While I originally did not intend to use this platform to comment on timely events, I felt morally obligated to break the rigid format I set for myself in order to address a CanLit controversy I should have spoken up about long ago.
I don't quite know how to describe the atmosphere at UBC to justify the "don't have a problem with Steven Galloway being fired" comment (maybe someone else who was there could do it justice but I can't right now), but someone emailed me to point out that if being an alleged jerk is a fireable offence, then pretty much all of us would be screwed, and I think that's an excellent point.
There's a reason adultery is not illegal. The heart wants what the hearts wants, and various unions form and dissolve with little regard to martial status. AB was a mature student, not some easily influenced 20-year-old fan girl with no life experience who fell under Steven's spell. The other stuff? I've been drunk, said inappropriate things, and have the sense of humour of a 14-year-old boy, so I suppose I am a confirmed jerk.
Are you aware that Depp was found guilty of the 12 of the 14 assault charges brought against him in the UK? The UK is much more educated about the nature of coercive control and the abuse that is a reality for many. This is, in fact, the opposite of what happened with Galloway.
Conflating the two of them is both a disservice to Galloway, who deserves a chance to be heard, and to Heard, whose crime was being naive enough that she thought money and misogyny could be beat with truth in the UK. I suggest amending this article because blending the two of them creates a lot of unintended harm. Depp was spiteful and vindictive throughout his trial. I do not think Galloway will be the same.
Sincere question: Why do you think Depp's past partners all stated that he was never abusive to them? (one described him throwing a wine bottle without hitting anyone, but I know women who have done that during fights who are not abusive.)
I realize men do not treat all women the same. I dated a guy for a summer once who was very sweet to me. A year later, I found out at a party that he had been a giant jerk to another woman he essentially used for sex.
While it's possible Depp became more abusive with age and substance abuse, I think it's odd no one else he was with came forward to accuse him of abuse, especially given the Me Too movement and the zeitgeist of the time.
Please add the link here if you can find the story! I couldn't. Unless you're referring to Ellen Barkin, whose claims about Depp pale in comparison to Heard's.
He was arrested for violence, smashing things, etc, with multiple partners. The info is out there, but it's mostly dominated by PR from the trial.
Addiction does make some people violent. And ruins careers. I think that's what he had to recover from and Heard was a convenient scapegoat to pin things on for his recovery from rock-bottom. People do that kind of stuff, sadly. And people will rescue those kind of people because they have seen and experienced kindness from them. This kind of complex interweaving is true of some of the worst villains.
Grey's characterization of Depp also pales in relation to Heard's. I agree addiction causes people to be violent all the time. Depp's definitely a mess, but that doesn't mean that there wasn't mutual abuse with Heard (not implying the degree of abuse between the two was identical). Depp's addictions would also make him vulnerable to emotional abuse, and emotional abuse would send him further down addiction.
But I think the take-away here is that a man can be falsely accused or exaggerated about and still have been a giant asshole, and a woman can lie and still be a victim. Nothing is black and white.
I looked up a bit more about the Heard/Depp case and agree it sounds like Depp abused Heard both physically and emotionally, but she also appears to have been at the very least emotionally abusive back. But it's not uncommon for victims of abuse to lose their cool and return abuse, and it's fairly obvious Depp was deliberately provoking her because he was recording the famous phone call that hurt her credibility. Clearly not the best example, and there are many better ones. Thank you for pointing that out.
If anyone else more familiar with the Depp/Heard situation wants to chime in please do!
This has been sometimes called reactive abuse but the language around it is still changing. Think of Gabby Petito and how Brian Laundrie accused her of being mentally ill and violent. Anyone who had been in her shoes and saw the police video knew it was not her and what he was doing. They also knew she was dead long before she was found. It's a very vulnerable place for a victim to be, especially when they have suffered for a long time. They are breaking down while the abusive man is not, and can manipulate them further.
Absolutely. Abuse causes people to lose their sanity and their physical health. Especially if the abuser uses sleep deprivation as a tactic and/or the victim turns to substances to self-medicate.
Which, of course, could lead to lying and/or failures of memory.
I wasn't! I didn't watch any of the trial either. I was bothered by that particular comment and was drawing parallels to statements by AB's lawyers, not trying to say Heard = AB and Depp = Galloway. It was my understanding that both Heard and Depp were abusive and their relationship dysfunctional, and Heard painted it as being one way and was dishonest. (Is this inaccurate?)
I definitely agree Galloway and Depp shouldn't be compared and I didn't intend to imply they should be.
I don't want to alter something I've already published so I pinned your comment!
The "they're both to blame" is a narrative quite often leveraged by abusive men because they know that it weakens the stance of victims while not requiring them to prove innocence. It's similar to "what was she wearing". (Why does nobody ever ask what the rapist was wearing?) Why be good when you can make the other person bad?
The Heard-Depp US trial was not on the assaults, it was on libel and defamation charges, so the same evidence and methodology of judgement that found Depp guilty could not be brought to bear. Much was excluded, this is significant. It was Depp's PR team that spun that as an evidence of being exonerated and he whipped up his fan base for added trajectory. It's quite similar to the political stuff that happens. It feels mildly surreal that assaults and libel could both be true, but they can, especially in different national jurisdictions. I also did not watch the televised circus.
Back on topic, Galloway definitely was not the same case. Depp lost popularity in the public because of court decisions (also due to his drinking and other assaults that were published in tabloids). Consequently, he lost public popularity and then lost income. UBC made its own decisions and breached privacy laws. That's where due process was lost for Galloway.
