Day 65: My Heart Has Exploded... From Feeling Too Much
Telling my Story Wasn't Brave...it was the Only Way I Could Recover
A lot of people have told me they think I’m brave for sharing my story so publicly.
Honestly, I don’t think I’m brave for doing this. I think keeping your assault private is brave.
It’s brave to hold that much pain inside for so many years. It’s brave to be the only one carrying it.
I don’t think I’m brave right now. I think I needed to tell my story to survive.
I know myself well. And I knew that telling my story was the only way I could recover.
The truth is, I don’t think I could be an effective yoga teacher right now if I weren’t telling my story. (That being said, I’m not saying that you have to tell your story to be an effective yoga teacher - everyone makes that choice for themselves. But I know that for me, this is necessary.)
In the first few days after it happened, I wasn’t sharing it publicly beyond speaking one-on-one with women and in safe spaces like ACA and AA women’s meetings. I was in absolute shock.
I did start alluding to it in The Daily Dharma, but only because I truly couldn’t write about anything else. Every time I alluded to it, I felt a little better.
But I kept all those posts locked because I was terrified of him. Terrified of what he would do if he found out I was writing about him. He even joked once, “Are you writing about me?” when I told him I write a blog every day. Which is fucking ironic, because a month later, I’m telepathically answering that question: Yes, I am writing about you. Is this what you were hoping I would write?
I was scared of him at first because I couldn’t comprehend why he did what he did. That thought alone was terrifying. But once I started to wrap my head around it, I realized: he’s most likely a psychopath. That realization made it easier to process. The attack wasn’t about me - it was about him. And suddenly, I wasn’t scared anymore.
When I was 18, I got grabbed on the street one night while walking home. When I was 24, I jumped out of a taxi because I felt threatened by the driver. In neither instance did I tell many people. I didn’t even see a counselor.
Looking back, it is shocking to me that I had so little support for those assaults. That no one ever suggested I talk to someone. (Not blaming my parents - this was just society. Back then, people didn’t even think about counseling.)
It blows my mind that I lived with that trauma silently for so long. No wonder I got so sick from my addiction.
By the time I was 25, I’d piled so much wood onto this theoretical fire that all it took was one match for it to combust into flames. And then I married someone I had to leave. I kept my suffering inside of me. And it became so heavy I had to stop teaching yoga for almost a year. I physically couldn’t hold space for others anymore.
I was scrolling Substack today and read:
“Nothing sustains nervous system regulation more than authenticity. Why? Trauma occurs when we exist in environments where our authentic selves cannot safely emerge. In harmful situations, we hide our true feelings and needs as a survival mechanism. This constant suppression creates ongoing stress in the body and nervous system. Ultimately, restoring our connection to authenticity becomes the cornerstone of healing.”
I knew it was true. And that’s why I started telling my story. I shared out of necessity. Because, for me, it was the only way forward.
I wonder a lot about my attacker. I wonder if he’s reading my posts. A part of me thinks he isn’t - he cares so little, he’s probably just focused on finding his next victim. He probably doesn’t even remember my name.
But if he is reading, I bet it’s interesting for him. He’s probably done this to hundreds of women, but I doubt any of them have started a blog where they write about the psychological aftermath every single day.
I don’t think reading it would spur any empathy in him - he’s not emotionally capable of that. But I wonder if, intellectually, through reading my writing, he’s starting to comprehend the impact of his actions. If he’s beginning to understand, on a cognitive and intellectual level, what it means for each woman who realizes she was drugged and raped.
I say “who realizes” because I’m well aware that probably more than 90% of his victims don’t even realize what happened to them. I didn’t realize it. How would they? Unless he lost his shit on them and attacked them physically too, how would they know?
I believe the only reason I know what happened to me is because I’m sober.
When you drink, you don’t notice when you lose consciousness. You wake up hungover and don’t recognize the subtle feeling of your body being off - because you already have a headache, you’re sore, you’re tired. It’s because I was sober that I was able to piece it together.
He stood up, asked if I wanted water before breath work, unscrewed the bottle, and handed it to me.
I had a drink of water.
We did a 15-minute breathwork video.
After breathwork, I rolled onto my left side.
I couldn’t even bring myself to say goodnight.
I vaguely remember him standing up and walking to the hallway. That’s the last thing I remember.
My next memory is 5:56 AM.
I sat up in bed, and was actually grateful my alarm at 6:00 AM didn’t wake him up. I meditated, went home and showered, led a Yoga Sutra Study class, and chanted.
Just after 7:30 AM, I noticed I was bleeding. A thought flashed through my mind: something happened. But I dismissed it. He’d never do that. Besides, I would have woken up.
On the way to breakfast, I told him I had the best sleep of my life. That usually, I wake up all night. And it must be because I feel so safe with him.
I think a lot about the parallel universe that I could be living in where I never realized I was drugged and raped. If he hadn’t attempted to strangle me a week later, I never would have known what he’d done. It was only when I shook like a leaf out of fear for him strangling me, that my brain started working in the background, trying to solve a puzzle I didn’t even know was there.
That’s why I’m terrified for women everywhere. Because I now understand how easy it would be to never know that you were drugged and raped by an intimate partner.
Today, while meditating, I randomly thought of a book I read years ago—written by a woman raped by a psychopath. The book is called Mexican Hooker #1 by Carmen Aguirre. After the meditation, I searched and found the book on my computer to reread this passage that had stuck with me for over a decade. She writes:
“As for me, I have this fantasy that all of a sudden, from one day to the next, he starts feeling things. He is no longer a psychopath. Yemaya, patron goddess of the ocean, organizes a tidal wave. And all his feelings of remorse, compassion, sadness, grief, anguish, devastation, and bone-crushing pain come up like a flood. And his heart explodes with it all. No, I mean literally. His heart explodes from feeling too much.”
For years, she dreamed of his heart exploding.
But as I scrolled further, I read another line in the book a few pages later - when she finally meets her rapist in prison. This line, I didn’t remember from when I first read the book years ago.
She says to him:
“’John, I have spent many years pondering why you did what you did to me. And I know why. It was to teach me compassion. Even in the moment, during the actual attack, I could feel your pain. I could feel it” - I patted my heart - “right here. And so I want to thank you for teaching me compassion.’
My heart exploded in my chest. It wasn’t his heart that exploded from feeling too much, it was mine. Every chamber opened and filled with blood, and love.’
Today I had a call with an NGO in Bali called the Bali Women’s Crisis Center. We chatted for an hour and unfortunately came to the same conclusion. A case like this has very little legal actions that can be taken. There’s no evidence. No proof I was drugged, no proof it was nonconsensual. Unless someone comes across me on the dark web and wants to report it, then this will never be prosecuted.
“So what action do you want to come from this call today?” She asked me.
I thought for a moment and said, “I’d like for you to call me the next time a woman reports this to you. And I would like to be her support. That’s the action I’d like to come from this call.”
I think a lot about how that night when I agreed to do a breath work video with him I never expected what was going to happen. I never expected he was going to drug and rape me.
But today, I started to think when he chose to drug and rape me, he never expected what was going to happen. He probably never expected that my heart was going to open from this, not close.
He probably never expected that decide I was going to become an activist about this. That I would start writing and speaking and sharing and shouting from the rooftop about it. And then to be filled up from my community with more love than I ever could have imagined.
My heart has broken open and exploded. In the most beautiful way.
I am feeling more love right now than I ever have in my entire life.
My heart has exploded.
My heart has exploded from feeling too much.