Baby Reindeer F#cked Up My Memoir Introduction (Memoir Intro - Part I of III)

May 14, 2024

If you have somehow managed to miss all the media hype, the Netflix Baby Reindeer series is a heavy hitter on both stalking and sexual abuse. Please check in with yourself before proceeding with this article and skip it for now if you aren’t in the mental or emotional space to consume content that includes discussion of these disturbing topics.

As If Writing Isn’t Already Hard

Thanks, Baby Reindeer

As a new creator here on the Substack platform, I’ve been feeling a bit pressured to quickly publish my next post.

The plan for the next post was to give a very basic introduction to the primary project I’m currently working on, what I referred to here as The Book.

The Book is, as much as this word gives me the heebyie-jeebies, a memoir.

But I’d keep it straight to the point, saving the messy emotional stuff for later. Seemed straightforward enough.

So I started the draft and then let it sit. Planned to return, finish it up, and move on with life.

But then, I watched Baby Reindeer (gad-damnit!)

If you’ve seen this series on Netflix, then you know that for most people you can’t just watch Baby Reindeer. Its an… ahem… experience.

And because of my current immersion in the process of drafting my memoir, it may have hit me particularly hard.

My own story isn’t being written with the intention to frame it as a tragedy by an means, but I’ve lived through a lot of shit, and just last week, I wrote the section about a particularly disturbing experience that occurred as a middle schooler where I found myself cornered and outnumbered by two older boys. It turned out to be an experience that would rip the script of my life out of my hand, toss it in a metal trash can with some gasoline and a match, and force me to watch it burn.

I would later sift through the ashes, frantically looking for anything still in tact so that I could put the pieces back together. Eventually I would realize that it simply wasn’t recoverable. I’d have to write a new script. And at 14, I guess I thought a thriller sounded fun, because it was one hell of a script.

All that to say: watching Baby Reindeer was a bit like stepping into a wet suit that was full of tiny vicious sharks who were already snapping at me, zipping it up, and then jumping into a tank filled… more sharks. In other words, I brought my own demons with me to the party.

The Post that Fights Back

When I returned to my draft post, it just didn’t resonate anymore. I’ve been fighting with it ever since. I hate admitting this, but the post has been unequivocally winning. I spent an unreasonable (and unscalable!) number of hours unsuccessfully trying to push the post back into the box it was supposed to be in pre-Baby Reindeer.

In resignation, I tried to let it just hang out of the box. But to do that I had to give so much more back story as to why the show was so hard hitting for me. Predictably, that became unreasonably long and just way too much, an unruly octopus trying to reach in every single direction at once.

I don’t exactly feel like I have won, or even evened the score, with the original post. Its still taunting me as the asshole that it is. But at least I’ve been able to untangle myself from its tentacles and I’m gonna give you a review of Netflix’ Baby Reindeer series instead.

(Psssst. This actually is still an introduction to the memoir, but for god sakes, DON’T tell that asshole original post or I’ll never hear the end of it.)

Now, buckle up. (And don’t say I didn’t warn you.)

Consider sharing this post with someone you think might appreciate it.

Introduction to The Sh!t-show

Baby Reindeer Episode 1 begins with plain text on the screen telling the viewer that this is a true story. Not based on a true story, but a true story. The main character, Donny, works as a bartender but aspires to be a comedian.

The seven episodes tell the story of how Donny comes to be aggressively stalked by a woman named Martha. They met in the bar where Donny worked.

They start with innocent enough banter, but things escalate quickly and Martha begins to reveal herself. As the intensity increases, Donny does some snooping and discovers that Martha has been convicted and sentenced to jail time for stalking other men in the past.

So he knows fairly early on that she is dangerous, or at the very least an expert at the crazy she was inflicting on him.

Donny is played by actor Richard Gadd. Gadd is not only the lead actor, but also the writer and creator of Baby Reindeer. The kicker is that he is also the real-life person that the supposedly true story is about. He is playing himself.