Will defamation be found for Galloway? I don't know. There were clearly a lot of lies. Was it the lie that caused harm or the actions of those who made decisions based on their judgement of the lie? It should be heard and discussed.
That women are judged hashly and often unfairly is a truth, especially regarding matters like this. We operate in the complexity of this, not in one-sidedness.
Yes. I was only comparing the argument not the cases. Similarly, I don't think there are many parallels between the Bauer/Hill case outside of the exposure of evidence of lying, and even fewer between Bauer/Hill and Depp/Heard. It would be unfair to Bauer to be equated to Galloway, as it is to both to be equated to Depp. But what all three cases have in common is that dishonesty on the part of the women was exposed in court cases. (Depp was also proven to have lied, unlike the other two cases). It is very possible for a woman to both be a victim and be dishonest about events—I don't think victims need to be perfect to be seen as victims, but it seems unlikely to me Heard is entirely innocent here. But she is objectively a victim, what's unclear to me is whether or to what extent Depp was too.
Traumatized people, mentally ill people, addicted people, and/or neurodivergent people are drawn to each other, and the relationships are usually very intense and dysfunctional. I think that's what happened in the Depp/Heard case.
As a *neurodivergent*, I find your comment to be reductionist & puts us all in the box of " more likely to have bad relationships. " I really resent the generalization.
I'm also neurodivergent. Read the "About" page. My comment reflects both my observations and my personal experience. Autism is defined by social difficulties and deficits, and ADHD with poor executive functioning and impulsivity. Both have also been associated with something called "rejection sensitive dysphoria", which can lead a person to misinterpret ordinary interactions in a negative way, to act defensively, to end relationships over the slightest disagreement.
You might resent the generalization, but that you were so quick to jump to resentment demonstrates my point.
And you to first general judgement and summarizing divergence in a mostly negative way. How are autistic people supposed to react when they read comments like yours online ? Do you think they're somehow incapable of finding your comments ? Autistism also features high intelligence and an amazing ability with numbers, technology, and science yet you conveniently * forgot * to mention any gifts Autistic people are born with.
I wasn't "summarizing" divergence, I made a comment about one aspect of it that was relevant to the topic at hand. I didn't mention the gifts that *can* come with some subtypes of autism (which is not one condition, but an umbrella term for a cluster of symptoms that originate from a variety of causes, with no cause being a factor in all cases, and no case having a unitary cause) because they weren't relevant to this conversation. If you bothered to read my "About" page, you'd realize I'm very aware that autistic traits can be associated with cognitive gifts. My own strangeness comes with an unusual aptitude for mathematics and spatial reasoning (I am freakishly good at Tetris).
I discuss autism and neurodivergence in great detail in these two essays:
I'm also working on one about "gifted kids", which might be more up your alley.
I think you want to be angry with me. That's fine, but you should really consider engaging with more of my work before jumping to conclusions about what I may or may not know based off a couple of comments on a post that had nothing to do with neurodivergence.
Sorry, based on your callous comments in this chat thread, that won't be happening. I'm freakishly good at spotting bias and self-aggrandizement. No, not angry with you personally, but rather the disparaging generalizations. I don't even know you.
The observation regarding the UK judicial system vis-a-vis its American counterpart is not unexpected, given that nearly 40% of Americans support a controversial figure like Donald Trump - a cause for concern.
And around the same number support Biden. I'm not American, but personally I like Kennedy. I don't think everything he says is correct (i.e. I think he has some major blindspots regarding autism), but unlike the other two he is a mature, kind-hearted, and intelligent man who is not motivated by fame, power, and/or money but instead a concern for and love of the American people (and the only one of the three to never be accused of sexual harassment or assault!).
When the allegations about Steven first came out, I assumed it was something involving one of his young students. He's a good looking, funny, intelligent, best-selling novelist with a steady stream of young, ambitious women coming through. What could possibly go wrong? In any case, I was surprised to learn that instructors weren't forbidden from having relationships with students due to the obvious imbalance of power. If the rest of academia in Canada received the kind of scrutiny that Steven received...well, that would be a helluva thing.
It’s not as bad as you imply, but speaking from long experience as a prof (and necessarily based largely on rumours), the outliers are occasionally terrifying in their scope. The vast majority of Canadian academics are almost certainly not hiding salacious missteps, despite the lack of prohibitions. Prohibitions are certainly something worth discussing, but not because there’s some systemic collapse.
No idea how bad it actually is but I was hit on by two graduate students in the same department while an undergraduate (both about a decade older, and one was married) and asked out by a professor (from a different department) who was like twice my age too. But I had no problem saying "no" and my reaction was to just make fun of them.
Edit: One story re the unmarried grad student is over-simplified and I'm more of an asshole in it than implied (on the off chance he sees this, yeah, I know! You're a good guy I was kind of a bitch).
I'm enjoying your openness and honesty, Meghan. Here's a hard truth about boys and men: if you're an attractive women, every male from 13 to 90 is potentially going to take a run at you. They don't self-eliminate by realizing they're not in your league, are too gross, too old, too fat, or too dumb. I admire the tremendous, misplaced confidence and hope of the men, but I feel bad when I think about what it must be like to be an attractive woman. If I were one, I would be a total bitch about 90% of the time.
