I Don’t Know How to Talk About This
CONTENT WARNING
This piece discusses sexual assault, interpersonal violence, and rape.Below is the statement I gave in court on October 5, 2023.
This is the day my rapist plead guilty to Rape in the 1st degree and Kidnapping in the 1st degree. He received 13 years in federal prison—the minimum number of years possible for these charges. One year was considered “time served” while he was on house arrest for the previous four.
He must serve 85% of his sentence before parole eligibility. This is my account of our joint sentences.
I want to thank the court and Judge Miliken for this opportunity to speak.
I’m told this is to be an impact statement…not a recounting of events. I don’t know how to drive that impact without the events that transpired that night of June 22, 2019, or shortly thereafter. I don’t know how to tell you that stumbling back to a rented home with my makeup smeared and my hip hurting put me in a state of shock I’ve never experienced before. I don’t know how to convey the combination look of worry, fear, heartbreak, sadness, remorse, and guilt in a friend’s face when they see you like this. I don’t know how to tell you that the trauma endured during the medical examination was on par with the event itself. I don’t know how to tell you that men do not believe women.
I don’t know how to tell you that anger was an emotion I wished to feel towards him. Because at least I would feel something again. I don’t know how to tell you that for a year I couldn’t leave my home unaccompanied. Days I spent trapped in my bed, unable to move, catatonic to the world around me as I could feel the sun rise and set above me. I don’t know how to tell you that my nighttime teeth grinding wore down my enamel so badly the dentist questioned what I was eating. The answer was nothing. I don’t know how to tell you how much weight I lost because my body was so anxious it prevented me from eating, for years. I didn’t eat a full meal until last year. I didn’t start eating three meals a day until last fall.
I don’t know how to tell you that I can’t fully remember the years following that night. I remember sporadic moments, even fewer people. I don’t know how to tell you I was numb and looking for ways to be number, all while trying to feel. I don’t know how to tell you how many times I denied social invitations purely because someone else was driving. I don’t know how to tell you that the only way for me to come out of a panic attack was to take anti-seizure medication. I don’t know how to tell you that I often ordered things online just to have something to look forward to..and if I was lucky, human interaction.
I don’t know how to tell you that I used to cry without knowing. Tears used to fall and I still felt nothing. I learned to rub my eyes almost every hour, just in case. I don’t know how to tell you how terrified I was of the world around me. How safety was an illusion and the veil was lifted and it couldn’t return. I don’t know how to tell you how fearful I was of every person around me, how exhausting it is to be so distrustful. I don’t know how to tell you that the curated story of my life for the previous years I desperately wanted to believe…and at times, I almost could. I don’t know how to tell you that I don’t know why I kept trying, with unwashed hair and tracks of my tears embedded on my cheeks.
I don’t know how to tell you that one of the most harrowing ways I began healing was attending a support group where I wasn’t alone. How inexplicable it is to feel the dichotomy of wanting so badly to be the only one who experienced something like this so no one else has to, but also so comforted knowing you weren’t alone in the chaotic abyss of your mind, your life.
I don’t know how to tell you how utterly isolating it is to feel a deep separation between your body and your mind, your mind and your spirit. I was the fragmentation of a whole person.
Missed doctor’s appointments. Missed experiences. Missed work. Missed laughter. Missed memories. Missed connection. Missed joy. My life was missed.
My head was full of noise, yet static. It never slowed down and somehow was completely still. I lost my ability to make decisions. How do you know what you like when you don’t know who you are? I became an expert at pretending to be ok. I began asking myself, “How do people dress? How to they present themselves? What do they like? Where do they go? How do they laugh?” If I couldn’t know me, I could pretend to be them. I could wear their costumes.
Progress and healing for me looked like taking 5 steps outside, alone, just once. It looked like 10 steps maybe the next week..often weeks later. Progress and healing looked like practicing conversations with others again. Remembering how a dialogue works…it looked like calm patience exuded by my therapists while they sat with me. It looked like asking strangers to buy you groceries. It looked like driving anywhere, sitting in my car, paralyzed. Unable to exit my vehicle and returning back. At least I made it to the car. At least I remembered how to drive. Progress eventually looked like walking to the corner, waiting for the crosswalk sign to change, and going home. My life was a series of timed experiments.
Progress looked like returning to work after six months to care for cancer patients again. I didn’t know me, but I knew them, and I knew they needed me more than I needed me. But that’s all I could do: Go to work and go home. There were no other stops. Work. Home. Work. Home. Pandemic alleviated my guilt for having food and supplies delivered to me. I found comfort in knowing everyone else was experiencing this life I had been trapped in for so long.
Progress for me looked like uncontrollable crying. Progress for me was hearing and feeling my stomach growl for the first time last spring. Progress for me looked like participation. Progress for me looked like wearing colors. Progress for me looked like not giving in to the narrative this was my fault. Progress for me was fighting my own mind. Progress for me was fighting others’ minds and narratives who didn’t understand, who didn’t believe. Progress for me is showing up for this trial knowing I would be judged, ridiculed, disbelieved, and retraumatized…all in the name of something as elusive as justice.
What this man took from me is irreplaceable, irreparable. He has robbed me of years of my life. He has stolen moments with friends and family. And yet, he has been with me at every celebration, every sorrow, every joy, every tear, every accomplishment. He haunts me. His shadow is the burden I carry every day. He has insidiously, incredulously infiltrated my life in ways I have yet to even uncover. We are forever bonded. And for as much as I have hated this man, I also forgive him, to the extent I can. He now faces the consequences of his choice. He chose to target me, use me, discard me. He is not deserving of my grace, but I give it anyway. He will not die in prison. For how much pain he must be in to inflict this pain on another vulnerable person. How much sorrow and despair he must hold in his heart. Starting today, that is not mine to hold any more.
I believe his choice was always going to happen exactly how it did. He was always going to be the one who showed up in a sedan assigned to take me to a loft downtown. He was always going to rape me. I know this to be true. I have no gratitude for what he did, but if there is possibly a silver lining, it is that he made this decision in 2019, when I did not have to worry about the care I would receive during and after my medical rape evaluation, including Plan B. For as much psychic and physical pain as I was carrying, I didn’t have to wonder if I was also carrying his child. I didn’t have to wonder how many courts I would have to be in if he decided he wanted custody. I didn’t have to worry about whether or not I would survive the birth. This man does not deserve to decide or choose the mother of his children. No rapist does.
My rape occurred 1564 days ago.
Talking directly to this man does nothing to help me heal. He cannot find total absolution in me, nor I in him. This man will face his ramifications behind bars for the next [twelve] years. And on parole, I will haunt him in the form of a registered list. That is the contract he agreed to when he chose to kidnap me, undress me, insert himself in me, and rape me. But he will know life after prison.
There is no justice for what has happened. No number of served years will give me my life back. But for the next 12 of them, the people in Saint Louis are safer.
Thank you.
Cristen Giangarra
Writer · Advocate · NurseFormer Bone Marrow Transplant nurse turned writer and social justice advocate, based in the Bay Area.Add your email below to receive new essays to your inbox, and follow me on Substack for more. 