“And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything... Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything”.

I want to celebrate this but A. this woman will never out-earn what she's suffered because B. blatant retaliation has consumed four years of her life. Folks in the comments speculating about the balm of a few million are so far off :( https://t.co/lOHctXwahV

Be friendly, be engaging, be present. But do it with a perpetual dose of stranger danger because not everyone on your friend's list is a friend.

And the bigger lesson? We shouldn't have trusted him, either, because we didn't truly know *him*, just details. Social media is a convenient day trip through the superficial. It's also like handling fire: fear, respect, and caution.

An author my husband edited for and befriended for years was one of the first to say "I've heard things (about you) from people I trust." After three or four years of digging in the guts of his stories & sharing stories about our life and kids, *we* weren't people he trusted.

Some of the people who will cut you the deepest, out you the hardest or gut you the worst will be people you thought were friends. You don't realize how little you know someone until this happens.

You don't know people on social media. Years of complaints about FOMO and Fakebook make this apparent but when we're laughing and swapping Insta stories it's hard to remember.

4. (or 3a) Don't tell anything personal to anyone on the internet. No one. (after your #metoo experience this will probably be an unspoken) It doesn't matter who they are or how many years you've chatted, how many memes you've swapped, or how much you've done for each other:

When I get angry about all the women who Trump has violated, I think of Bill Cosby. At some point there will be a reckoning.

People will tell you that none of these threats will come to pass. It's all just 'talk'. Sometimes that's true & as I can attest, sometimes not. Nor would the women killed in the Tallahassee yoga studio violence say it was 'just talk'. You will have to weigh every threat.

If you're a male author (or programmer or chef or mechanic) the mob threatens not to buy your books (or software or food etc). They wish you professional ruin as illuminated in @jonronson So You've Been Publicly Shamed. Women are greeted with threats of graphic physical violence

You'll be sent your home address, your children's school names, pictures of your license plate & photos of you on your morning run or in your front yard. Sometimes these messages come with hyperbolic threats; the most terrifying photos come with no caption at all.

You're a slut who deserves to be raped to death You & your slut daughters deserve to be raped. Especially the one who goes to [school name] I hope you spend your cunt life in prison. You deserve to spend your life in jail I hope you and your whole family die in a fire

3. (Trigger warning) People will say & do horrible things to you. Some of them will be people you know. No sticks-and-stones talk you've been given will spare you how painful & terrifying this will be.

I find it hilarious when people use “angry” to insult me. Of course I’m angry. If you’re a woman in this country and you aren’t mad, you’re either lying to yourself, dead inside, or willing to trade a few of our rights for better treatment.

“This idea that I had all the value I’d ever need was concealed from me my whole life. I want a refund. In this world of suffering and grace, of brokenness and sky, of bad skin and buckteeth and one another, I cannot add to the value of myself. It’s not out there.” ~@ANNELAMOTT

Stop weighing steps you take to find justice & do not weigh what people think of your behavior, because you can't win this fight. And the unfairness of this behavior toward those struggling with actual mental illness, how this shames them as dangerous? Fight for a different day.

No one has to listen to a crazy or employ critical thinking skills to weigh her claim. We don't have to be bothered. Zero discomfort if what she's claimed puts us in the position of having to seek the truth or be an ally. What if she really is unhinged? Ugghhh.

I know this because I once saw a UK author respond to a distraught publisher's post by saying he didn't know the man she'd accused, or anything about this man, but the woman was *clearly nuts*. She'd used emotional language and forgotten some punctuation. Case closed.

Hysteria is very real & the reason you made your cuckoo claims in the first place. It's the reason for your crying, distress & continued refusal to admit you're not a real victim - you're just unstable. Anyone can diagnose you & your diagnosis is permanent. It'll be shared, too.