Do you remember that time during the Super Bowl Half Time show in 2004 when Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson were performing and her breast was briefly exposed? I do.

I was standing behind my new sofa. It was one of those giant L-shaped sofas. Very deep and so cushy, covered in a sage colored chenille. There were four men sprawled out on it eating nachos or some sort of Super Bowl food, I can’t remember. The drummer, bass player, and two guitar players had come up to Eureka Springs Arkansas from Austin to play a weekend of gigs with my band. It had been a great weekend of musical collaboration. Everyone was exhausted and enjoying watching the game. I walked into the den and stood behind the drummer comfortably chilling on the sofa and stared at the TV like everyone else.

Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake and were the halftime act. I was thinking about how adorable he was and how great it was that he was from Memphis, Tennessee. An undeniable musical heritage by birth. Janet came on stage in a corset with pants and a white mermaid tail skirt. She did Rhythm Nation and Dance with Me with Justin in baggy khakis gyrating behind her. By the end of this song Justin had performed the part in the choreography where he ripped part of her corset off. And there was her boob flopping out of its holding pen in front of God and everybody.

I remember my response. Mind you, 5 men, staring at the TV at the same time. I said “Did you see that?; That was her boob!!! Not one of them had noticed it. I began to doubt myself. My brain could not compute what it had just witnessed.

I told them all that Janet Jackson’s boob just fell out of her corset when Justin Timberlake pulled a piece of the costume off. I couldn’t believe it was happening on National Television. It was a live performance so the engineers didn’t have time to cover for it. None of the guys believed me even though they were watching the exact same thing I was and at the exact same moment. They brushed it off and went on with their nachos. Their lack of belief was not because they had any agenda, they were just going on the information that we all had about our shared reality. Boobs never accidentally fall out on Prime Time television. That had never happened before, so the likelihood that it had just happened was practically zero. And yet, it did.

This is what some call a failure of imagination. And, we see this failure of imagination happening all around us. People are clinging to old systems and norms and unable to adapt to those systems being smashed before our very eyes like toddlers at a daycare beating the toy firetruck with a toy light saber. Due to a failure of imagination, they assume everything will always be as it always has been.

My ex-husband, however, did have an agenda. A complicated one. One that would take me years after that infamous Superbowl moment to unwind. That’s okay. I did it.

A favorite narrative about me being pushed behind my back by my him was that I was over reactive, crazy, dramatic, too much, insecure and high maintenance. This made for an especially confusing environment for my body because these things were not being done before my eyes, but in secret. So my nervous system was feeling what my eyes were not seeing.

Of course, the next day, the story of the now famous wardrobe malfunction was all over the news. I was vindicated.

Everyone takes in the same information differently. The way the information is relayed to you can affect how you absorb it. This is a daily occurrence when you are surrounded by people, as I am, who are speaking your language but for whom it is their second language. They are saying familiar words but the cadence, order, pronunciation, stress, and choice of words are unfamiliar. It takes an extra step to understand what is being said to you, even though you understand the words. Our bodies are taking in the information through our eyes, our ears and our nervous systems. This provides unlimited options for processing the information no matter how obvious it may seem for the persons delivering the information. The information is being delivered honestly and without hidden agenda but energy is still required to navigate the slight differences that have no shared experience for your system to rely on.

This is a different sort of navigation and processing of information that is required hen you live in an environment where you are surrounded by people who constantly tell you that you didn’t see what you just saw. It is designed to make you doubt yourself and the agenda is malicious and hidden. It’s hidden because the perpetrator knows that they are doing something malicious.

What looks normal on the outside, even somewhat successful and fine on the outside, but is actually chaotic, unsupportive, filled with outright lies and half truths purposely designed to keep you in the position that is most helpful to the manipulator and/or gas-lighter, you begin to cultivate the ability to notice small inconsistencies that others don’t. It’s a way to keep yourself safe. You either pretend to see what they tell you they saw so that you may remain a part of the system, or you learn to anticipate the lies and work backwards in order to try and find what their agenda for this half truth, bold lie, denial of your stated reality, or slanting of the shared reality. You begin to study the source. It’s a way of guarding against the coming doom. You stick to reality. You compare actions to words and make notes of where the two don’t add up.