I am no expert on the back-story of this show nor do I wish to use this space for the purpose of speculating on whether the story is depicted as accurately as it claims to be or not. I’m going to share a bit of my armchair quarterback observations and opinions, but its not based on research and you will have to study the Baby-Reindeer-turned-witch-hut internet-storm if you’d like to indulge your curiosities further on that part.

Still, as creator, writer, and lead actor, I couldn’t help but notice that if this story is true, one has to wonder why Gadd didn’t lean into the opportunity that he clearly had to paint himself as the innocent and blameless victim of a deranged, repeat offender stalker.

Instead, Gadd seems to go out of his way - above and beyond, if you will - to call attention to all the subtle ways that he encouraged his stalker to continue her behavior and allowed it to go on much longer than he should have.

If you’ve watched the series or read practically anything online about this show, then you probably also know that stalking is not the only traumatic topic that is broached.

Instead, the underlying theme, arguably the main theme, is sexual abuse. Specifically, male-on-male rape. Through Donny’s character, Gadd shows us in great detail where it all began.

Where It All Began Is Important

Donny meets Darrien, who is introduced as a successful writer. Darrien helps Donny with his comedy routine, and showers him with compliments. Donny is led to believe that Darrien’s intention is use his experience and influence within the entertainment industry to support the development of Donny’s art and career.

Episode 4 in particular is almost completely dedicated to showing viewers what happens as Donny becomes obsessed with the idea of success in his comedy career, with the idea of fame, and most importantly - with Darrien as the potential golden ticket. Episode 4 shows us how enmeshed Donny becomes, and how Darrien takes full advantage of Donny’s resulting vulnerability.

Darrien invites Donny to his fancy apartment and creates a pattern of kicking off their evenings together by getting high, generally giving Donny much more drugs than he himself takes, and Donny’s vulnerability becomes a dangerous liability.

We are shown what happens when Donny finally passes out into fitful, drug-induced sleep. While he is unconscious or otherwise unable to respond, Darrien takes advantage of Donny sexually.

Each time Donny awakes from one of these nightmares, he is shown to be in pain, confused, disoriented. Over time Donny comes to clearly understand what is happening.

Still, he doesn’t stop the visits. It is grueling to watch.

Donny somehow just can’t find it within himself to stay away. Even as the situation becomes more dire, he seems to be almost increasingly helpless and mute in his ability to say no to the invitations, to the drugs, to any of it.

But eventually, the visits do stop.

Sniffing Around the Wreckage

We hear from Donny as he reflects on everything that happened with Darrien, giving us a glimpse into the resulting wreckage.

a black and white photo of a person in the dark — Photo by Akshar Dave🌻 on Unsplash

This is an excerpt from the narrative monologue that Donny delivers as part of that reflection, from a transcript of Episode 4 found at Scraps from the Loft:

“Now all that was left to do was stare at the memory of what happened. I started to feel this overwhelming sexual confusion crashing through my body. I thought it might pass, but it became an insecurity, which grew into a raging madness within me.

I could never tell whether these feelings were because of him or whether they always existed deep down. Did it all happen because I was giving off some vibe I wasn’t aware of? Or did what happen make me this way?

I would feel like everyone who looked at me could see what I was going through. Like they were peering into my soul, seeing the rape and the doubts and the confusion.

Like my eyes were these windows onto the most tightly-held secret of my life.

I would dream of killing him, chopping his cock off or his tongue out, whichever had done me the most damage, and burning his body to the ground.

So after months of hate and anger and confusion, I was left with no choice. […]”

As a survivor of more than my share of sexual trauma, all of what Donny said resonated. The self-doubt. The questioning. Sexual confusion. The circling and circling and circling the same spot trying to figure out whose fault it really was and the disconcertingly grey line that seems to barely distinguish where assaulter ends and victim begins.

But in a way, some parts of this were – as gauche as it may sound – old hat for me. I’ve been processing this stuff for several decades both on my own and with some really excellent therapists and resources.

But other parts… oof. Well, let me show you.

Donny went on.

“I started having reckless sex with people of all genders in this desperate pursuit of the truth.

