Written by 
—Email Message—
Frank@PostSecret.com
Dear Frank,
A few years ago I sent you a postcard that said, My rapist follows me on Instagram. I don’t want to follow him back. Last week I saw it on PostSecret Instagram. It had a lot of comments. Most of them were nice and supportive. (The community is awesome!) Some were not, which I totally understand. I just want to explain a little of what happened before and after my secret was posted.
First, it was a long time ago. Almost 30 years now, so there’s nothing legally I can do. I didn’t do much, legally, at the time because we were in a relationship. Living together, in fact. It would have been impossible to prove and might have gotten me killed if I tried. I was very young and, in many ways, very weak. Eventually, I managed to end it when he hit me in front of people who would testify.
He left the state and I didn’t hear from him for a couple of years. When he came back I got a restraining order and he left again. I didn’t hear from him again until social media became a thing. I blocked him on MySpace and then Facebook and Twitter. And then he showed up on my Instagram. Not just following me but going through my entire account in one night, liking literally every single photo, except ones with my husband. After almost two decades he hadn’t forgotten me. He was still watching. He still lived out of state but it felt like he was right outside, looking in my windows. And Instagram kept reminding me he was there, suggesting I follow him back.
I didn’t block him then because he seemed so close, like a predator waiting to strike. It felt, irrationally, as if any movement on my part, any recognition that he was there, would somehow be a victory for him. I just felt frozen, terrified by the idea of him seeing me see him. And I didn’t tell anyone, not my husband or my friends, because the answer would be just block him. They would never understand why I couldn’t. I barely understood it myself.
So I made the postcard. I took the secret that was freezing me and screamed it into the void. Then you posted it on the website, allowing me to scream it to the world. Once it was out, I unfroze. I told my friends, this is my secret on the website. This is me, screaming. I blocked him that Sunday morning. PostSecret gave me a voice and it made me strong.
Some of the commenters said things like ‘this isn’t a secret, it’s attention seeking’. Well, it was both. My secret needed attention. I needed to be heard and I’ll be forever grateful to the community for listening. Postsecret set me free.
