therapist’s home (not office) for an impromptu dining table therapy session. I understand the need for this plot point, but would have preferred a more realistic depiction of crisis counseling - maybe a visit with her therapist at a crisis clinic, or an ‘emergency’ office session the next day. Boundaries are extremely important in the therapeutic relationship, and the entertainment industry often depicts therapists with loose boundaries, setting up unrealistic expectations and problematic cultural norms. Media productions can go a long way in responsibly and realistically portraying therapy by paying attention to these seemingly minor details.
However, other psychological aspects of IMDY were done with much care and thoughtfulness, including having a therapist on set for all the cast members and an intimacy coordinator to ensure safety and consent during sex scenes and assault scenes. Psychological and emotional safety are of utmost importance in productions like these, and I appreciate the attention IMDY showrunners paid to this. Psychological consultants (shameless plug!) can provide guidance into how trauma, mental health, and treatment are portrayed on screen, as well as provide psychological services to ensure wellbeing for the cast and crew, in order to create the most powerful production possible. IMDY seems to have done a particularly excellent job in ensuring an emotionally, psychologically safe filming environment.
If you are as enthralled by Michaela Coel as I am after watching this series, here are two essential resources:
Michaela the Destroyer / E. Alex Jung
James MacTaggart Lecture at Edinburgh TV Festival 2018 / Michaela Coel
One central theme in IMDY which I didn’t expand on in my post is that of consent. Here is one of my favorite resources on this topic:
Tea and Consent / Emmeline May & Blue Seat Studios (clean version here)
