Aahana Swrup
The Lifetime film ‘Surviving the Silence: The Roxane Gay Story’ presents a poignant story about a young woman who experiences atrocious violence at a young age and continues to heal and grow in its painful aftermath. Shortly after the Gay family moves into a new suburban neighborhood, their eldest daughter, Roxane, befriends the neighbor’s son, Christopher. However, little does she know that Christopher is no friend and harbors sinister intentions that will leave the young girl forever scarred. In the aftermath, Roxane finds herself completely isolated in her trauma, unable to seek help and comfort from elsewhere. This suffering in silence sends her down a spiral of shame, which impacts her own relationship with her body image. As the years pass by, Roxane fights for ways to take back the loss of control she feels over her own body as she simultaneously tries to make her dreams come true. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Surviving the Silence: The Roxane Gay Story Ploy Synopsis
In 1986, Roxane Gay finds herself moving into a new neighborhood. This move comes with an onslaught of many other changes, such as a new school and new social circles to pursue. From the get-go, Christopher, an older boy who lives nearby, showcases an interest in befriending the young girl. Eventually, his malicious intentions towards her start to become clear when he invites her over to his house and proceeds to show her his Playboy magazines. When he kisses her and asks him to be his girlfriend, the naive 12-year-old ends up agreeing. Nonetheless, despite his affectionate behavior towards her behind closed doors, he remains stand-offish and mean at school, to the point where her friend, Mikey, has to stand up for her in front of the older boy’s bully friends.
When Roxane tries to express her frustration at his actions, Christopher manipulates and guilt-trips her and proceeds to assault her in his bedroom. The younger girl, who doesn’t understand the reality of what’s happening to her, starts to become distant, blaming her family for the move. Eventually, Christopher takes her out to the woods on a bike ride, where a group of his friends is waiting for them in the shed. The older boys proceed to rape her in the cabin, breaking the young girl in unimaginable ways. When she returns home the following night, her world has changed entirely. Nonetheless, her fear of her parents’ reaction prevents her from sharing this highly traumatic incident with them. The next day, rumors run rampant across the school, but Roxane convinces Mikey to keep the secret from her family.
By 1988, Roxane convinces her parents to enroll her in a private boarding school, which helps her put some distance between herself and her past. Nonetheless, she develops an antisocial personality as a defense mechanism. At the same time, she also develops an eating disorder, which results in drastic weight gain. When she returns home for summer vacation, her parents are surprised at her body transformation and seek out medical help to combat the issue. This becomes the start of a cycle of weight fluctuations for her. Meanwhile, at school, her English teacher notices a concerning pattern in Roxane’s writing, which notably centers around stories involving sexual violence and abuse. Therefore, he gently encourages her to talk to the school counselor, which proves to be of some help.
Years later, Roxane gets accepted into Yale University, but remains on the fence about attending. Instead, she wants to get a head start on her dreams of becoming a writer. Nonetheless, her parents refuse to let her skip out on a college education and compel her to take premed courses. Even though she makes some friends, college proves to be a tiring, high-pressure situation. Therefore, when her parents refuse to let her take a break, Roxane does something unexpected. She befriends a stranger online and accepts his offer to be flown to his hometown to stay with him for a while. This stranger, Ingles, ends up being a great friend. Yet, her parents eventually manage to track her down months later. Although she is reluctant, Ingles convinces her to return home and seek out a greater story for herself. As she grows older, Roxane becomes a professor, falls in and out of love a few times, and seeks out a book deal for herself with the hopes of sharing her story with the world.
Surviving the Silence The Roxane Gay Story Ending: Does Roxane Become an Author?
Roxane’s dream of becoming a writer stays with her through every chapter of her life, regardless of the storms she weathers. On her 12th birthday, before her life was permanently changed by her traumatic assault, her parents gifted her a typewriter to pursue her dreams. Although many things change in her life in the aftermath of the brutal life-changing incident, her love for writing never goes away. In fact, she is able to channel her grief and her hurt into the words she writes as a way to cope and heal at a time when she shuts herself out from any outside help. Writing continues to be a place of solace, creativity, and dedication for her through her 20s and 30s.
