When reporting a sexual assault to the police, the Emmy-award winning Michaela Coel recalled watching the detective playing Pokémon Go on his phone. Coel describes this moment as a kind of epiphany, stating that she “suddenly [realised her] life was really about to change for ever.” Coel expertly channelled this frustration, confusion, and pain of her assault into her hit series, I May Destroy You, which explores the life of Arabella, a young woman navigating the aftermath of a sexual assault. Arabella struggles to move past this, much like her creator Coel, describing herself as being ‘fixated on the past’ despite life continuing around her.

Watching Coel’s masterpiece, I found myself relating to Arabella. After experiencing sexual assault in my second year of university, I understood the feeling of being trapped in a bizarre time-loop. Despite having a constant onslaught of assignments, regular sporting fixtures, and too many social events to keep track of, I constantly replayed the same few hours in my head over, and over, and over again. I felt as though I had lost my core spark, and I could only hope to find it again. I felt hollow, empty, and like my identity amounted to nothing more than being a victim.

Coel touches on this loss of agency and identity in I May Destroy You, as Arabella is raped at a bar appropriately named ‘Ego Death’. As the Oxford Dictionary defines the ego as the ‘part of the mind which is most conscious of self’, an ego death represents the moment when a person loses their sense of self. Arabella’s assault taking place at ‘Ego Death’ is Coel’s way of pointing towards the larger impact of sexual assault, an impact which goes beyond a violation of physical boundaries and results in the loss of the victim’s identity.

This loss of identity is explained to Arabella by her therapist, who draws an ‘A’ on a piece of paper, representing Arabella. Next to the ‘A’, she draws an ‘X’, with a line between the two letters, saying that ‘a line is drawn separating bad from good, friend from foe […] criminal, victim.’ Fundamentally, the ‘A’ represents a version of ourselves that has no negative connotations, and it is how we often choose to view ourselves. Next to her therapist’s drawing, Arabella draws an ‘A’ with an ‘X’ on top of it, showing how her identity is altered as victimhood is forced upon her.

‘Victim’ is a word with uncomfortable connotations. It reduces an individual to being the unwilling recipient of another’s actions, stripping them of any sense of autonomy. In sexual assault, victims are on the receiving end of a power imbalance which often makes them feel smaller or lesser than the perpetrator of the crime, creating feelings of embarrassment and shame. Indeed, the Independent reported that 53% of women who have been sexually assaulted are too ashamed to even talk about their experience with their loved ones.

I was also reluctant to share my experience, feeling that being assaulted was an embarrassing moment that revealed an inner weakness. I desperately wanted to hold on to the ‘Old Me’, a version of myself who hadn’t been assaulted. The ‘Old Me’ was happier, funnier, and more enriched than this ‘New Me’, but it went beyond that. The ‘Old Me’ had never felt shame on the level which I experienced in the aftermath of my assault. Like Arabella, I was desperate to return to the ‘A’ which not only felt like a safe identity, but a confident identity that other people would enjoy being around. In my mind, I couldn’t help but think: Who would want to be friends with a victim?

My determination to forget my assault denied me the experience of evolving with the assault. In the final episode of I May Destroy You, Arabella embraces her new identity. The symbol of the ‘X’ layered over the ‘A’ is no longer an image drawn on a scrap of paper in a therapist’s office, but it is the design on the cover of Arabella’s self-published book. While viewers don’t know what the contents of this book are, we can assume it covers the same topics of the TV show: rape and assault. By choosing the entwined ‘A’ and ‘X’ symbol for her book’s cover, Arabella chooses this identity. While the opening of the episode ‘Ego Death’ implies that Arabella’s old identity was killed off by her rapist, the end of the episode provides a stark contrast to this moment when Arabella kills her own ego. She realises that that her old identity, or the ‘A’, no longer serves her, and that the existence of the ‘X’ is nothing she needs to hide.

Many people who have been assaulted reject the term ‘victim’, instead identifying as ‘survivors’ in order to reclaim an element of power following rape and assault. Coel weaves this message throughout her show, but it is especially pronounced in this ending where  Arabella embraces what has been done to her. Gisèle Pelicot, a woman who was infamously raped by over fifty men, stated during her watershed trial that ‘it’s not for us to have shame – it’s for them’. Ms. Pelicot firmly places the shame of sexual misconduct with perpetrators. Coel takes this further by suggesting that there is strength to be found in a survivor's identity, as a survivor is someone who experiences a horrific event, yet continues on with their life. Watching this finale, I realised that being a victim is not something to be ashamed of, nor did it make me weak. If anything, it is an important part of my identity that reflects the resilience and determination of my character, rather than being a shameful secret.

14% of university students in the UK experience sexual assault during the period of their studies, and yet it is seldom talked about because of the weight of shame that is placed upon survivors of such events. If someone is humiliated in such a disturbing way, whether it be assault, sustained bullying, or hate speech, it is natural to reject the new identity that arises from these events. However, Coel’s show highlights how this only sustains feelings of shame. Perhaps the unspecified ‘You’ that the show’s title threatens to destroy is Arabella herself, letting go of her old identity to make space for a new one and allowing herself to finally thrive despite experiencing a deeply upsetting event. If I May Destroy You taught me anything, it is that by embracing a survivor’s identity, we can let go of any shame. By embracing a survivor’s identity, we allow ourselves to move forward. And lastly, by embracing survivor’s identity, we allow ourselves to grow.