Category: activism

“The law student had seemed trustworthy and responsible. It seemed like an obvious choice. I had torn my dorm room apart. I still remember the mound of stuff on my bed, including the lamp from my desk whose lamp shade was now all dented and torn up. I still remember having torn most of my favorite wall coverings off the walls, including that gorgeous pastel I’d done my senior year of high school which got destroyed in the process. It was so obvious something was off. And it was a welfare check He was supposed to come see that I was okay and then call the officer back.

I don’t remember exactly how it all went down. Except that it was dark in the room except the TV was on. And I hadn’t let him in the building, this was another example of him managing to let himself in after someone, probably. But it was about 9 PM. One of my pod-mates must have let him into our suite, bevcause he was able to knock right on my room door. He didn’t call to tell me he was coming over.

I was 19. He said he was 26. It was his birthday, so I thought he was turning 27. I was psychotic. There should have been no question about my ability (or lack of ability) to consent to anything sexual in nature. I’d already made clear to him that I was a virgin waiting for marriage for sex. But sex with that man happened to me during that welfare check.

He was there for maybe 15 minutes. He wouldn’t let me leave my room with him when he said it was time for him to go, told me to stay in the room. I assume he called the officer after he left.

I managed to get a withdrawal with hardship due to health reasons from GSU that semester. I got in touch with my psychiatrist from home and got the meds I needed and got back on track to start again in the Spring semester. It was a nightmare. I had to start over from scratch school-wise which included 4 W’s as grades, but I’d gotten a WF in English, which meant my HOPE scholarship was in jeopardy if I didn’t do exceptionally well over the next several semesters. It’s a miracle I managed to graduate in five years— it was really four and a half, given that the first semester didn’t count except to lower my GPA. But I graduated with departmental honors in the end.” “My Me Too,” by me, November 4, 2017

“Also– I have reason to believe you sold that photo I sent you a million years ago.
I want whatever proceeds were made from that photo. Every. Last. Single. Dime. Plus any proceeds from any videos you may have made of any of our “escapades.”
I don’t have to tell you that that photo was sent under duress, as was every last minute of our entire relationship.
Your entire empire is built on a series of lies.
I hope you sleep well at night. Every last night.
But any proceeds you made off me are mine.”— Me, in writing, to him, May 8, 2023

“Please don’t be mad at me for the things I did.” His words, in person, to me, December 5, 2025

“There will be no absolution, no forgiveness. I never actually responded directly to your statements last December imploring me multiple times desperately to “not be mad at you for the things you did.” I simply wanted to see if I was strong enough to face you last December. And then I did the thing I always do in the aftermath: I retreated into myself, doubting myself, deferring to you all these months after.”— Me, in writing, to him, October 30, 2025

“I don’t want to hate you anymore. Feeling like I am at war with somebody I used to love is exhausting.” Me, in writing, to him, March 2, 2026

I did tell him that relational power is so much better than his transactional power of buying board seats to make himself feel important, too, earlier in February in writing. I couldn’t resist bragging about having a child who was admitted to Grinnell. 

Silence since October 30. 

I listen to the podcast “We Can Do Hard Things,” and when it came on today, I should have known from the tone exactly what the topic of the day was. It wasn’t the most recent episode but there was the beginning of chat about the Epstein files.

And I crumbled, and I came home, and I wrote this in a one-fell-swoop-stream-of-consciousness after I washed my hair in a crazy frenzy that felt like my life depended on getting this writing out of my head and into my computer. 

And most days, most days even looking at the news, I can compartmentalize. I don’t get swept up in the parallels even if I was of-age even though I was definitely in the midst of a psychotic episode in November of 1998. Or the fact that the five years that followed felt definitely like coercion.

He told me on December 5, 2025 that he had been in love with me. He told me everybody in law school thought he was 29— HA he couldn’t even keep track of the age he’d told me he was at the time, given that he’d lied abou this age. And I guess I can sort of buy that on some level, in whatever capacity his narcissistic brain is capable of falling in love with anyone. 

