Say It With Me Now:

Career change (nervous breakdown optional)

Feels like a Friday post. But you can on Saturday too if you want.

Either way, you want to chase the hat.

NGL leaving my job after was terrifying.

No backup plan and no health benefits. Just me, a spiked nervous system, a trashcan LinkedIn bio I abandoned circa 2017 with honours.

I spent the first two weeks crying, I did that. Then reorganizing my fridge, using a lot of Windex around the house, checking my email like a raccoon checking dumpster locks. Nothing came. And sigh.

No word from HR. But the world didn’t end. My old boss didn’t send an apology or even a passive-aggressive emoji. Just hot red radish silencio ad absurdum. For a while.

And then something weird happened.

I started sleeping again. My shoulders unclenched for the first time in six years. One day I laughed. Can you / I believe it? Like really laughed. And it was not a coping mechanism sliding into an entropic spat of sob sobs.

It turns out walking away from a place that gaslights you into thinking you were the problem can be the best career move you have ever made.

I’m still broke and scared and still always figuring it out. But at least now when I cry, it’s not because I’m being slowly turned into spirals of flesh-coloured chaff in the old pencil grinder gig 'conomy, know what I mean?

Anyways, freedom’s weird. I think I want to hesitatingly and forcefully recommend it.

It is something that happened to you. 

It is something that can have a big impact on you. 

But it was not because of you.

And it doesn’t define you or your self-worth.

Learn more

Kiki Smith: Nuit (1992)

“So much of coming to terms with hard things from the past seems to be about believing our own accounts, having our memories confirmed by those who were there and honoured by those who weren’t.” — Sarah Polley, Run Towards the Danger

They called it “just a comment"

I called it

three weeks of anxiety, five skipped shifts, and a therapist

I couldn’t afford

You did not deserve to be sexually harassed.

This is true no matter what. No matter

what you wear

how much money you make

where you work

or anything else

"You are your best thing."

Toni Morrison, Beloved

Given a choice between accepting that something awful has happened, or thinking that someone is mistaken, exaggerating, or lying, much of the time our brains will deny the awful thing happened.

Hi, I just wanted to say this blog has helped me a lot with understanding and healing from being harassed at work. I hope you have a lovely weekend <3

Thank you, what a pleasure to hear! Made my weekend, in fact. Have a great weekend yourself.

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