I became a whistleblower in 2011 and no matter how many times I’ve tried to move away from that time in my life it just keeps coming back up and destroying everything I try to build. I’ve reached the end of a very long journey and apparently this isn’t a battle I can win but I feel like so many people have acted like I should just try harder, get back up faster or forget about everything and move on faster and I guess I just want to tell someone that I have gotten back up more times then could be reasonably expected, I’ve let go over and over again and I don’t deserve any of this. There’s nothing easy about becoming a whistleblower and until you’ve lived through it you can’t know and you definitely shouldn’t judge.
Just a few years ago I had a job as a case manager in social services that I loved, I thought I had finally put all of this behind me and being a whistleblower was just a story I had to tell from when I was younger and didn’t know how speaking up could destroy your life. It was just a bunch of stories, experiences that I’d learned from and moved on.
I’m so tired of asking people to hear me out, to give me just a moment to prove what I’m saying is true only to be ignored. In 2011 I was hired for a job that I wasn’t qualified for and when I left I took a copy of every document and report that I had access to, I had this feeling that I could piece something together but at the time I didn’t even know what that was. I did piece it together and eventually that’s how I became a whistleblower.
I guess I am still trying to protect my safety because this is where I feel like I should hold back on the details but somehow I didn’t receive a reward. I was promised a job working in this field initially but the job I was promised that I spent years quietly waiting for vanished once the time passed when I should have spoken up about the reward I didn’t receive. I let this go a long time ago and moved on with my life, I built a career working with adults with special needs and worked my way up to being a case manager.
Three years ago this summer my mother was diagnosed with cancer and passed away within weeks of being diagnosed. When I came back from taking time off for her death my whole life fell apart. Someone that I worked with had found information about my case and it was immediately clear that I was being forced out of my job. I was harassed and eventually threatened. I just barely made it out of that time in my life, I almost lost my mother’s house to foreclosure but eventually I moved to a new area alone and tried to restart my life. I found another job in the same industry and thought I would rebuild my life but it didn’t take long before it happened all over again and I was forced out of my job again.
The past 6 months or so I’ve been working for DoorDash trying to catch up with bills that just never end, trying to figure out how to rebuild my life again. I’ve asked for help in so many ways including the past 6 months I’ve been trying to just try to get a job working in this field but no one will even give me enough time to explain myself never mind prove that what I’m saying is true.
The past few years have been horrible, it’s all been such a blur and I feel like I’ve been frantically trying to hold everything together. I just found out that I won’t be able to get the car back that was repossessed about a week ago now, the car that I was barely able to support myself with and now I have no income at all. I had thought my tax return would help me get it back but I’d also thought I had more time to catch up with the payments. I’ll never forget the morning I was headed out to start deliveries and opened my door to an empty driveway and yesterday I opened the letter they sent to realize that after years of payments I won’t be getting it back.
I’m so devastated, I can’t even explain the pain that I’ve been through the past few years but this was just too much. I can’t take this, I worked so hard on my credit well working at trying to move up in my career and get away from the destruction that being a whistleblower brought into my life. I was so excited to buy this car just a few years ago, it was the result of so much work and what felt like everything finally coming together in my life. When I bought this car I’d just started in a new position that I loved so much it didn’t even feel like work. I can’t believe that the car that meant so much to me has been taken like this.
I’m going to have to sell my house, I’m currently waiting for my tax return so that I can afford a storage unit to pack my things into and leave everything behind yet again but now I don’t even know how I’ll leave here. I don’t even care about the house that has become way too much of a burden but I didn’t deserve to lose my car like this. Right now I’m just praying that my tax return shows up because I have 3 days of food left for my dogs, a box of tea and a box of oatmeal for me and I don’t deserve this. I never deserved any of this, the pain and humiliation of losing everything twice now is indescribable but I’m especially tired of feeling like people think I should be trying harder or maybe I deserve this. I do not deserve this, fuck anyone who thinks that maybe u deserve this.
If you found this because you’re thinking about becoming a whistleblower then my advice would be to take a few days and think about all the directions this could take you. Don’t ever assume anyone has your best interest in mind. I never thought anything would make me look back and want to take it all back but that’s finally happened, this has taken way too much from me.