Oh man, it's kind of necessary! One of my besties in undergrad was this insanely hot woman (easily one of the most attractive women on campus at our smallish school) and I remember she grabbed me by the shoulders once and shouted "MEGHAN you cannot be nice to certain men because they will get obsessed with you." She was not wrong. Honestly, there are dudes who don't lose interest even when you are a total bitch to them. The RA of my dorm in first year had a crush on me and openly favoured me but everyone hated him because he handed out infraction reports willy-nilly and seemed to delight in it and I bullied him relentlessly because of it. Never got an infraction report and I did a ton of infractions.
I didn’t mean to diminish the experience of women — even if it were only 5-10% of faculty, that would be enough to harass the vast majority of women in undergraduate programs. As for graduate student TAs and the like, I have to admit I glossed over that in my mind, so thanks for reminding me there are distinct layers of awfulness in the system. My perspective is entitled straight white male, so I should apologize for what I strongly suspect is/was my (unintended!) mansplaining tone.
Sadly, I witnessed such a " relationship " start in my creative writing class with a tenured, sucessful, quadruple published, & married author and a young female student. Said start involved her flashing him right in our expository writing class at Harvard extension school with all the other students witnessing. ( She was wearing a short skirt so this flashing was easy for her to pull off, though made me feel pretty uncomfortable. ) Target acquired, it's evident to me that students aren't always just coerced, but take an active role in *starting a relationship.*
I seem to be damned when I disagree with you, damned if I defend myself, damned if I suggest you read other things I've written before leaping to conclusions about me, damned if I agree with you. Why do you want to fight so badly?
I welcome open and honest discussions. First full disclosure. I did not sign the letter. I don't tend to sign open letters. They can be problematic but that is a discussion for another time. This whole issue was so messy just as the Amber/Heard case was and I am sure it was hard on all involved... whichever side they landed on. I did however contribute money to the legal fund for A.B. (I am not even certain who this is). I contributed because I do feel women's complaints should be taken seriously and investigated thoroughly by workplaces and the police if required. I didn't like the power imbalance and offered the funds so that A.B. could have proper representation. Then hopefully the courts who would have access to more info than I do could make a determination (admittedly I don't trust this 100% but it is all we have at the moment). I offered the funds because I am very aware of the fact that if you have money you can buy better representation and too often women do not have this but men do.
Rather than focusing on women lying I think it would be important to note that everyone lies. They also have differing opinions on what took place. I know I that have been accused of saying and doing things that I would never do or say. I have been involved in the legal system with an ex-boyfriend who was very dangerous. His mom got him a $500 an hour lawyer... this was in 1995. Not only that our mutual friends took his side. He had raped me, strangled me until I was unconscious but he was a charming man who groomed my friends through preemptive moves to discredit me. I had no lawyer. It was one of the loneliest and hardest times of my life. I was a low income single mother. I looked unglued because I was by the time he was done with me. I saw this same thing in Amber Heard.
I am uncomfortable with declaring Amber Heard a liar. Perhaps not everything she said was truthful but I do believe he was abusive and violent. I watched a lot of the Depp/Heard trial. He was an out of control drunk. Did she do things as well? 100% but to discount her is dangerous. He is older and famous. There is a huge power imbalance. It must have been very hard to speak up in the face of the online onslaught against her. After watching videos of his behaviour while altered and seeing his face during the trial I would say he enjoyed taking her down. It went beyond defending himself. I was so sad to see all of that 'dirty laundry' aired publicly. They both looked troubled. I can't watch a Depp movie anymore. I see his face at that trial. It looked far too familiar. The ex I mention above is just one man who I had issues with. There were others less severe but hard to recover from.
I've been in an abusive relationship too ... it was hard. I was lucky though, and pretty much everyone who knew both of us saw that he was mistreating me and took my side (even though I didn't ask people to take sides and didn't share some of the worst things he did to me). So I got a lot of support post break-up. I didn't watch the Amber Heard - Johnny Depp trial, but I have no doubt he was a crap partner. Amber Heard tried to make it sound like she was only a victim, however, when it seems they were both complicit in a dysfunctional and unhealthy relationship. I didn't like that she claimed the outcome of her case hurt *all* women though, and that's what I was trying to focus on here. Who knows what actually happened. I also think a lot of the time people who see themselves as 100% victims (failing to see their own role etc) actually believe it. Disordered personalities are often incapable of seeing themselves accurately, and incapable of taking responsibility for their actions and effects on others.
Totally... and yes, I have never shared the worst things that were done to me with anyone (even in private). The Depp/Amber case did complicate things for us all but that is it, isn't it? I don't know how we move forward as the truth can be hard to determine and those tasked with assisting in this determination are not always reliable either... they have their biases.
I would not say I was 100% a victim. I was dysfunctional and reacted to the things done to me in ways that probably didn't help but that did not excuse the things he did to me which were a literal crime. When I spoke with the WCB lawyer about compensation he said he had never met anyone like me, that I did take some responsibility and wasn't looking to damage him. I still cared for him and knew his history which was brutal. I just wanted him to leave me alone... he was a stalker that broke into my home etc. All I asked for was 12 therapy sessions so that I could heal. I was given this and was very grateful. I have no idea what happened to him as I made sure the no contact order was in place and never spoke to him again.
My ex called me twice from a blocked number shortly after I gave birth to my daughter with a very scary "I love you ... I miss you ... I'm masturbating."
