Know My Name: A Memoir

As Miller recounts the events of the trial, she criticizes the legal process for survivors, who face immense pressure on the witness stand. Miller discusses the gendered double standards that require female survivors to present themselves carefully during witness testimony to escape judgment: “[I]f you’re angry, you’re defensive. If you’re flat, you’re apathetic. Too upbeat, you’re suspect. If you weep, you’re hysterical” (149). When considering this pressure, she asks herself, “How should I balance it all?” (149). In addition to the emotional burden of reliving the details of their trauma and facing their assailants, survivors like Miller also carry the burden of these gendered stereotypes.

Miller organizes this chapter by the days of the trial. Presented as a journal, Miller chronicles the major testimonies and updates She details the emotional toll the trial has on her and her loved ones. After avoiding reviewing them, Miller finally returns to the transcripts of the investigation. She uses present tense when describing each event. As she reads, she states, “I am at the rape clinic” (157). For survivors, she suggests, to recall these traumatic moments is to relive them. This is an active process that leads to “the erasure of self, the unbecoming,” and Miller knows that “even after [she]’d leave […] [her] mind would stay there a long time, depleted for weeks” (159). The emotional impact of the legal process is one that is unavoidable for survivors and further highlights how the process does not center survivors and their well-being.

Once on the witness stand and facing her rapist, Miller abandons the pressure to stay composed. She allows herself to unleash the true overpowering wave of emotions that she, like many other survivors, are required to hide in their pursuit of justice. In this moment of empowerment through vulnerability, Miller decides, “Calm, collected, centered, strong, bullshit. I abandoned all of it, had no intention of stopping, had lost the little voice that told me to reel it in, could only think release, release, release” (166). This is a conscious choice that Miller makes. In these moments of empowered vulnerability, Miller finds freedom.

Through this trial, Miller grows increasingly aware of the inequalities faced by survivors in the criminal justice system. She observes the way the defense uses her sister Tiffany’s testimony to create “distorted realities, [their] words twisted until [they] became uncertain, discredited, writing [them]selves off as flawed and broken” (186). She emphasizes the impact of these tactics on survivors and their loved ones, who become consumed by self-doubt as the defense and media constantly call their characters into question. Survivors like Miller are unable to defend themselves or to paint a picture of their whole selves within the legal process. Miller underscores how this dehumanization leaves survivors vulnerable, with “nothing to suggest that [she] was a person extracted from a full life, surrounded by people who cared about [her]” (193).

Surprisingly, Turner’s guilty verdict leaves Miller overwhelmed with a sense of sadness, as she realizes in this moment the amount of self-doubt and blame she had placed on herself. She speaks directly to Emily, her self-appointed, dissociated self that carries the weight of her trauma. She apologizes to Emily and ultimately to herself as she proclaims, “You were not crazy” (208). Miller shifts from the second to the first person as she acknowledges the harm she has done to herself: “I believed I needed permission to return to my life, waiting for validation. I promised myself I would never question whether I deserved better” (208). Miller mourns the fact that she needed this verdict to validate what she inherently knew: that she was not to blame for her rape and that she deserves better.

As she completes this journey towards greater self-love and self-compassion, Miller feels connected to a greater community of survivors. She reads the letters Alaleh gives her after the trial and realizes that she is “surrounded by survivors. [She] was part of a we” (212). This realization furthers Miller’s pursuit of a higher purpose to connect with and advocate for other survivors. She now sees herself as “the leader on the front line fighting, with an entire infantry behind [her]” (212). Though the trial centers around the moment Miller became a victim, its ending focuses on the moment Miller becomes a leader.