S1:E1: You're So Vain You Made My Sexual Assault About You

This episode is to honor victims of sexual assault and survivors of emotional and psychological abuse. My story can be triggering so listener discretion is advised.

In this episode, I share my story of what launched my healing journey. It was a season of toxicity coming to an end followed by a new season of brokenness. I talk about the storm that irrupted after I publicly condemned the man that sexually assaulted me on Instagram, because the man was my ex's best friend.

Transcript:

Intro:
Welcome to Mental Breakthrough, a memoir podcast about owning our most vulnerable stories so we can live a life of authenticity.

I’m Maryann Samreth, the woman behind the pen name, Sincerely Miss Mary. Together, I take you through my healing journey as I share stories of moving through pain to get to the other side where the light shines again.

In this season, I carry you moment to moment, starting with a tumultuous breakup, then multiple breakdowns and eventually a breakthrough.

I share stories of how my gift of writing guided me through the darkest moments of my life, leading me to reconnect with my Cambodian ancestors and break the cycle of generational trauma.

There is power in storytelling and sharing our vulnerabilities with the world. It opens doors to cultivate deeper connections with others on the same journey so we can heal as a collective.

By sharing my truths, I pave the way for others to feel safe sharing theirs. We all have a story to tell. Stories that can be someone’s silver lining. Stories of hope.

Episode Summary:
This episode is to honor victims of sexual assault and survivors of emotional and psychological abuse. My story can be triggering so listener discretion is advised.

In this episode, I share my story of what launched my healing journey. It was a season of toxicity coming to an end followed by a new season of brokenness. This is my story of how a tumultuous breakup became the catalyst to my healing journey and pushed me to reveal my identity behind Sincerely Miss Mary, an anonymous pen name I created on Instagram to live journal my emotional abuse and gaslighting I experienced with a narcissistic partner. This is the story of how every belief I had about love and life broke so I could rebuild a new one. When we share our truths, the people not meant to be in our lives leave us, allowing space for us to finally heal.

Now Let's begin...

Episode 1: You’re So Vain, You Made My Sexual Assault About You

For over a year I stayed with a partner who made me feel so alone I craved solitude over his presence. I craved the feeling of safety, security, and stability…a fleeting dream contrast to my reality of living a nightmare.

 My nightmare was coated in my silence and complicity of enduring a cycle of gaslighting and emotional abuse from revealing a deep secret I hid from my partner for over 4 years, a secret so dark because I knew it would change his life…the secret was that his best friend sexually assaulted me.

 At first there was the normal reaction of shock and anger towards his friend and then it quickly turned into anger and resentment towards me for opening my mouth.

 Like a slow burn, his love turned into a weapon of victim-blaming and victim-shaming me back into silence, because his friend was moving back to NYC, one block from our apartment.

I was made to believe I was an  inconvenience to the bromance. He turned his back on me to maintain harmony within his friendship and simultaneously exposed his misogynistic beliefs on a woman’s place… In his world a woman was 2nd to a sexual predator. 

Instead of walking away from a clear bucket of red flags, I stayed because I believed the classic Disney lie—love conquered all.

I believed the idea of loving someone hard enough they would change for you. My rose-colored glasses completely shattered as I failed at every attempt to try to teach a man about women rights, the me-too movement, and human decency.

His views of the world were deeply rooted in the way he was raised—toxic masculinity…the foundation of extreme narcissism.

The hardest lesson I’ve learned from the aftermath of this relationship was that you can’t love someone into changing themselves. 

You can never change, fix, or heal anyone nor is it your responsibility.

You can only change, fix, and heal yourself.

On April 19th, 2019, I publicly condemned his best friend for sexually assaulting me on Instagram. What led me to impulsively post this without the consent of my partner was a disturbing experience that was the last straw that broke the camel’s back.

A few days prior, we were on vacation in Japan…As we were looking up plans to travel within the city on his phone, I saw my perpetrator send him a text about hanging out when we returned from our trip. 

At this point my partner and I would get into numerous fights every time he would hang out with his friend, while knowing what he did to me. Even after I made him confront his best friend about the assault, the only apology I got was “if it happened, I’m sorry.”

 Tension was already building like a pressure cooker as I was no longer able to maintain my silence as he was going behind my back to hang out with his friend and disregard what he did to me. I stayed silent about the text until we returned home.

The next night, as he was in his deep-ridden jet lag slumber, I looked through his phone, and discovered a conversation that led to my breaking point.

