How I wrote about Michael Colgan, and how you can too if you want to.

Yesterday, I posted this  piece on my experience with Michael Colgan. I sat in a cafe with my friend Gemma Collins and we hit send together. I took a deep breath. Then I went to see my sister Veronica, my auntie Patsy and my new niece Erin. She only a month old. I am gonna be her Godmother. 

Since then, the response has been overwhelming, positive, and I believe it will change things. 

I wrote the piece on October 24th. Here’s a selection of the things I thought about and the actions I took to prepare for posting the piece. I am writing this in case others are considering taking similar action about anyone in our sector. 

- While deliberating about whether or not to write my story, i was advised to just write it and then see how I felt. This was great advice. I would reccomend it. It’s step one. 

- I wrote it all down, I wrote 4,500 words. I wrote it on a live google doc that I could edit anytime I liked. I know people could still copy and paste but it gave me some sense of security. 

- I sent it (in the dead of night) to my husband, my sister, my best friend,  a friend of mine with loads of campaign experience and an understanding of the media, a few of my trusted colleagues, a mindfulness coach and spiritual facilitator, a therapist and women’s rights activist specialising in sexual assault,  and other friends who were in the bar that night to see if that would be how they would remember it. 

- I made sure that I trusted everyone I sent it too - and that no one would tell me not to do it or be over bearing in their guidance. 

- I did not share it with anyone in a position of responsibility in Irish Theatre. I wanted to make sure the advice I was getting was completely neutral, and I leaned on people outside the sector for support, I did this cos I felt the system of the theatre community was affected by the issue I was trying to redress. 

- I tried to get it published in four different newspapers. 

- I pulled back from one for fear they would tip off Michael Colgan in advance and then not run the story anyway. 

- One of the papers said it was a he/said she said. Here’s why: 

- I was advised to get a group of women with similar experiences to come together and share our stories together, ‘to cover myself’ and ‘to make it more believable’ my conscience would not allow this. I was concerned that approaching women with an invitation to share their stories but the caveat that I couldn’t unless they shared theirs could be coercive and re-traumatising. I was asked to be part of an investigation. I refused on this basis. This is why it was ‘unpublishable’ 

- I decided I had to do this alone - and trust that others would follow. 

- I considered what did I want to get from this? I got some advice from facilitator.  I made a list of 

my intention for myself :

*a corrective experience- to do what I should have done for myself last year* 

my intention for others : 

*that it will pave the way for other stories*

my intention for my community 

*to bring this out of the shadow and into the light so we can deal with and stop it from running us- we are in the autumn equinox in the celtic calendar - which looks at cycles - Dolores Whelan’s guiding question is ; What is it that is now complete in my life? I wanted to the cycle of MC’s behaviour (incident, silence, gossip, inaction, another incident, more silence, more gossip, more inaction) to cease and become complete somehow.*

my intention for the universe

*that we will begin to live in a safer world for women. I am soon to be Godmother to my new niece, Erin. I wanted a safer word for her to grow up in*

- When I was confused - I was guided by my intention. 

- When I was upset - I was supported by husband and my friends. 

- I knew and accepted early on that there was no way I could do this without some kind of legal or material fallout. I had to go ahead anyway. I was willing to be the first one. 

- I sought professional psychological and spiritual guidance and discussed the fear of the unknown. 

- I prepared myself for how I would be when this came out and I set boundaries. eg. I committed to continue living my life the day after it broke, Which I did today. I saw my friends, went to a showing of my friends new play, did the things i needed to do. I looked at the online stuff for short periods and then got back to real life. 

- I sought legal advice - I was connected to a social justice legal campaigner through a friend and I was advised to remove everything that wasn’t my direct experience or everything that was hearsay from my post and to only include things which I had witnesses for who were willing to come forward. We worked back and forth on email amending the post. At the end of this process the piece was 1740 words. There are over 2000 words I had to cut for legal reasons. 

- At the 11th hour, I ran it by a close colleague and friend to ensure I wouldn’t harm anyone else in making my post. 

- I hit send. 

During the week I felt so many emotions. Now that its out there I feel relieved, and happy that it is doing what I wanted it to do. 

If you are considering writing something i suggest 

1. Write it - get it all down and dump it all out 

2. Send it to some trusted people and get their feelings on it. This process I found to be healing in an of itself. 

3. If you then want to go forward with it, send it to me and I can connect you with a legal adviser pro bono. 

4. Consider your intentions - what do you want to happen? GO WITH YOUR GUT.

5. Do some scenario planning, what’s the worst that could happen? Consider how you will feel in each scenario. 

6. Consider talking with a therapist or life coach. I did. 

7. Post it yourself online. If you don’t have a blog, I’m happy to put it on mine. I don’t believe Newspapers will be able to get legal clearance . I think You are in a better position to publish it.  Papers will write about it after. My case has proven that. 

Finally, don’t allow any external pressure to coerce you into sharing your story. It’s yours and you own it. It’s not a commodity, or political fodder. It’s not a weapon to win a war. I don’t need you to share it. Please don’t do it for me. You are under no pressure. Share in whatever medium you see fit. If you wanna write about it on FB and not do it publicly, that’s okay. If you want to talk about in theatre bars and not do it publicly that’s okay too. I only want to make it easier for women to come forward if it is what they want. I don’t believe it’s right for me or anyone to put any pressure on anyone to come forward. 

If you tell me your story, I will ask you if thats what you want. If you say no, that will be the end of it. 

I hope others will follow my lead on that. 

I would also encourage and politely request that all the strangers messaging me privately with support, to support me ‘out in the open’ as the blog posts suggests, not least because my inboxes are so jammed I can’t read all the  messages, and there are also people messaging me privately who need to do that for legal reasons. 

A number of people messaged me yesterday to acknowledge their complicity in their silence. I would encourage those people to make that statement in public. the sooner we all own we are a part of it, the sooner it will clear from us. 

I thank each and every person who has publicly supported me. All of those posts took courage and I appreciate the depth of feeling this has stirred. 

And briefly before I sign off I just wanna answer today’s frequently asked question ; 

Are you ok???!!! 

Yes!!! I have a lot of support around me. Trust that when I need help I will ask for it. I appreciate everyone’s concern. I am feeling a million things. Anger, sorrow, relief, happiness and I am guided by the feeling that I am doing the right thing here. I am grateful to the universe and the community. I knew what was coming. I was prepared. 

I wish I didn’t have to do this. I believe this kind of behaviour is a sickness (as my friend Shaun pointed out in his post today) I wish there was a way of addressing this so that the victims could get justice and the perpetrators could get healing they need, but we as a society haven’t worked on that yet, so for now these are the tools we have at our disposal, but for me, this naming out in the open is better than the shaming in the dark, because that shames the victims too, even when we don’t mean it too. 

I’m thinking a lot about the laws, and how they intimidate and preclude women from baring witness to their own experience - who do they really protect? 

And to anyone still thinking of writing after reading this post, remember, as Christine Buckley said to everyone who bravely crossed the door of the Aislinn centre, “I believe you before you open your mouth” 

And after today, I can safely say, I trust that thousands more will too.