I wouldn't say I was 100% a victim either. I cheated on him twice, but really only because my attempts to end the relationship kept failing (he was very good at manipulation). I broke up with him in February 2020, and he used the pandemic as an excuse not to move out of my apartment. It was awful. I fled to a friend's house for two weeks to escape him, then hopped on OKCupid at the end of March 2020 to find somewhere else I could go. That's how I ended up meeting my husband ... and he was the one who ended up kicking my ex out of my place!
Oh gawd... how creepy is that. Clearly something is very wrong with that guy. I hope he gets some help.
I am so glad you found your husband. I have felt so safe with mine. I so appreciate this about him. Thanks for creating an opportunity to unpack some of this. It has all troubled me for so many reasons. I wish no one harm.
All this has me thinking once again that our punitive systems are part of the problem. There is a winner and then a loser. We miss opportunities for healing and growth because neither side feels safe in admitting any wrongdoing.
" Disordered persons are often incapable of seeing themselves accurately and [ are ] incapable of taking responsibilities for their actions & effects in others. " Another disparaging comment, Ms.Freud !
The "are" was omitted because the "often" applied to both statements, and clearly means that I do not think this is true of everyone with a personality disorder. Perhaps not the prettiest sentence, but it was a quickly dashed-off comment not a meticulously edited essay.
However, a distorted sense of self and impaired ability to take responsibility are defining traits of Cluster B personality disorders, and mentioned in virtually all of the clinical and research literature.
I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve here, but jumping in with sarcasm, insults, assumptions, and poor reading comprehension while invoking your "neurodivergence" as a trump card over someone who is also "neurodivergent" and explicitly states so in other essays and the "About" page is not exactly convincing me that neuroatypical people do not have significantly more problems with healthy communication and relationships.
My reading comprehension is spot on, and who are you to say that it isn't?! Lol. Another superiority complex based assumption. I'm trying to block you but can't find the block button - more evidence to you, I suppose, that the rest of us are lacking cognitive abilities.
You seem to read the worst into what are fairly banal observations (and where exactly did I say anything to indicate that I believed the "rest" of neurodivergents lack in cognitive abilities? I said neurodivergence is multifactorial and unique in every case, and acknowledged that some subtypes of autism (and ADHD for that matter) are associated with unusual talents -- however this is not true in all cases, and it's important to acknowledge that it can be a severely disabling condition when co-morbid with intellectual disability. This appears to be projection on your part). I mean go ahead and block me, I guess, I'm literally only interacting with you because you keep leaving angry comments here.
Given the overall allegations, and especially given the parts that are still undeniably true, I think it was entirely fair for colleagues and the system to shun and/or demote Galloway. Reputations are often shattered for spurious reasons, and no system exists to protect anyone from the harsh whims of fame. Where I part ways is in the failure of the university system and faculty association to properly reserve judgment until the facts were clear. It may seem odious to hold a position open and continue to pay someone accused of something as serious as rape, but that’s what should be done, absent severance or other mutual agreement.
Yes, he was fired for an "irreparable breach of trust" I believe and I think that's fair. He screwed up bad. And the optics of him marrying another MFA grad (although I believe she was an online student and didn't take any classes with him) was just awful.
I didn't go into the ancillary complaints but one of them was that he slapped a student (I think it was just after graduation) as part of an ongoing joke and while I lumped that under "guilty of immaturity" it's worth highlighting because c'mon.
Great post! I don't think I agree with your description of Steven as an "alleged jerk," but most of your comments seem reasonable and sensible. I also think it's a great idea to give yourself the freedom to break your "rigid format." I am sure your fans would agree. Keep up the good work.
Key word is "alleged"! I realize lots of people will also disagree he should have been fired. It's been pointed out to me that professor-student relationships were not actually against the rules at UBC.
I always admire people who are prepared to admit they were wrong. The malicious attacks on Galloway were a tragedy and a travesty. False accusations are what have discredited the Believe All movement. Always listen and investigate accusations seriously, but whenever members of any group are automatically believed, bad actors will inevitably take advantage: It's human nature. In fact, slander and libel have been such serious problems throughout history that there is version of "Though shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour" in every ancient culture. The UBC Accountable letter made no claims about Galloway's guilt or innocence; it asked only that he be given due process. The attacks that followed had the same dynamic as the Salem witch hunts, the McCarthy years, and the Satanic day care scandal of the '90s in which we were told to Believe the Children no matter how easily disproven the charges.
One of the main issues I had with the Open Letter was that it empowered certain toxic voices and gave them power ... I thought the Letter could have been worded better to avoid this. But I tried to write my own words (here) carefully enough to leave an avenue open to others to publicly change their minds as well without losing (too much) face and pride. There's a part of me that thinks anyone can be reasoned with. This is incorrect. In retrospect, I don't think there was a way for the signatories to word the Letter (or any of their follow ups) in a way that would reach certain people. Some cannot be reached. There's a psychological concept called "splitting", common in disordered personalities; someone is either "all good" or "all bad". The signatories were "split" and seen as "all bad", and their goodness had to be denied. The problem is, splitters split themselves too -- and admitting they were wrong, admitting that they hurt people, is too painful for them.
It was difficult to see anything clearly when I was enmeshed in the UBC creative writing subculture (and, even more toxic, a certain Twitter subculture); I don't know Galloway or his accuser, but almost all the other writers around me at the time seemed convinced of his guilt. When I pushed back against some of the extreme behaviours (e.g. the blacklisting), I was harassed via email and Twitter. I had some chronic health problems at the time, and other drama going on in my personal life. I was very busy. Not sleeping enough. Drinking too much and not eating healthy enough. I think I would have realized what was going on sooner, and spoken up sooner, if I had been healthy enough to do it. Instead, I quit my job, deleted Twitter and disappeared for a while so I could heal. The truth is, going back as far as 2016 and 2017, I knew many of the most vocal anti-Letter people were toxic, and said as much in private conversations -- even though I assumed Galloway was guilty at the time.
