Leave Out All the Rest / Linkin Park
for as long as i can remember i have loved writing. i used to write poems and stories on any scrap of paper and then find someone to read them. when i was in 6th grade my friend gave me a journal and i wrote in it religiously through college. it never occurred to me that i wouldn’t be able to write any thought that came into my head, and then i started a blog. i know that the internet is vast and yet not difficult to navigate. and so i learned to share things knowing that any moment my own mother or boss could stumble across my words and until last year i felt that i was able to keep a sheet over the parts that shouldn’t be shared.
and this has been my personal poison since last december. for nine months i was being sexually harassed by my immediate supervisor. and i finally got the courage to report it to his immediate supervisor last december and it turns out that six other women had reported his behavior as well. it was poorly handled by management and so for four months while my workplace investigated i had to work under the same manager only now he knew that i had reported him for sexually harassing me. and at the end of the investigation they fired him and the department felt that should be the end of it.
i didn’t feel it was prudent at the time to go discussing this on my website. there are many reasons and i don’t think it takes a genius to understand them. i never really felt it was necessary to discuss my work life on my website until it became so distressing and consuming that it was all that i could think about, all i could worry about, and all i could concentrate on. after the manager was fired and things started getting worse for me at work i still didn’t want to travel down that road. and so i stopped writing. and without that outlet i think it made things worse.
and i was reading this today and i realized that i’m so fucking tired of being quiet about it. i don’t know what exactly about her situation made me snap but, goddamnit, this happened to me. this is shit that i’m dealing with. and having a new job made me realize that i don’t have to be afraid anymore. and i want to be able to talk about it if i need to.
and so there it is internet, i’ve put it out there. i don’t know if i am going to need to keep talking about it, or if that was enough. all i know is that i miss telling stories. and i want to be able to document these new chapters in my life without having to shave off little pieces of every moment because they are somehow poisoned by this ordeal until there is nothing left to share. at some point i am giving them the power over me, my silence. and i’m not letting them have that any more.
that’s all i have… for right now.