What I saw was a conversation of my partner confronting his friend about the sexual assault, almost a year ago.

The words I saw still haunt me to this day as he told his best friend, “If you touched her, I don’t care.”

This was followed by more messages making fun of the sexual assault by minimizing it, throwing out trump memes of fake news, calling me a liar and saying that if he did assault me it was a “hand on knee taken out of context.”.

At this point I only saw red. I was enraged. So I drowned it out with a few doses of Xanax to drown the pain of having to sleep next to this monster who mastered covering his true feelings for me.

The next morning on my way to work, I channeled my rage in the best way I knew how…through writing on my anonymous pen name account, Sincerely Miss Mary…but this time…I posted this on my personal account, Maryann Samreth…because it was time for the people who knew my perpetrator to know the truth…

“You stole the power of my voice when you put your hands on me”

“You stole the power of my trust when you entered into my home”

“You stole the power of my character when I released my rage caused by sexual assault”

“you twisted my truths into a faux tale of domestic and verbal abuse”

“you stole everything from me until I told my story to the world”

“the power of my voice, of my trust, of my character all came rushing back to me when I used the power of your name.”

-To Mike West, Go Fuck Yourself

Sincerely,

Miss Mary

Up until this day, I kept my pen name account a secret from those I knew and loved. Very few knew about my writing…and now everyone knew.

Sincerely Miss Mary was a persona I created on Instagram where I would live journal my emotions from enduring the emotional abuse, gaslighting, and victim-blaming by my partner who didn’t want to condemn his best friend sexually assaulting me.

Every post was written in real time and posted immediately for over a year until the day we broke up. I wrote my way into becoming the person who broke out of the cycle of silence and complicity so I could finally take my power back.

Once my partner found out about my post and I told him about the messages I saw of him enabling his sexual predator friend…he dumped me…

He had friends and family, who I had known for the 5 years we dated, reach out to him in concern of my post, not me, the victim.

To get the story of someone’s sexual assault from anyone but the victim is telling of their limited view of the world and the way the majority view women when they speak up against their perpetrators. They represent the symptom of the problem of why women stay silent about their assault, when the perpetrator is someone they know.

It was a preview of what was to come which was them turning their back on me, siding with my perpetrator and the man that victim blamed me for over a year.

His parent’s response through whatever narrative my former partner fed them, was that I wasn’t raped so I had no right to speak up. They minimized my assault without ever speaking to me. They validated the story without ever speaking to me. The mindset of not speaking to a victim and listening to man’s point of view of what happened, who also didn’t witness it, exposes the ignorance of the people who surrounded him.

I was blocked from his mom on Facebook. Unfollowed by his friends on Instagram who knew my perpetrator. Unfollowed by his Dad on my dog’s Instagram. One by one, I was digitally ghosted…eventually it got too much that I did the rest of his world a favor and unfollowed all of them.

This rejection by people I had known for 5 years...spending holidays and celebrating marriages….was so painful, confusing, and heartbreaking…

but what I held onto was my belief that I was not wrong in sharing my truths.

My emotional truths of my experience can never be minimized or diminished by anyone who isn’t me. 

My truths, my stories, my pain belongs to me and the way you respond to my vulnerability shines a light on who you are…not who I am…I will always hold on to my truths for dear life…because that was how I was set free… 

April 19th, 2019 is not only the day I was freed from emotional abuse, I was freed from a version of myself wearing rose-colored glasses…what happened that day was that I finally embody the persona I created, Sincerely Miss Mary. 

On this day, I became her, and she became me. I wrote my way to becoming a woman that was fearless and unapologetic of sharing her truths. Sincerely Miss Mary carried me out of toxicity and into healing my wounds from events out of my control.

By owning my story, I was able to take my power back, by sharing my truths I hope I can encourage you to do the same.

We are deserving of owning our stories of the darkest seasons of our lives, when we dig into our most painful experiences, we can pull out lessons and gifts and strengths we never knew we had.

When we lean into the pain, we can define our traumas instead of letting it define and takeover us.

When we reclaim the narrative, we take our power back.

I want you to know, your story matters.

Your truth matters. Your truth has always mattered.

I am sorry if anyone made you feel otherwise.

I am sorry if anyone made you feel like no one would believe you.

I am sorry if they told you your truth would cause chaos.

The truth is that it might and that’s okay.

The truth may disrupt the peace but also bring back yours.

You deserve your peace.

You deserve to be heard.

Your truth has always mattered.

You have always mattered.