Since publishing this post, a small number of people who used to love bomb me when I was an influential CanLit "gatekeeper", and told me to my face that I was a friend (etc), have now blocked me on social media.
It stings a little, but I did a bunch of mushrooms with some friends yesterday, listened to a friend play his guitar. Two weeks ago I sliced off a chunk of my thumb in a blender-blade-related accident; it was a deep cut and there was a lot of blood. On the mushrooms, I watched as blood rushed to the wound and pushed the scar tissue to the surface and it dramatically healed (not fully, but it looks way better and now I can ditch the bandaid). A reminder that wounds, both physical and emotional, can heal, with time and love (and plant medicines!).
Meghan! It's not easy to change one's mind, to see a different way. And to say so publicly.
You've made many excellent points here, thoughtful.
Agreed with Oscar, and know from my own work here (yesterday's post WILL go up today...!) that it's best to dispense with "rigid." It serves to prepare us not to be rigid in other ways, too... and cut ourselves a bit of slack from the madness!
Haha yeah I don't know what I was thinking. I could never even follow a short story outline when I tried to make one (as you might remember from teaching me)!
Thank you for publishing this. I have been following Brad Cran's substack from the outset. Whether or not Mr. Galloway acted like a jerk (and I do not know the man personally), he was and is entitled to defend himself against malicious lies. Perhaps the Canadian literary community could pull together and help Mr. Galloway rehabilitate his writing career.
Tellingly, his new wife went through with the marriage after he was put on leave in 2015, and has stuck with him this entire time. Even more tellingly, his ex-wife, while presumably pretty angry at him (and fairly so), did not come forward with any allegations of poor behaviour of his part herself.
I don't know if Galloway will want to write again, but if he does, I suspect the best route for him to rehabilitate his career would be a memoir (or a fictionalized memoir) of these events. Which would be extremely psychologically taxing on him and his family. But if that happens, I suspect it's way off in the future, well after the defamation case is finally over.
I was one of the authors to sign the letter. My only trepidation at the time was my modest literary output of a few trivia books disqualified me for being on any list with Margaret Atwood. Not that due process should be jettisoned. The whole thing smelled off from the start and I hope Steven Galloway is doing ok. He’s pretty much off the digital grid as far as I’m aware.
Thank you for sharing! There was an interesting argument, in the comments, that Heard did not technically defame Depp in the op-ed by describing him as abusive (while neglecting to mention her own role) because the question was, "Was Depp abusive?" and the answer is clearly "yes".
I was in an abusive relationship for four years (emotional/manipulative, not physical). It nearly broke me. It took me around eight attempts to break up with him because he was so manipulative, and because we lived in a place I owned and I couldn't just flee and move out, but had to convince him to leave.
At one point, he told me he had told a female coworker about our relationship, and she said it sounded like I was abusive to him. I'm not sure what he said, but the focus was on the attempted break-ups and that they didn't take -- I guess he made it sound like I was going hot and cold on him, instead of acknowledging that he'd pressured / promised / guilt-tripped / manipulated me out of each break-up. He also told her I cheated on him, which is true (I don't think he ever cheated on me).
When he told me this, I thought about it ... then told him that no one deserved to be in a relationship with someone who mistreated him, and that if he felt that way, we should break up.
He backtracked immediately. No, no, no, no break-up, we're good together, you can change, I can change etc etc etc.
I think it's common for emotionally abusive people ... vulnerably narcissistic people ... to feel like they are the ones being abused. It's more than just DARVO tactics, it's cognitive distortions where they can't see themselves clearly. My ex was like this. Extremely sensitive to slights, but oblivious to how he hurt others. I'm not sure if he was trying to manipulate me with that conversation, or if he actually believed it, but he didn't believe it enough to not want to be with me.
But the fact that my ex didn't want to let me go and I wanted the relationship to end spoke volumes. And, tellingly, when I finally ended it, he dragged his heels moving out, wanted to stay friends, and creepy-called me afterward, while I mostly hid behind my new boyfriend (now husband) and wanted him out of my life forever.
Returning to Depp/Heard, I think it's very possible Heard was emotionally and psychologically abusive and that she has borderline personality disorder (as a psychologist stated). I have to wonder whether she mentally broke Johnny Depp, and his abuse and spiral into anger and substance abuse was partly in response to that. It doesn't excuse physical violence, obviously.
Wow, your story is harrowing. I'm glad you were finally able to get out and find your own happiness.
As I said about Depp/Heard, I don't know what really happened and neither does anyone else. The dynamics of any relationship are complicated and often baffling to outsiders. Our only involvement should be to help when we can if we see help is needed. Otherwise, we're interfering voyeurs pretending to know what we really don't know.
It's a hard call. We have a tendency to want to help, to want to analyze, to want to understand. But what if we get it wrong? Are we helping or are we hurting?
Agreed! I think this happened in the Galloway case too -- people projected their own experiences onto the case, over-analyzed their past interactions with Galloway etc. I only mentioned the Heard/Depp case because of Amber Heard's comments, which bothered me.