I would put myself in fucked-up situations where I’d almost risk being raped again in this attempt to understand the first time. Like if I’m passed around like a whore, then I might at least shed this idea that my body is part of me somehow.

Like who cares if it happened before? It’s happened a ton of times now, so what does it matter?

But it mattered.

It mattered because this is what he wanted. This is what he saw in me all along. […]”

In this short monologue, and the scenes that followed, Gadd paints clearly the picture of what can break and what can change inside a person after this type of trauma.

Which, by the way, is nearly everything.

We see Donny having fanatical, rabid sex with one person after another in increasingly dark and dangerous scenarios. We see the emptiness in his eyes, and that lust has overtaken him in a way that he doesn’t understand. He seems to be searching frantically, as if driven by a motor. But it seems all too clear that he has, as yet, no idea of what he is looking for or how this insanity will ever slow down let alone stop.

The Rest of Baby Reindeer

In the remaining episodes of the series, Gadd goes on to connect the dots and show viewers how the fundamental brokenness that resulted from the abuse left Donny, amongst other things, a more enticing and likely victim.

As much as this appears (superficially) to border on victim-blaming, we are shown how the brokenness within Donny serves as an invitation to encourage Martha’s unstable and insatiable appetite. There is a crack in the armor, some kind of exposed need or pain, that Martha can’t, or at least doesn’t, choose to resist. As sick as it all sounds, the brokenness in Donny seems to have positioned him as the ideal target for Martha.

Sadly, and worse, it was a double whammy for Donny. Because not only did the previous abuse place him strategically in the crosshairs of becoming a victim again, the brokenness also made Donny generally more emotionally vulnerable throughout the whole ordeal of Martha’s stalking.

So rather than flee at the first sign of Martha’s really twisted tendencies Donny seems inclined, or perhaps compelled, towards behaviors that exacerbate the already terrible situation by giving her more instead of less opportunities to create havoc in his life.

Stupid Reindeer, Get Out of My Head

I had frozen, hyper-focused while Donny delivered his monologue, a review of the abuse that had occurred and how it had impacted him.

But as I listened, I think I forgot that about Donny the character. I heard only the author, creator, and actor - Richard Gadd. And indeed, billed as a ‘true story’ this was supposedly Gadd’s actual story.

But no, even then it wasn’t Gadd’s story. Or at least not only his. I was listening to my story.

The precision with which he was describing my life, both the near term consequences and the long term fallout - convinced me that this story was real.

I didn’t, and still don’t, care about the internet drama trying to uncover the truth about what in the story was real and what wasn’t. It’s just noise.

In those moments where I was captivated, frozen, it would have been nearly impossible for me to be convinced that those words could have been written by someone who did not live the experience themselves.

I stand by my promise at the beginning, that the purpose of this piece was not and is not to discuss the credibility or accuracy of the story relative to whatever real life events actually occurred. That is still not the point.

The point is, that I heard my truth related in an alarming and explicitly accurate way that I never had before.

This Part Isn’t Funny

The atom bomb that had imploded my life after one single night at the mercy of two older boys – had been described and distilled into actual words, written somewhere on a page by a person I had never met, and spoken into my living room.

I’ll cry at a poorly-acted, sappy Hallmark movie any day of the week. But I am not one who finds it easy to let my emotions about my own experiences bubble to the surface fully enough to draw actual tears.

But after the Episode 4 monologue, I was consumed. Sobs sucked the air out of me and refused to be held in. The clarity was too clear. I could see too much.

I knew I was vulnerable because the memories weren’t buried, or even peacefully resting somewhere while I carried on with the usual doings of life. Instead, by writing about them I’d let down the walls, accepted their realness, and given them permission to be close me.

I couldn’t watch anymore. I carried my sobs with me and rushed to my room. The tears flowed until only exhaustion remained. And then I slept.

Stay Tuned, I Promise It’s Not All This Dark

In the coming, Memoir Intro - Part II, I’ll delve further into some of the themes that will be included within my memoir - and why they should matter to you, regardless of your background.

Stay tuned.

~ Rose

pink flower — Photo by Tirza van Dijk on Unsplash