A Changed Person: Introduction

Strength and resilience don’t get us through everything. Some loads are just too great of a burden to bare. Some experiences defy the configuration of our entire reality and supersede our greatest attributes, decapitating us in an instant.

 

Over the next week, I’m going to slowly open my mouth and explain, bit by bit, as best I know how. It has taken a lot of therapy, medication, and support to get me to this point, and it still feels wildly unsettling. I do know I owe my self this level of respect though. However, to be clear, this is not a canvas I am artistically painting nor is it information that can be digested all at once. And while I will open up, I do not wish to be marveled at or looked up to. I am not superwoman. And at this point, if I never inspire another living soul on the internet, I’m fine with that too. As you can see, my content is gone. My professional page is gone. My podcast is gone. My instagram is archived. That reality is no more and so is she.

 

I am, in fact, at the bottom of the ocean floor, breathing from oxygen tanks gifted by a small handful of people I owe my life to. I don’t wish to be celebrated for the intensity of the hits I can take. So please don’t do that. This is serious. Serious enough for me to relentlessly dedicate the rest of my living, breathing career to it, in hopes that, eventually, good-hearted, authentic, loving people stop enduring shit like this.

 

As I begin to share, my only ask is that you envision a near-lifeless woman laying face up in an ICU. Bruised, beaten, bloody, unrecognizably fighting for her life, because if you could see my insides, that’s exactly what you’d see. That’s who I am right now and have been since June. Emotionally fighting for the person I know myself to be. This saga won’t be a “two-sides to every story” remix, so you can miss me with that BS rhetoric as well. I am going to tell the truth just as I always have, and though I’ve got piles of heart-wrenching receipts, I’ve learned to keep important cards close to my chest as any intelligent woman would.

 

I am going to let this chapter of my life erupt from my throat, because the longer I choke back the inconceivable level of deception and human cruelty, the more I invalidate the horrific experiences of the summer and the offenders that deserve honest exposure. This is the story I never thought I’d write, let alone live. This is an enactment that my loved ones and I would have unhesitatingly bet our lives and souls against.

 

When Johnny Depp said, “I loved you for so many years, but you know what? You don’t exist. You’re not there. You were a made up thing in my head…..I can’t believe you’re doing this to me”, I felt that. To the inner most corners of my back-stabbed heart, I felt that. And unfortunately, if you’re really paying attention, you’ll soon feel it too.

 

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Chanelle