MAYBE YOU’VE SEEN WHAT CYBERHARASSMENT LOOKS LIKE. THIS IS HOW IT FEELS.
When was the last time you felt truly afraid? We don’t spend a lot of time thinking about fear, about what it feels like. We say we’re afraid of things, like spiders or sharks or snakes. We say we’re scared to die, but that’s in the abstract, because we can’t know when that will happen and we can’t live in the shadow of that knowledge 24/7. Sometimes we seek the adrenaline rush that fear provides: we ride roller coasters, we watch scary stuff like “The Walking Dead”. But we’re also safe within the context of those moments; we know we’re strapped in safely and the ride will end in 90 seconds. We can pause the TV or shut it off. We can choose to watch something else. We can control when we want that rush.
But when you’re living in fear, when it comes from the outside and gets inside of you and takes residence in your brain and chest cavity, when it weighs you down and keeps you from experiencing anything positive, that is something else entirely. When it paralyzes an otherwise energetic and social person to stay hidden in their home for nine straight days. When it adds more than you can fathom to a depression you were already struggling with.
I am not the person I was when this unbelievably awful fuckshow of a year began. When David Bowie died in January, I tweeted something about how the year was going to suck “bigly”, and I am not happy at all to see my prediction come true not just daily, but almost hourly. This year has taken so much from so many. It has emotionally drained more people than it hasn’t. But then there are those of us who were extra personally impacted by the Racist Moron Brigade that actually didn’t elect the Chode (which is a whole ‘nother thing entirely, but #Recount2016 pretty please). If they’d only gone after me and left my family out of it, I probably could’ve handled all of it way better. But they didn’t, so I didn’t. Someday I hope to find the person I was again, but right now she’s not quite back, and I wonder if I’m going to be able to find her again.
By now, everyone who reads the internet knows about people getting cyberharassed, or doxxed, by Trump supporters. You’ve seen that stupid cartoon frog dressed up like TrumpHitler, you’ve seen tweets using terms like “libtard”, “Kek”, “cuck”, “SJW”, and “Killary” — all of which I’ve muted thanks to Twitter’s new filter. You’ve probably heard it’s happened to celebrities and journalists, but it also happens to people who are just expressing their freedom of speech rights. Take a few moments to read about what happened to me (don’t bother with the comments, they just repeatedly prove my point for me about what terrible people they are) and then come on back and I’ll tell you what’s happened to me since then. http://www.xojane.com/issues/trump-supporters-doxxing-me-for-giving-finger?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&xid=twitter
FUN TIMES, right? Oh yeah. I’m just loving all the newfound attention that comes along with going viral. Next time I’ll wear a fucking Chewbacca mask for sure before I do anything on camera.
That piece was posted eight days after the initial incident, and by that time a lot of emotional damage had already been done. First of all, I absolutely had no idea how to process what was happening to me, because it was going so fast. New revelations of where my video was posted and what people were doing with the still photos and how deep the web actually goes, all of that was new to me. I’d been the target of trolls throughout the election, of course, because INTERNETTING WHILE FEMALE, but this was at a whole new level. I had to call the FBI CyberCrimes unit. The cops were at my house multiple times. I don’t know how many accounts I reported and blocked. I don’t know how many tweets and messages I got, but these are just a few lovely examples:
Now, all of that I could handle if they had just left my children and everyone else out of it. Remember, I’m a Jersey Girl. My first “fuck” was uttered by age three. I can take a lot of verbal/anonymously trolled abuse, but my BABIES were brought into it. So on top of knowing that so much of my personal information was out there, I had to grapple with the guilt of knowing people I loved were hurt by something I did. I have apologized to everyone, and while my sons have handled it all surprisingly well, there are those who’ve remained silent even after all this time. It took me a week to get that article online, so getting my story out belatedly didn’t help much. When Ann Coulter, Mike Cernovich, and James Woods are tweeting the false right wing take on who I am, it’s hard to fight back at that alone. People who could’ve helped me chose not to, while other people emerged to provide support as much as they could.
In the first few days, when I was being bombarded constantly, I barely slept. I was awake at times I hadn’t seen on the clock since my sons were newborns. 2:14 am. 3:56 am. Every outside noise jolted me back to full awareness. I would get up and check every door over and over to make sure it was locked. I had never felt this way in my life. I’ve lived in New York City, Boston, Portland, and Atlanta, and been on those streets well after dark, often alone. I’ve traveled to major cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Denver, Miami, and I’ve been overseas. I’ve spent time in Rome, Florence, Paris, and Dublin, Ireland.
The only place I’ve ever slept with a knife under my bed is Vancouver, Washington.
This is living in fear.
When I could sleep, it would only be in these three-hour bursts that felt more like naps, and it wasn’t restful sleep at all. My dreams would be full of those awful tweets, or the Chode’s face, or I’d be in unimaginably awful situations. One stress dream that stays with me: I was standing on top of the Empire State Building, holding an infant wrapped in a blue blanket. I knew it was my older son, who is actually 17, but in the dream he was a baby. And a faceless presence pointing a gun at me was forcing me to jump off, still holding my newborn son in my arms. “Just jump,” said a voice. “You’ll be fine.”
No need to page Dr Freud.