While I was initially swept up in "Me Too", I realized that any time I've complained about a guy, I've always been believed (I suppose because I was never asking anyone to take action on my behalf, and because I don't have a reputation for lying, if anything I'm known for being too bluntly honest -- of course, I omit things or hold my tongue too, as does everyone). Post-Me-Too, I had the opposite problem ... I mentioned incidents to other women and was believed too hard ... they were too quick to want to punish the guy for relatively small offences (e.g. another student in my program ran a hand from my neck to my lower back in a creepy way while I was walking away from him). So I ended up feeling forced to back track and defend the guy because I didn't want him to be disproportionately punished. Which was annoying. I miss the days where I could share stories like that and people would just respond with "What an asshole" instead of jumping to "WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS! DO YOU NEED COUNSELLING?"
Oh, I so agree! I've had my share of gropings and unwanted advances but overall my feelings about men are based solely on the individual. Not all men are bad. That would be foolish to think that. But not all women are good. Those reactions are much too simplistic and can often cause more harm than good. In any case, these conversations are necessary--and it's meaningful that they stay 'conversations' and not arguments. Thanks for this.
Absolutely -- I should mention, after I broke up with the crap boyfriend, during the March 2020 Covid lockdowns when he refused to move out, a male friend from high school who was trained in crisis support let me stay with him for nearly two weeks and helped me get in touch with other supports and craft text messages to ask my ex to leave my place. But most importantly, he didn't have an ulterior motive. He never made a move on me or asked for anything in return. A truly good man.
Difficult territory for me @Margaret Atwood ofcourse I don't know the case but followed the Depp/Heard one people have used such assault claims to blackmail and defame anothers, which does indeed lay shadow on genuine claims. Back to blind justice, I suffered domestic violence (not sexual assault) when weakened after childbirth, gross violence it was not denied, admitted as deserved or caused by myself who did not raise a fist but certainly managed somehow to cause another to. Now did I? Certainly not no I caused no offense. No charges were made though the offendent went to jail and lost his profession but not because of me, though he liked to blame me as this made it easier on himself and frankly the injured take that too much too. I sat and wrote my first novel instead if persuing any legal case, my way not everyone's.
I don't quite know how to describe the atmosphere at UBC to justify the "don't have a problem with Steven Galloway being fired" comment (maybe someone else who was there could do it justice but I can't right now), but someone emailed me to point out that if being an alleged jerk is a fireable offence, then pretty much all of us would be screwed, and I think that's an excellent point.
There's a reason adultery is not illegal. The heart wants what the hearts wants, and various unions form and dissolve with little regard to martial status. AB was a mature student, not some easily influenced 20-year-old fan girl with no life experience who fell under Steven's spell. The other stuff? I've been drunk, said inappropriate things, and have the sense of humour of a 14-year-old boy, so I suppose I am a confirmed jerk.
I'm pretty sure most of us are alleged jerks, if not confirmed ones!
Are you aware that Depp was found guilty of the 12 of the 14 assault charges brought against him in the UK? The UK is much more educated about the nature of coercive control and the abuse that is a reality for many. This is, in fact, the opposite of what happened with Galloway.
Conflating the two of them is both a disservice to Galloway, who deserves a chance to be heard, and to Heard, whose crime was being naive enough that she thought money and misogyny could be beat with truth in the UK. I suggest amending this article because blending the two of them creates a lot of unintended harm. Depp was spiteful and vindictive throughout his trial. I do not think Galloway will be the same.
Sincere question: Why do you think Depp's past partners all stated that he was never abusive to them? (one described him throwing a wine bottle without hitting anyone, but I know women who have done that during fights who are not abusive.)
https://www.today.com/popculture/popculture/johnny-depp-wife-girlfriends-rcna26939
I realize men do not treat all women the same. I dated a guy for a summer once who was very sweet to me. A year later, I found out at a party that he had been a giant jerk to another woman he essentially used for sex.
While it's possible Depp became more abusive with age and substance abuse, I think it's odd no one else he was with came forward to accuse him of abuse, especially given the Me Too movement and the zeitgeist of the time.
I think it's the addiction. I believe there was also another partner who had a similar experience to Heard.
Please add the link here if you can find the story! I couldn't. Unless you're referring to Ellen Barkin, whose claims about Depp pale in comparison to Heard's.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/hes-radioactive-inside-johnny-depps-self-made-implosion-4101726/
https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/1073180-johnny-depps-ex-jennifer-grey-reveals-actors-toxic-behaviour-with-her
He was arrested for violence, smashing things, etc, with multiple partners. The info is out there, but it's mostly dominated by PR from the trial.
Addiction does make some people violent. And ruins careers. I think that's what he had to recover from and Heard was a convenient scapegoat to pin things on for his recovery from rock-bottom. People do that kind of stuff, sadly. And people will rescue those kind of people because they have seen and experienced kindness from them. This kind of complex interweaving is true of some of the worst villains.
Grey's characterization of Depp also pales in relation to Heard's. I agree addiction causes people to be violent all the time. Depp's definitely a mess, but that doesn't mean that there wasn't mutual abuse with Heard (not implying the degree of abuse between the two was identical). Depp's addictions would also make him vulnerable to emotional abuse, and emotional abuse would send him further down addiction.
But I think the take-away here is that a man can be falsely accused or exaggerated about and still have been a giant asshole, and a woman can lie and still be a victim. Nothing is black and white.
