Beth Stelling's Moving Post About Abusive Relationship Inspires Fellow Comedian to Come Forward

Benincasa shares that she once briefly mentioned the incident while taping a podcast, in a completely unplanned and non-scripted moment. After the taping, she says, she "pretended it didn't happen."

She notes that when the podcast aired, months after she had taped the episode, and friends and family heard her describe being hit, "it was quite jarring."

What didn't help at that time? "People asking who it was and threatening to kick his ass. The process of talking about it was almost more traumatic than the event itself. Suddenly everybody wanted to be a cowboy, and all I wanted to do was to hide."

Thinking back on the incident, and having mentioned it in the podcast, Benincasa says, "I remember the words came out of my mouth and I was shocked and so was my friend who hosted the podcast...I remember that when I talked about it, I kept apologizing for the dude and minimizing the situation and my friend, the host, pointed that out to me. I've still never listened to it. It is an audio record of me admitting something deeply painful and trying to figure out how to tell the story without panicking. It is documentation of fear and shame and perhaps the beginning of healing—and I have no desire to listen to it."

Which is why, when reading Stelling's post, Benincasa says she found herself grateful that, whether Stelling intended to or not, it had sparked a larger discussion about "a f--king horrifying topic."

"That post made a lot of us confront the ugly reality of abuse, something typically hidden away and not spoken of. I think that it is important because it shows us, once again, that even people who lead professionally successful lives—who are pretty, who are well-liked, who are adored in their professional community—still deal with this very common thing. It's obviously true and common sense, but it's easy to forget. Beth documenting her experience through photography puts it right in our face - she makes us not ignore it. You can't ignore it. You can't pretend it's not real. She's not making excuses. It's very impressive."

Benincasa notes that Stelling's post not only bravely shares her own personal story, but empowers others to do the same.

"She made me feel less afraid about talking about some stuff that's happened to me. I am someone who is pretty open about struggles with mental health, with suicide. But it's harder for me and for a lot of people to talk about something that was done to us, I think. Because there is this narrative that you are supposed to fight back. Or if you stay with somebody after they hit you—there's this story that if you aren't someone who fights back immediately, you aren't a noble victim. And we attribute a lot of qualities to women who don't fight back right away. There's this idea that it's easy to leave someone who hits you, or to never talk to them again, or to fall out of love with that person. The truth is vastly more complicated and different than that. That goes for hitting, cutting, rape—all different forms of abuse."