This is my #MeToo experience in which I name my abuser and also share my psychological process around the MeToo movement.

Eighteen years ago, in my twenties, I dated architect Sagar Shetty, who was in his mid-forties at the time, for two years. During this time, I was assaulted by him verbally and physically. I have been screamed at, kicked in my stomach after being thrown to the ground, hit so hard that my nose bled, slapped repeatedly and even pushed out of a moving car.

The first time he screamed at me, I remember being absolutely transfixed, having had until then no experience of any kind of violence. And when he apologised, with sad stories of his own traumatic past and his need for love, I allowed myself to believe that being in a ‘normal’ relationship would be healing for him and that love was the answer. To be honest, providing this healing was a great way for me to distract myself from my own immense pain (I had very recently lost my father, broken up with the big love of my life, and, along with my mother, was made to leave the home we lived in by an uncle).

The first time he hit me, I hit back, naively thinking this would show him that he couldn’t treat me like that. He quickly disabused me of that thought by thoroughly beating me up. My confused anger was no match for his strength and violent rage. That night, he established very clearly who held the power. I do believe any act of both abuse and intimacy post this night was non-consensual. All I felt was numb. Today, I can see that underneath the numbness was abject terror and immense pain. Back then, I had disassociated from my body and my emotions and could not access either. Instead, I was in my head trying to ‘make sense’ of what was going on. The shame I felt for not being able to walk out of that situation was so great that I managed to hide what was going on from almost everybody. My desperate attempt to hold onto some illusion of power was by normalising the situation and ‘analysing’ it, and thereby unconsciously becoming an ally to the worst violence that I have experienced. Meanwhile, the abuse got progressively worse, to the point he had no fear in abusing me in front of people.

Eventually, with the support of a wonderful counsellor, I managed to gather enough strength to leave. Over the last 18 years, I have rarely looked back at the ‘Sagar episode’. When I did it was from various psychological perspectives and theories to gain understanding into my own patterns, needs, etc.

Three weeks ago, with the second wave of the #MeToo movement, this changed. The heartbreaking stories that emerged and the horror of knowing and having socialised with men named as perpetrators stirred things up. I began to get a sense of unconsciously being complicit in some way in this violence against women. Then I realised that I had never held Sagar accountable (even to myself) for his actions. I believed I was equally responsible, because I was not strong enough to walk out.

I was voicing this to a friend and wondering if I should name Sagar. Her response to me was
‘ I don’t approve of this MeToo movement – it’s a bunch of angry women getting together and inciting each other to make all sorts of accusations.
What about the poor men who are going to be falsely accused?’
‘Why do women need to come together in a group? They should learn to strengthen themselves individually and not throw their anger around and jump onto this #MeToo bandwagon.’
‘This is not the way to create change, and anyway, society can never be equal’.

Brinda Jacob-Janvrin