I looked up a bit more about the Heard/Depp case and agree it sounds like Depp abused Heard both physically and emotionally, but she also appears to have been at the very least emotionally abusive back. But it's not uncommon for victims of abuse to lose their cool and return abuse, and it's fairly obvious Depp was deliberately provoking her because he was recording the famous phone call that hurt her credibility. Clearly not the best example, and there are many better ones. Thank you for pointing that out.
If anyone else more familiar with the Depp/Heard situation wants to chime in please do!
This has been sometimes called reactive abuse but the language around it is still changing. Think of Gabby Petito and how Brian Laundrie accused her of being mentally ill and violent. Anyone who had been in her shoes and saw the police video knew it was not her and what he was doing. They also knew she was dead long before she was found. It's a very vulnerable place for a victim to be, especially when they have suffered for a long time. They are breaking down while the abusive man is not, and can manipulate them further.
Absolutely. Abuse causes people to lose their sanity and their physical health. Especially if the abuser uses sleep deprivation as a tactic and/or the victim turns to substances to self-medicate.
Which, of course, could lead to lying and/or failures of memory.
I wasn't! I didn't watch any of the trial either. I was bothered by that particular comment and was drawing parallels to statements by AB's lawyers, not trying to say Heard = AB and Depp = Galloway. It was my understanding that both Heard and Depp were abusive and their relationship dysfunctional, and Heard painted it as being one way and was dishonest. (Is this inaccurate?)
I definitely agree Galloway and Depp shouldn't be compared and I didn't intend to imply they should be.
I don't want to alter something I've already published so I pinned your comment!
The "they're both to blame" is a narrative quite often leveraged by abusive men because they know that it weakens the stance of victims while not requiring them to prove innocence. It's similar to "what was she wearing". (Why does nobody ever ask what the rapist was wearing?) Why be good when you can make the other person bad?
The Heard-Depp US trial was not on the assaults, it was on libel and defamation charges, so the same evidence and methodology of judgement that found Depp guilty could not be brought to bear. Much was excluded, this is significant. It was Depp's PR team that spun that as an evidence of being exonerated and he whipped up his fan base for added trajectory. It's quite similar to the political stuff that happens. It feels mildly surreal that assaults and libel could both be true, but they can, especially in different national jurisdictions. I also did not watch the televised circus.
Back on topic, Galloway definitely was not the same case. Depp lost popularity in the public because of court decisions (also due to his drinking and other assaults that were published in tabloids). Consequently, he lost public popularity and then lost income. UBC made its own decisions and breached privacy laws. That's where due process was lost for Galloway.
Will defamation be found for Galloway? I don't know. There were clearly a lot of lies. Was it the lie that caused harm or the actions of those who made decisions based on their judgement of the lie? It should be heard and discussed.
That women are judged hashly and often unfairly is a truth, especially regarding matters like this. We operate in the complexity of this, not in one-sidedness.
Yes. I was only comparing the argument not the cases. Similarly, I don't think there are many parallels between the Bauer/Hill case outside of the exposure of evidence of lying, and even fewer between Bauer/Hill and Depp/Heard. It would be unfair to Bauer to be equated to Galloway, as it is to both to be equated to Depp. But what all three cases have in common is that dishonesty on the part of the women was exposed in court cases. (Depp was also proven to have lied, unlike the other two cases). It is very possible for a woman to both be a victim and be dishonest about events—I don't think victims need to be perfect to be seen as victims, but it seems unlikely to me Heard is entirely innocent here. But she is objectively a victim, what's unclear to me is whether or to what extent Depp was too.
Traumatized people, mentally ill people, addicted people, and/or neurodivergent people are drawn to each other, and the relationships are usually very intense and dysfunctional. I think that's what happened in the Depp/Heard case.
As a *neurodivergent*, I find your comment to be reductionist & puts us all in the box of " more likely to have bad relationships. " I really resent the generalization.
I'm also neurodivergent. Read the "About" page. My comment reflects both my observations and my personal experience. Autism is defined by social difficulties and deficits, and ADHD with poor executive functioning and impulsivity. Both have also been associated with something called "rejection sensitive dysphoria", which can lead a person to misinterpret ordinary interactions in a negative way, to act defensively, to end relationships over the slightest disagreement.
You might resent the generalization, but that you were so quick to jump to resentment demonstrates my point.
And you to first general judgement and summarizing divergence in a mostly negative way. How are autistic people supposed to react when they read comments like yours online ? Do you think they're somehow incapable of finding your comments ? Autistism also features high intelligence and an amazing ability with numbers, technology, and science yet you conveniently * forgot * to mention any gifts Autistic people are born with.
I wasn't "summarizing" divergence, I made a comment about one aspect of it that was relevant to the topic at hand. I didn't mention the gifts that *can* come with some subtypes of autism (which is not one condition, but an umbrella term for a cluster of symptoms that originate from a variety of causes, with no cause being a factor in all cases, and no case having a unitary cause) because they weren't relevant to this conversation. If you bothered to read my "About" page, you'd realize I'm very aware that autistic traits can be associated with cognitive gifts. My own strangeness comes with an unusual aptitude for mathematics and spatial reasoning (I am freakishly good at Tetris).
I discuss autism and neurodivergence in great detail in these two essays:
https://thecassandracomplex.substack.com/p/the-dangers-of-reading-too-much-part
https://thecassandracomplex.substack.com/p/the-dangers-of-reading-too-much-part-df8
I'm also working on one about "gifted kids", which might be more up your alley.
I think you want to be angry with me. That's fine, but you should really consider engaging with more of my work before jumping to conclusions about what I may or may not know based off a couple of comments on a post that had nothing to do with neurodivergence.