Where others who have never been exposed to narcissistic abuse have an understandable failure of imagination due to never having been put in a position to need to remain hyper vigilant and thus have the luxury of navigating in a comfortable haze. The extra step of trying to translate what feels “off” to a normal nervous system is irrelevant if you’ve been surrounded by healthy people your entire life.

Those who chose instead to maintain the system that they were enmeshed in, even if it could possibly mean one’s own demise is an understandable response from my perspective. The choice to remain enmeshed with all you have known means safety and comfort on some deep level. Your very identity is at stake. Even to the extent that it is worth dying for or allowing your children to die for it as we have seen in recent years. Abandonment and being cast out of your group can feel like a fate worse than death.Having chosen to face the reality that those charged with loving me properly are incapable of doing so, has at times felt like a fate worse than death.

Being on my own, except for the unbelievable love and support of precious friends for the past 6 years has been almost more difficult in some ways than enduring the abuse and the inertia that naturally results in having to spend so much energy trying to filter through constant lies.

Unlike Janet Jackson, my vulnerable moments of nakedness were not displayed in public. I chose to walk away and find ways to heal myself and alchemize the pain in private until I found safe people to share it with. I learned how to process the pain, reach out for help, and I am just now finding a vocabulary to even describe what I have experienced. This writing is an attempt to hopefully, one day, help others who have been through secret traumas. To let them know that you can, eventually get through it. It sucks so bad, but it’s also an opportunity to learn new things about others, and if you have the courage; about yourself.

When you choose to live in reality, you must make difficult choices. You may even have to risk public humiliation. And, there is no guarantee that the outcome will be an improvement. So, I’m not ripping on people who choose to stay in bad situations. Flailing about unmoored until you figure it out has been an extended and terrifying trip for me. But, at least you give yourself the opportunity to find loving, calm, supportive, normal, non-manipulative people. Then you must face all of your fears so that you can meet them with an open, albeit battered, heart. They don’t deserve to be treated with suspicion or to try to force their way through your armor. You must take it off. You must risk a boob escaping from it’s corset.

Janet Jackson’s career was severely impacted by the unrehearsed and unapproved dance move that ended in a wardrobe malfunction, while Timberlake’s flourished afterward. She refused to apologize at the Grammy’s and she bore the consequences of the racism, misogyny and ageism, (she was 34 at the time) that followed. She also bore the abandonment that came after firing her father from her management team. Esquire magazine says “she built her reputation on the principle that no man could tell her what to do.” And when you stand up to manipulators in power, there will be consequences.

When you choose to remove your presence from people who can look straight at the unimaginable happening before their eyes and not even notice it, you find community with fellow seers. The process of receiving validation of your reality is a welcome contrast from the process of receiving information designed to cause you to constantly doubt your own eyes and nervous system. Being with people who value creating stability and supportive structures and building things together, versus being with people who value creating instability and destroying people because they refuse to look at themselves and take responsibility for their failures, has the power to heal. It also requires that you show up as a person who is willing to take a look at your own self, even when your boob is hanging out on national television.

I have empathy for my perpetrators and I forgive them. But only so that I can journey with a light heart full of love and joy. Not because that they are not guilty and not because they deserve any of my attention or energy on any level. Nor will ever be given access to it again. They taught me how and when to create boundaries and how to stand my ground at every tiny infraction that people of this sort constantly cross. It’s and important skill. So, to them, I am truly grateful.

I knew I’d seen Janet Jackson’s boob. But, I’d immediately doubted myself as I’d been taught to by my family system and then maintained by my spouse. I no longer seek external data or concrete proof. My intuition has a 100% correct track record. I’ve learned to trust it even when all evidence statistically suggests that it can’t be correct. Most people don’t remember the episode in Janet’s life. Most people think of her as the superstar recording artist sister of the iconic Michael Jackson.

I’m thankful that I am finally finding the courage to share my story in hopes that it will help others who have experienced similar circumstances. Not necessarily accidental public exposure, but the journey of keeping oneself safe from malicious actors. I hope someone out there will trust her gut and the result will be that she is safe.