Warning: Discusses abuse of minors, workplace trauma, drug use and mental health crisis. Reader discretion advised.
2015 was a year of immense pain and suffering for me. For years I couldn’t explain what happened to me, and my story was being told by others. This is me taking it back. What follows is the truth of my life during that time, how it destroyed my world, and how it eventually became the spark that allowed me to rebuild and finally be myself.
Growing up, I was surrounded by people who were supposed to care for me but instead treated me like a problem. My younger sister was the golden child. She had perfect grades, severe asthma, and everyone adored her. Meanwhile, I was gay in a strict Catholic family, had learning difficulties and behavioural issues, caused by moving around and family violence. My parents adored my sister for her cuteness and vulnerability and blamed me instead of admitting my truth to teachers. Authority never felt like protection. It felt like an abuser. That shaped me and gave me a lifelong distrust for anyone in power.
From the age of fifteen, I learned that affection could be transactional. Someone I trusted groomed me, shaped me, and used me to serve their own desires. Years later, that same person sat across a meeting table with HR and management and silently nodded as my life was dismantled. This man was asked to attend to be my support, but instead chose to do the opposite. People often say abusers get worse with time. Sometimes they just get better at making it look professional.
I was a high performer at work, consistently delivering results. Then I wasn’t. The only difference was that I was going through a personal crisis I could no longer hide. I was grieving a relationship, selling my house, and having a nervous breakdown. My GP said I needed time away from the office. The company didn’t respond with compassion. They sent me letters medicalising my behaviour, made threats, and even called the police because of a private post I made about self-harm. They acted as if I were a criminal rather than a person trying to survive.
2015 has always been a significant year in my mind, because I am a fan of Evangelion. The original series is set in that year, after a cataslym called Second Impact destroyed most of the world. For me, what happened felt like my own impact event. My world was destroyed, my life was turned upside down, and nothing felt safe or familiar. At the time it was terrifying, disorienting, and painful. But like the Impact events in the story, that destruction became the starting point for something new. It was the spark that would eventually allowed me to rebuild, to reclaim my story, and to finally be me. In the Rebuild of Evangelion, the writers’ own catharsis and transformation mirrored what I was beginning to feel – the possibility of creating a world where I could exist fully, honestly, and without fear.
Looking back, the whole year unfolded in stages, each one tightening the pressure until something finally snapped.
January to March were the months where the cracks at home became impossible to ignore. My partner was gone for days or even weeks at a time, leaving me alone to work, manage the house, and take care of the pets. The absence wasn’t neutral, it was destabilizing, unpredictable, and lonely. I could feel the relationship ending long before we said anything out loud. In that emptiness, I spent more time with the only friend who actually made me feel something other than dread. He used me, for money, for drugs, for convenience, and I tolerated it because I was heartbroken, exhausted, and craving any kind of friendship. I knew it wasn’t healthy, but when your world is quietly falling apart, even flawed companionship feels like oxygen.
By April to September, I finally broke. My GP signed an extended medical certificate and I went on leave to keep my head above water. I used that time to go on a road trip, not to party or escape responsibility, but because I genuinely needed distance and fresh air to cope with the pressure at home. My manager at work watched my Facebook and didn’t understand any of this. In his mind, if you’re “sick” you should be home in bed, not driving up the coast. He interpreted everything through the narrowest lens possible. I had trusted him enough to add him on Facebook because I thought he was a friend first, but he chose to be a manager first and a stranger second. The context didn’t matter; the appearance did. That mistrust poisoned everything that followed.
When October to December arrived, I’d run out of money and tried to return to work. They let me back in, but nothing in my life had stabilized. The lack of support at home, emotionally, financially, structurally, made it hard to attend consistently. I slipped back into sick leave, struggling to keep my footing. That’s when an email from my manager essentially threatened to fire me if I didn’t “behave”. Tried to push me into a corner, implying misconduct and hinting at consequences they had no grounds for. It felt like they wanted me gone because making me quit would save a bit of money during a massive acquisition. The company was about to be bought for over a billion dollars, and they were trying to get rid of me over what would’ve been a few thousand. What made it sting more was knowing I had personally helped the company save more than a million a year in lost revenue. I wasn’t some dead weight, I had given them more value than anyone earning $68,000 should ever have been expected to give. But value doesn’t matter when a company policy tells people to understand you are not valued.
Threaded through the entire year was my family, or what passed for one. My sister acted supportive on the surface, but her compassion was strategic, selective, and full of traps. I think she wanted me to unravel so she didn’t have to deal with me anymore. I had stayed close to her after our parents left because I felt responsible for her. Then she brought them back into my life, the same parents who kicked me out at 14, pushing me into a molestors arms because at least with him I could be gay without fear, even if he wasn’t safe either. They wanted control, not connection. They offered criticism without support, judgment without understanding, and the occasional restaurant meal as if it made them authorities on my life. Their involvement made everything at home less stable, not more.
All of it together, the breakup, the toxic friendship, the road trip judged as misconduct, the workplace pressure, the family manipulation, built into something catastrophic. It really was an impact event. Not just one thing, but a cascade.
The people in my life at that time, family, exes, coworkers and close friends, often had their own motives towards my company. They passed through my world quietly or loudly, but they all left marks. Some betrayed me directly. Others did so by silence, or by taking and never giving. Some shaped narratives that painted me as a villain while hiding their own behaviour. That cascade of betrayals compounded my trauma, made the world feel like a series of chaotic, unmanageable events.
Now I am surrounded by people who actually care about my happiness and my health. A partner who sees me. A work situation built on trust and respect. Friends who support me without needing to control me. I finally have a circle that treats me like a person, not a problem. Experiencing that care made me realize how profoundly I had been deprived of it before. The cruelty I endured was not normal. It was a pattern, a series of choices made by people who valued their own comfort over someone else’s wellbeing, and even survival.
I do not need revenge. I do not need apologies. I do not need recognition. All I need is my story back. I am finally strong enough to take it. This is me saying that what happened to me was wrong, it mattered, and my voice matters. This is my life, and my story. I am no longer silent.