After those initial nine days of self-sequestering, I had to leave the house more than to just drive up the street to get a coffee. The first few times I ventured out, I was overcome with an anxiety I had never experienced before. I compulsively checked my rearview mirror while driving, because I was convinced I’d see my harasser’s black Audi at any time. Pictures of my car had been posted, so maybe his friends were looking for me. My hands would be aching while I was driving, and I’d realize I was gripping the steering wheel as though it was the last life preserver on the Titanic. When I ventured into a store, every bit of conversation I overheard sounded irrelevant and inane. Every time I had to speak to a cashier who asked how my day was going, it was all I could do to give the pat “Fine, thanks” and not just stand there and unleash an unending primal scream at them. I went to a friend’s book reading and had to leave before it was over, because it felt like everyone was looking at me like I was an alien species they couldn’t communicate with. As I sat there, the sound of other people I couldn’t relate to made me increasingly upset. Who cares if you went to dinner and had to send your steak back? Who cares if you just scuffed your new fancy boots? How can you not see that none of that shit matters? Fuck you all, I get death threats and rape threats, and my children’s sweet faces were used in ways I cannot even allow myself to think about, and no one can possibly understand what I’m going through, and fuck you all again for getting to have normal lives where the worst thing that might happen is you can’t get a table at Imperial this weekend.
Oh, right, eating. There’s also that which is not happening so much. Unlike most people, my stomach shuts down when I’m stressed out. I’m a small person to begin with — five feet tall exactly — and when this all started I was probably only about 108 pounds. I don’t own a scale, so I have no idea how much weight I’ve lost since September 21st, but when I run into people who haven’t seen me in a while, the shocked looks on their faces tells me all I need to know. It may seem hard to believe since I’m puny now, but I was a heavy kid and teenager. Extra weight really shows on short girls, so when I was down to a more average weight as an adult for my height, I obviously felt better about myself. This experience has left me thinner than I’ve ever been, but I don’t exactly feel great. I’ll joke to people, “It’s the Aggravation Diet. I don’t recommend it, but it worked for me!” Not sleeping usually makes people put on weight; however, even that hasn’t been helping. One night I found myself still awake at 1:30, after having been awake since 6:30 am, and realized I hadn’t eaten anything and couldn’t remember what the last thing I had eaten even was. So I made waffles, took four bites, and threw the rest away. My stomach is still being a stress barometer, and it tells me all I need to know about how I really feel. If I’m okay, I get normal hunger pangs. Those don’t actually show up until sometime in the afternoon these days. And then I eat maybe four or five bites, and I don’t want any more, because my stomach says YOU STILL HAVE SO MUCH STRESS, DUMBASS.
Money stress, life stress, election stress. PTSD from cyberharassment for sure. Gotta get me a therapist with my free Obamacare before it gets taken away from me. You’d think I’d have amazing skin from all the crying/drinking tons of water to rehydrate, but I look like a teenager from all the stress, and not in a good way. Oh how I need to be earning. I worry that potential employers might ask the Google about me, and boom, there I am being held up as the ultimate crazy Hillary Clinton fan. In the middle of all this, I also learned that after seven years, my former radio station finally put someone back on during the midday, and that someone isn’t me, but some nobody girl from nowhere. So I have to live with that, knowing that someone else has my dream job that I’d do better than anyone. Put that on the pile along with all the other shit I’m carrying. I’m so used to the weight now, I won’t even feel it.
At least I’ve gotten a service industry gig again, with great people at great, busy place. It’s been keeping me off the internets during the day, which is good. But it won’t be enough, which is exhausting to think about on top of the other exhaustion caused by being thinky about all the other things. Because now I have to find something else on top of this, and there never is enough.
This is living post-fear, I guess. Trying to recoup what’s been lost. Trying to heal myself while fixing the mess my life already was. We haven’t even touched on the going through this without a partner and how being single as I get older is just one more thing I’ve had to get used to. All of it makes a swirl of overwhelming in my brain. Adulting is hard enough, but this year decided to test all of our coping skills. I continue to fail massively at every test thrown my way. I keep hoping for the big break everyone tells me I deserve. A radio gig. A voiceover gig. A writing gig. This untapped goldmine of talent going to waste. I’ve been joking that Lifetime should buy the rights to my story because it would make for one hell of a Television Movie For Women, and I’m actually not kidding so much about that anymore. If I’ve had to endure this shit on top of the other shit I was already enduring, I have to believe it was for something. That I’ll get more out of it than bad skin and a smaller pair of jeans. I have to hope that when a bad thing happens to a good person, the universe will eventually make things right for them. It just seems like I’ve had more than my share, and I am over it.
So I’m writing off this year. Fuck 2016. Fuck it sideways a hundred times with a pogo stick with spikes. Fuck it until it dies screaming. I don’t think there’s anyone who won’t understand that, even if they know absolutely nothing about what’s happened to me. Anyone I’m associating with has their own reasons for hating this year. Anyone I encounter in the future will as well. Eventually we’ll have a shorthand for explaining why we’re depressed or in a situation we’re not happy with. We’ll just say, “I’m still getting over 2016,” and everyone else will nod in understanding. Regardless of what happens with the Recount, we still have to live in this world. We can only hope 2017 creates a clean slate of new opportunity and we’ll get to feel something like optimism again.
If I can even remember what that feels like, of course. All I can say is, I promise to try. We can all promise to try. That’s about all I’m capable of right now, and for now, that has to be enough.
