Metapost: Going Offline

[Content Note: Stalking]

I'm going semi-offline for awhile, or more accurately I will be drastically reducing my visible online presence. I don't know for how long. I've posted up the deconstructions that I had in draft for the upcoming weeks, and I've set my Twitter profile to private, and this will probably be my last post for awhile.

I honestly don't know for how long. I wish I could give you a time. I wish I could give me a time. Maybe a day or maybe a week or maybe a month or maybe three months. Maybe sporadically. I've been triggered more often and more harshly in the past two days than I have in as long as I can recall, but a more immediate issue to me right now is that my mere public presence on the internet is putting individual women I care about in danger, because they're being caught up in an ever-widening net of harassment.

I'm sorry, I'm so desperately terribly horribly sorry, that I'm having to go offline for awhile. I hate having to walk away from a community I care about. I hate having to leave you all without things that I know give many of you joy. I hate having to set down my internet activism for a time when there is activism that needs to be happening. I hate how quickly a stalker and his scores of cheerleaders can target someone and tear their life apart. I hate a lot of things right now. I feel so unbelievably, crushingly guilty for leaving you all right now.

Maybe everything will be better in a week or two. I hope so. I pray so.

I deeply ask your forgiveness for walking away, and I hope that I can walk back soon. I hope you can forgive me for walking away, and I hope you can find it in your heart to welcome me back when it's safe for me to return.

In the interim, I will be reading the comments here on the board, and trying to heal from a distance without being in the thick of things making a bad situation worse with my presence. I will make sure that one way or another we have open threads going so that the community still has a safe space to congregate in. I love you all, and I am again so deeply sorry that I have to step away for a bit.