The fact that the world is swept up in the sordid details of whatever has gone on in what powerful men thought was their private lives forever and ever, and is now catching up with at least some of them…. 

I live with the constant that I have indeed come face to face in the last year and a half twice with my own personal verison of the “elite underclass” as I prefer to think of that particular personal demon. 

The sort of person who buys board seats and stadium boxes, who collects luxury cars and expendable women, for fun. 

And for a time, I was one of those expendable women, even if I never saw a dime at all.

In mid-December 2025, approximately one week after I first tested myself to see if I could face him in person, I collapsed on the very couch I am sitting on right now, as I texted Jared the full story of what had happened a week prior. 

And I don’t know exactly what Jared said to that man in the aftermath, but Jared has made it clear that I did nothing wrong, even though my brain says it was all my fault. I know that man wanted to know in October of 2025 if I ever dress up for Jared like a school girl, making it clear exactly what the five years I was an undergrad and in whatever form of relationship I had been in with him, had been exactly about all that time for him. 

And yes, the news is triggering. And yes, it doesn’t matter that I don’t even watch the news anymore. There is literally no getting away from the fact that the world— that people— seem to not have enough of their own drama that somehow getting to the bottom of what must be a nightmare for who-knows-how-many women dealing with the public version of their very own private hellscapes….. 

I walk around daily myself knowing that someone who never should have graduated from law school is now a multimillionaire and top-grossing partner at an international firm…..that person would never have even graduated had I had the wherewithall to report what happened in November of 1998. The wound is compounded by my school to this day due to his relationship with that institution, and that’s all I care to say about it. 

And that person didn’t even have the decency to provide even basic job suggestion assistance despite it being a light task for someone in his particular speciality, last October.

And I am very well aware that my having any modicum of financial independence would not benefit that particular person. 

And while I am unlikely to ever act on it because I definitely do not need the headache, that person also gave me the ammunition I really could take to the Bar if I wanted to, last October. That man thinks he’s untouchable enough to take a client call on speakerphone in front of me, giving legal advice right in front of me, just to show off his power. I didn’t ask for identifying information or any questions at all; he gave it in showing off. 

And I don’t really know what got into me on the way home from my ACTH test today, listening to that podcast and the tears flowing from other women about the tragedy that is whatever is in the Epstein files. I try not to think about it most days.

But, I do very much know how it feels to have a powerful man walking around free and thriving, squandering his millions on ridiculously frivolous keeping-up-with-the-elite, pretending to be something he is not, and knowing all about exactly what that man is compensating for in his pants. Being celebrated by the very institution that should have protected me and didn’t in 1998.

And, I do actually think there are probably videos somewhere.

The thing is…..he apologized with out acutally apologizing. Imploring me to “not be mad at me for the things I did”— his words— is a non-apology.

But it does raise questions: what things, exactly, did he do? Because the word “things” indicates there is perhaps more than one reason I should be mad at him. 

I’m too tired to care anymore about what anyone thinks, him, or anyone else. I sat through an ACTH test today to determine exactly the nature of my low cortisol and the very reaction I had— a zen feeling instead of the expected nausea and anxiety— I just cannot care anymore. 

I’ve spent 28 years suppressing my voice on the off-chance that there might be some reason for preserving that relationship, and the very fact that last October’s interaction happened, compounded by the recent lack of decency that man has shown with my medical divulgences…..I’m done.

I’m done worrying about what people think, I’m done worrying about hurting his feelings, I’m done suppressing my truth. 

I’m not that 19-year old psychotic girl so desperate to escape the shadow of another abusive relationship that she plunged herself into a drama with that lunatic. I’m a 46-year old woman who has spent 16 years paying her dues getting to know herself, her triggers, and yes, I have faced that man in person twice in the past year and a half and damn it, he is nothing to be afraid of. At all.