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Aftermetoo - Blog Posts
The Cost of Staying
Sometimes it’s not that you didn’t want the job.
It’s that you wanted it too much. And now you're floating down some corporate river. Toward the wrong end of The Waterfall (TM).
You worked too hard. Put up with too much. Got good at things you never thought you’d be good at. Found your rhythm. Found your people. Maybe even started to believe you belonged there.
And then it changed.
Or maybe it didn’t. Maybe it was always like this and you just finally let yourself admit that the cost was too high.
That staying meant watching someone else get away with it. That staying meant shrinking a little bit each day. That staying meant carrying your own silence like it was professionalism. Like it was maturity. Like it was strength.
But here’s the truth no one wants to put on a poster: Sometimes leaving is the only way to protect yourself.
And that doesn’t mean you failed. It doesn’t mean you weren’t strong enough. It means the place wasn’t safe enough.
And maybe that’s not the ending you deserved, but it’s not the end of your story either (the waterfall).
"There must be satisfaction gained in accurately naming the thing that torments you."
-Miriam Toews
Just finished Women Talking (both the book by Miriam Toews and the movie by Sarah Polley) and I honestly don’t know how to describe it without using all caps. It’s probably the most clear-eyed thing I’ve ever seen about what it actually feels like to live in the aftermath of harassment. If you’ve ever felt like you were losing your mind trying to name something everyone else was fine ignoring I really highly recommend this rare artwork to you all.
"They're not harassing you. That’s just how they talk." Oh okay. I’ll just rewire my nervous system so it understands context.
dancing in my storm, may 2025
Surrender the Snail
If you work the day shift. JK I love work. Actually JK JK
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.
Untitled, undated - by Saul Leiter (1923 – 2013), American
ᴇᴅɪᴇ sᴇᴅɢᴡɪᴄᴋ, ᴀɴᴅʏ ᴡᴀʀʜᴏʟ ᴀɴᴅ ᴄʜᴜᴄᴋ ᴡᴇɪɴ NYC, 1965, by Burt Glinn.
“Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it.” Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale
“You’re so calm during conflict.”
No babe, that’s dissociation. We all bring our talents to the table...
"...if you're feeling blue and blue is you
that's no thing at all to run from or to..."
-someone smart
Stars in full bloom.
She didn’t quit the job. She just slowly stopped showing up in her own body.
Men defaced this art wall in Melbourne of missing/murdered women.
Women are the ones being killed and brutalized, but it’s a war on men by telling them what they did.
I don’t have too much to say on this. I feel so upset.
Some people won’t believe you until you break. Break anyway, if you need to. You don’t owe anyone your composure.
Life gets easier when you stop fighting it. The rain will fall whether you complain or not. Traffic will exist whether you stress or not. People will act how they want whether you worry or not. Focus on what you can change. Let go of what you can't.
“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
Muted Square in the Zoom
They didn’t say my name in the meeting. Not once. I was there and had written half the report.
The credit went around the table like a bottle passed hand to hand. I watched it skip over me.
At lunch, I sat with them. One of them asked me, “Are you new?”
I’ve been here fourteen months.
After a while, you stop correcting people. You stop reminding them that you’re part of it. You become good at inhabiting the background. Or a muted square in the Zoom.
But I’m still here. Still opening the spreadsheet. Still writing the copy. Still dressing up and disappearing.
They didn’t see me. But I saw everything.
She learned to carry her softness like armor. Not as weakness, but as proof she made it through.
Georg Wilson (British, 1998) - Spring Usher (2025)
You're still here
Maybe you still talk about it like it wasn’t a big deal. Maybe you laugh when you tell the story. Maybe you change the details each time, depending on who’s listening. Maybe you say “it was weird” instead of “it was wrong.”
Sometimes, survival looks like contradiction. Like forgetting on purpose. Like trying on different words until one of them feels safe enough to hold.
You don’t owe anyone a neat version of what happened. It was messy. You’re still here. That’s the truth.
“Justice," she said. "I've heard that word. It's a cold world. I tried it out," she said, still speaking in that low voice. "I wrote it down. I wrote it down several times and always it looked like a damn cold lie to me. There is no justice.” — Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea
They asked if I wanted to file a complaint. I said no I’m trying to stay employed, not enter The Hunger Games.
Occasionally you may also just need to lick a 9V to jolt yourself out of the funk.
You don’t have to be perfect to be harmed.
Maybe you’d had a drink. Maybe you laughed along. Maybe you told them they were cute once. Maybe you texted back. Maybe you said yes to one thing, but not to what happened next.
Maybe you tried to be polite when you should have run. Maybe you didn’t run because you were scared. Or tired. Or frozen.
None of that means it wasn’t harassment. None of that means it was your fault.
The performance review said you were “pleasant under pressure.” You thought about telling them it was acting. But why ruin a standing ovation?
“It’s not brave to have boundaries
it’s just basic hygiene for your soul.”
-Jenny Slate