By the time Roxane is in her 40s, she has become an English professor with a PhD to her name. Although her manuscript continues to face rejection left and right, albeit of the flattering kind, she refuses to give up hope. In 2013, her dreams finally come true when her first novel is published and becomes a New York Times Bestseller. Although it isn’t a chronicle of her life in biographical details, it remains influenced and shaped by her trauma, becoming a vessel for it. This marks the beginning of a future filled with many successes. Roxane goes on to write many more books, receiving public and critical acclaim for them. Eventually, in 2017, she finally uses her writing to tell her own story in her own words.
In 2017, Roxane publishes her memoir titled ‘Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body.’ In the book, she talks not only about her story as a survivor of Christopher and his friends’ abuse, but also the journey of healing from that trauma. It intertwines her struggles with her body image issues. She talks about how her emotional trauma and loss of bodily autonomy directly resulted in her desire to take back control over her body through binge-eating and weight gain. Where previously a young Roxane had to use writing as a means of escaping, insisting that her words were nothing but stories in her mind, she now uses it as a bold and vulnerable tool of self-expression. Ultimately, this ability to confront her past becomes a significant feat in her journey of self-healing.
Why Does Roxane Start Therapy?
Roxane’s relationship with therapy and welcoming outside help in general remains a prickly part of her journey. Initially, in the aftermath of her sexual assault at 12, she internalizes feelings of shame, humiliation, and self-blame. Her young age, paired with her religious upbringing, prevents her from understanding the scope of what has happened to her. Even though her parents have always been supportive and loving, she starts to believe they will hate her for the incident and deem her sinful. This mindset extends to other adults in her life. Even when her high school English teacher attempts to get her to talk to the counselor, she’s reluctant to open up and refuses to share the reality of her experiences. Fortunately, the counselor is observant enough to read between the lines and realize that something incredibly traumatic has happened to the young girl.
Therefore, Roxane receives some resources that help make sense of her past and grow past those feelings of self-blame. Still, she remains dubious about entrusting therapy as a form of treatment for emotional, mental, and psychological wounds. That is, until an incident in her adulthood finds her booking an appointment with a therapist. On a non-descript day, Roxane falls and breaks her ankle. While the accident would have been a difficult hurdle for anyone, the author has a complex reaction to it on account of her weight. After the fall, instead of only focusing on her well-being and recovery, she found herself worried about whether or not the 911 first responders would be able to carry her to the back of the ambulance. Thus, Roxane realizes that she has a complex relationship with her weight, which is actively becoming a hindrance in her everyday life.
Even though she has accepted that changing her body might not be a possibility anymore, she wants to change the way she perceives it and interacts with it. Throughout her life, her body has been a vessel for control. When she was raped at 12, she was robbed of choices regarding her body and her mind. Afterward, she tried to regain that control by overeating to become physically larger in size as a defense mechanism. However, for the first few years of her teenagehood, her parents, oblivious to the struggles, forced diets and weight loss treatments on her. Even in her adult life, her weight and the complications born from it became catalysts for the end of multiple relationships. Therefore, Roxane’s decision to seek out therapy circles back to the inciting trauma in her life and the ways in which it has influenced her life ever since.
Do Roxane’s Parents Find Out What Happened to Her at 12?
Roxane’s parents remain a constant support system in her life, even at times when their inability to understand what has happened to their daughter leads them to make mistakes. Their concern over her rapid weight gain compels them to take actions that further emphasize the lack of control the author feels over her own body. Likewise, their initial reaction to her sexuality leaves much to be desired. Even so, they’re constantly doing their best, hoping to help their daughter wherever possible. Still, Roxane’s own complicated feelings about the assault, and a variety of other forces, prevent her from sharing the reality of her experiences with her family. It’s only years later, once she writes about it in one of her books, that her parents realize the reality of the trauma she suffered at such a young age.
However, when Roxane’s parents learn the truth, they make sure to show their love and support for their daughter, despite the distance in time between the incident and their reaction to it. Naturally, they’re hurt by the fact that she couldn’t bring herself to share this crucial information with them years earlier, but they understand her reasoning behind it. On the other hand, Roxane’s mother even reveals that she had noted a shift in her behavior as a kid and sought out help from a therapist herself in hopes that it would help her understand her daughter better. Moreover, she encourages the author to seek out professional psychiatric help, noting that it’s never too late to seek help and heal.
Read More: Roxane Gay: Where is the Writer Now?
You must be logged in to post a comment.