poopernoodle · @poopernoodle
30th Jun 2020 from TwitLonger
to everyone, thank you
I would first like to start off by thanking everyone for the immense support again. So many of you have reached out to me with support, I won't be able to reply to every message but just know that I have read all of them.
Coming out with my statement has changed my world. I feel a huge cloud lifted, not only on me but also on how I view the world and other people. For so long I just accepted my situation as 'that's just how life is', which is what many other victims and survivors face when unable to speak out on injustices. I accepted for a long time that most people would never hear or believe my story, and I would carry it with me forever. Sharing it relieved that feeling. It was awful at first, but as time went on I realised that I made the right decision coming forward.
People keep calling me 'brave' and 'strong' for sharing my story. While I appreciate the support I just want you to know, to anyone out there who cares enough to read this, that this 'bravery' didn't come from me - it came from the other people who shared their stories before me. I knew there were other girls, but I didn't know how many there were or even how young they were and it was horrifying, but it made a lot of mysteries that surrounded that man click into place. At the time last year I had other victims of his reach out to me shortly after I visited. Saying things like they 'know what he's like' and that they were sorry, I never disclosed to them exactly what had happened. I had people last year reach out to me via email and discord, and then blocking me shortly afterwards out of fear I can only assume. The stories and statements that you are seeing people in the community share, not just in my case, are truly only the tip of the iceberg.
This is hopefully the last time I'll ever have to speak about him. I have spent too much of my life already dwelling over this, and sharing my story hs been what I needed to move on. I do recognise that it will be difficult still with people knowing such intimate details about me. I've had people reach out to me who I've not spoken to in years telling me they read my statement, people who I had hoped I'd never speak to again. I had so many people reach out to me saying they knew about it, and that they believed I was a liar when they heard about it last year and that they were sorry. I just want to say to the people who did believe him, it's not your fault. I believed him too, a lot of the things he said. I believed him when he spoke about the Kotaku article that first touched on him being a predator, he laughed about how ridiculous it was and I felt sorry for him, that he had this article out there about him. I thought he was just 'misunderstood' and no one got his sense of humour. I was so wrong.
A lot of people have reached out to me blaming me for what has happened in Method. Yes, Method handled the situation poorly but I won't go into that. There were people in Method who knew, and there were also people in Method who didn't know. To the people in Method who didn't know, and who have received hate, and lost something they worked so hard for - I'm sorry.
I recently just finished a 65+ hour subathon. A few weeks ago I started planning a subathon to celebrate my 2 years of streaming on Twitch. After posting my statement it didn't feel right for me to cancel the subathon entirely, so I just postponed it instead. I didn't want to cancel something because of this, and feel defeated. I am glad I decided to go through with it anyway. I still had people who were angry that I decided to go through with it. People coming to me, to gawk at my stream, to see if I fit their definition of what a 'victim' looks like, sounds like, behaves. I don't want to 'look' like a victim. I want to look like a normal person. I don't want people to treat me differently. I just want to be normal.
The support I received during the subathon was overwhelming to say the least, which is why it went on so much longer than I expected. While I am so grateful to the people who came in to show they cared, I can't accept everything that was sent my way. Over the next month I am going to sit down with my Mum and choose some charities I would like to donate to. I know for certain I will be donating to Changing Lives https://www.changing-lives.org.uk/ which is a charity that runs the service NIDAS https://www.newcastleidas.co.uk/page/about-us. Every month over the past year a lady from NIDAS rang me to check in on me, sometimes just for a friendly chat and sometimes to talk through the heavy stuff. I will never forget the support this woman offered me over the months and in my darkest moments. She was absolutely amazing. I want to give something back to them, and I thought it was worth telling you about, so the people who supported me know where their money is going. There are other charities too, like Rape Crisis Scotland, which helped a little bit. But the most significant impact to me was made by that lady from NIDAS.
Thank you everyone once again who read my story, and just listened. Life is getting much better now. While that feeling of not being 'safe' hasn't gone away (I still sleep with the knife and rarely walk outside alone), I have a new feeling of being heard and accepted. I'm done apologising for the space I take up in the world. I'll try and tweet less sad stuff from now on. Time to go back to normal.