{"id":670887,"date":"2026-01-03T09:42:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T09:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/670887\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T09:42:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T09:42:11","slug":"i-may-destroy-you-helped-me-confront-being-spiked-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/670887\/","title":{"rendered":"I May Destroy You helped me confront being spiked | Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I May Destroy You<\/a> aired in the summer of 2020, I hadn\u2019t yet been spiked. Michaela Coel\u2019s comedy-drama, based on her own experience of sexual assault, follows Arabella (Coel) as she realises she was drugged and raped on a night out. With one in four women in Britain having experienced sexual violence, the 12-part series was a difficult watch for many. If not relatable, then confronting and familiar; something that had happened to others, but close enough to know that it could happen to you. Three months later, it did happen to me. I remember going back to a man\u2019s flat on a second date, but then there\u2019s a\u00a0vast nothingness that I\u2019ve been unable to make sense of since.<\/p>\n

The morning after, confused and embarrassed by my memory loss, I asked him what had happened. When he said we\u2019d had sex, and I said I couldn\u2019t remember it, he seemed offended, as though my amnesia were an accusation. After tea and toast, I\u00a0left to meet my sister, who, when I\u00a0told her I had blacked out after only three drinks, suggested I\u2019d been drugged. I initially dismissed this \u2013 that\u2019s what depraved strangers do to paralytic women on sticky club toilet floors. Not men you like in nice flats with comfy sofas. Not men who you would have had sex with anyway, consciously and consensually. Then I remembered the half-empty bottle of wine, leftover from a dinner party, offered to me but untouched by him.<\/p>\n

Twenty minutes later, I was on the phone to the police. An hour later, they\u00a0were at my house. I was being swabbed, putting my nice underwear into evidence bags, never to be seen again. I tried to answer their questions in a way that didn\u2019t seem like I was lying, even though I wasn\u2019t. When they asked for his name and address, I wondered out loud what would happen to him. \u201cWe\u2019ll arrest him,\u201d they said. It all seemed so dramatic, so irreversible, so life-ruining, and how could I be sure? I could already hear my own uncertainty being used against me.<\/p>\n

If he had been a stranger, the investigation would have continued, but as I knew him and wouldn\u2019t divulge his details, I was withholding information, so it ended there. Either a crime had been committed or it hadn\u2019t, and if it had, then they needed a name. In the absence of that, my samples wouldn\u2019t be tested, but they would freeze my urine and keep my swabs in case I changed my mind. I put the police officer\u2019s card on my bedroom shelf and to the back of my mind, where it stayed for the next five years.<\/p>\n

I thought spiking was done by depraved strangers. Not by men you like in nice flats<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This year, after a conversation with\u00a0a\u00a0friend who had gone through something similar, I decided to rewatch I May Destroy You, perhaps hoping it would become a catalyst. I felt nervous. It had rattled me the first time, so what would it do now that I had experienced my own version of violation? Would it be catharsis or a wound reopened? For years, I had carried the guilt that, in having protected one man, I\u2019d probably sacrificed other women to unknowable sinister black holes.<\/p>\n

It was during the fifth episode, when Arabella is praised for her bravery, that I pressed pause and went looking for the officer\u2019s card. I called 101 and asked whether they still had a record of the case. I was given another phone number, and spoke to more people. No one seemed sure of how to\u00a0progress after so many years, or whether my sample still sat in a freezer. I searched for his name in WhatsApp to find a profile photo of him holding a baby like a father would hold his child. I felt both more and less certain than ever about the decision I had made. Could this dad really have violated me in the way I\u00a0feared he had? At the same time, I\u00a0felt\u00a0angry that he had gone on to have\u00a0a normal, full life.<\/p>\n

In the variations of Arabella confronting, avenging or understanding her rapist in the final episode, we see different reckonings; ones she will never have, I will never have, most women will never have. But rewatching I May Destroy You and picking up the phone to at last ask these questions \u2013 I finally have something like closure.<\/p>\n

The case is now in limbo but I feel better for having pursued it. Although I continue to live with the uncertainty, just knowing that reopening the case would be more complicated than I thought, and unlikely to bring the resolution I had spent years secretly fantasising about, felt like a full stop, an end to the guilt and shame that should never have been mine. Anonymous<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the UK, Rape Crisis<\/a> offers support on 0808 500 2222 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland<\/a>, or 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland<\/a>. In the US, Rainn<\/a> offers support on 800-656-4673. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect<\/a> (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org\/rcip\/internl.html<\/a><\/p>\n

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You can tell us how a cultural moment has prompted you to make a major life change by filling in the form below or emailing us on\u00a0cultural.awakening@theguardian.com.<\/p>\n

Your responses, which can be anonymous, are secure as the form is encrypted and only the Guardian has access to your contributions. We will only use the data you provide us for the purpose of the feature and we will delete any personal data when we no longer require it for this purpose. For alternative ways to get in touch securely please see our tips guide<\/a>.Show more<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When I May Destroy You aired in the summer of 2020, I hadn\u2019t yet been spiked. Michaela Coel\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[77,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-670887","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115830518111421758","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}