“I Always Knew The World Moves On.

You’re not weak for staying silent. You’re calculating risk in a world that punishes honesty.

If you're considering going public read this.

Anxiety isn't drama...it's data.

Chiharu Shiota: Stairway (2012)

You get punished twice — once for what happened, and again for how you react.

“Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it.” Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

The majority of sexual harassment cases involve some kind of complication.

Maybe you dated the person, flirted with them, or had sex with them before. 

Maybe you knew or suspected that they had a history of being inappropriate with others. 

Maybe you’ve always looked up to this person, considered them a friend, a mentor, or someone who’s helped you a lot in the past. 

Maybe it’s happened more than once. 

Maybe when it happened you didn’t know how to react so you didn’t say anything. 

Maybe after it happened you acted overly nice to the person or reassured them it wasn’t a big deal. 

Maybe the person isn’t the kind of person we think a harasser is: they’re someone really respected in society or more attractive than you or physically smaller or female. So you or others have a hard time believing that person could hurt you. 

Maybe you really like the person for other reasons and feel torn about seeing them as someone who’s hurt you. 

It’s important to know that it’s not unusual if your situation feels more complicated.

In fact, that is the more common situation. 

Occasionally you may also just need to lick a 9V to jolt yourself out of the funk.

Being sexually harassed is less like you were running and tripped, and more like someone pushed you. Replaying everything you did or didn’t do doesn’t actually help you to prevent it from happening again.