The Pebble

In the Robert Anderson case, at the University of Michigan, a settlement was reached between the Survivors, and the Regents of the University of Michigan; in early 2022. It took two years of negotiations to get to this point. It took at least forty years, for the Regents of the University of Michigan to care.

Each of the victims will receive compensation, of some amount. I am not counting on any particular total. I just want institutions to start listening to whistle-blowers, and stop treating them as idiots. I want all people to do the same.

But whatever my total ends up being, I'm thinking of it as back-pay. Since 1985, when my career began, I have thought of my progress (or lack thereof) as too much recklessness, combined with two much hesitation. I have teetered, too much, between being the consummate team player and being the lone wolf calling out management misbehavior. I rarely found the balance. After I had my fill of fifteen years of job-hopping, I settled into a career choice doing what I love, avoiding having to directly report to a boss; while having very little (financially) to show for it. 

I became distrustful of anybody having authority with me. And I believed that, if I tried to do what's morally right, that I would suffer penalties because of it. If I reported wrong-doing, my friends would retreat, the wrongdoers would come out ahead, and I would fall further behind. 

Anybody that knew me prior to 1978 (starting with me), would never have predicted this for me. It all went very, very wrong. 

Beginning with the time when I first reported Dr. Anderson, to a nurse practitioner at the U of M, and was rebuffed, my forward-movement stalled. This was the first pebble tossed in my path, that grew, over time, into a giant boulder that I could not see, let alone get around. 

Therapists, experts, counselors, and well-read friends have told me that this is what trauma does to you. I never thought that trauma would ever be something describing my life. You let things roll off your back. You move on. 

The years 1980-2022 are a series of events that grew The Boulder. Helpful people, believing they are helpful, have made The Boulder bigger, without knowing it. People have been frustrated at me, without realizing that it wasn't me: it was The Boulder. 

The Boulder is a thing of my own making. If people's taunts hurt, it's because I have enabled it. But I now see the damage that we do to each other, without meaning to, without having the first clue what we're talking about. 

My social media comments have a common theme, regarding people that do not live up to our expectations: What if they can't?

The Boulder is years of accumulated growth, pebble upon pebble. It will take pebbles, gradually, to reduce the Boulder. And I am happy that, at long last, The Boulder is shrinking. 

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