Sorry, based on your callous comments in this chat thread, that won't be happening. I'm freakishly good at spotting bias and self-aggrandizement. No, not angry with you personally, but rather the disparaging generalizations. I don't even know you.
The observation regarding the UK judicial system vis-a-vis its American counterpart is not unexpected, given that nearly 40% of Americans support a controversial figure like Donald Trump - a cause for concern.
And around the same number support Biden. I'm not American, but personally I like Kennedy. I don't think everything he says is correct (i.e. I think he has some major blindspots regarding autism), but unlike the other two he is a mature, kind-hearted, and intelligent man who is not motivated by fame, power, and/or money but instead a concern for and love of the American people (and the only one of the three to never be accused of sexual harassment or assault!).
When the allegations about Steven first came out, I assumed it was something involving one of his young students. He's a good looking, funny, intelligent, best-selling novelist with a steady stream of young, ambitious women coming through. What could possibly go wrong? In any case, I was surprised to learn that instructors weren't forbidden from having relationships with students due to the obvious imbalance of power. If the rest of academia in Canada received the kind of scrutiny that Steven received...well, that would be a helluva thing.
It’s not as bad as you imply, but speaking from long experience as a prof (and necessarily based largely on rumours), the outliers are occasionally terrifying in their scope. The vast majority of Canadian academics are almost certainly not hiding salacious missteps, despite the lack of prohibitions. Prohibitions are certainly something worth discussing, but not because there’s some systemic collapse.
No idea how bad it actually is but I was hit on by two graduate students in the same department while an undergraduate (both about a decade older, and one was married) and asked out by a professor (from a different department) who was like twice my age too. But I had no problem saying "no" and my reaction was to just make fun of them.
Edit: One story re the unmarried grad student is over-simplified and I'm more of an asshole in it than implied (on the off chance he sees this, yeah, I know! You're a good guy I was kind of a bitch).
I'm enjoying your openness and honesty, Meghan. Here's a hard truth about boys and men: if you're an attractive women, every male from 13 to 90 is potentially going to take a run at you. They don't self-eliminate by realizing they're not in your league, are too gross, too old, too fat, or too dumb. I admire the tremendous, misplaced confidence and hope of the men, but I feel bad when I think about what it must be like to be an attractive woman. If I were one, I would be a total bitch about 90% of the time.
Oh man, it's kind of necessary! One of my besties in undergrad was this insanely hot woman (easily one of the most attractive women on campus at our smallish school) and I remember she grabbed me by the shoulders once and shouted "MEGHAN you cannot be nice to certain men because they will get obsessed with you." She was not wrong. Honestly, there are dudes who don't lose interest even when you are a total bitch to them. The RA of my dorm in first year had a crush on me and openly favoured me but everyone hated him because he handed out infraction reports willy-nilly and seemed to delight in it and I bullied him relentlessly because of it. Never got an infraction report and I did a ton of infractions.
I didn’t mean to diminish the experience of women — even if it were only 5-10% of faculty, that would be enough to harass the vast majority of women in undergraduate programs. As for graduate student TAs and the like, I have to admit I glossed over that in my mind, so thanks for reminding me there are distinct layers of awfulness in the system. My perspective is entitled straight white male, so I should apologize for what I strongly suspect is/was my (unintended!) mansplaining tone.
I mean, I think the thing is academia is so all-consuming that it's hard for people to meet anyone outside of the school they're in.
Sadly, I witnessed such a " relationship " start in my creative writing class with a tenured, sucessful, quadruple published, & married author and a young female student. Said start involved her flashing him right in our expository writing class at Harvard extension school with all the other students witnessing. ( She was wearing a short skirt so this flashing was easy for her to pull off, though made me feel pretty uncomfortable. ) Target acquired, it's evident to me that students aren't always just coerced, but take an active role in *starting a relationship.*
Yes, I think this is true in at least some cases.
How lucky I am to have your stamp of approval. " At least in some cases. " Please.
I seem to be damned when I disagree with you, damned if I defend myself, damned if I suggest you read other things I've written before leaping to conclusions about me, damned if I agree with you. Why do you want to fight so badly?
Thanks for the info, Brian. It's good to hear from someone closer to the action. My information is all second and third hand.
I welcome open and honest discussions. First full disclosure. I did not sign the letter. I don't tend to sign open letters. They can be problematic but that is a discussion for another time. This whole issue was so messy just as the Amber/Heard case was and I am sure it was hard on all involved... whichever side they landed on. I did however contribute money to the legal fund for A.B. (I am not even certain who this is). I contributed because I do feel women's complaints should be taken seriously and investigated thoroughly by workplaces and the police if required. I didn't like the power imbalance and offered the funds so that A.B. could have proper representation. Then hopefully the courts who would have access to more info than I do could make a determination (admittedly I don't trust this 100% but it is all we have at the moment). I offered the funds because I am very aware of the fact that if you have money you can buy better representation and too often women do not have this but men do.
Rather than focusing on women lying I think it would be important to note that everyone lies. They also have differing opinions on what took place. I know I that have been accused of saying and doing things that I would never do or say. I have been involved in the legal system with an ex-boyfriend who was very dangerous. His mom got him a $500 an hour lawyer... this was in 1995. Not only that our mutual friends took his side. He had raped me, strangled me until I was unconscious but he was a charming man who groomed my friends through preemptive moves to discredit me. I had no lawyer. It was one of the loneliest and hardest times of my life. I was a low income single mother. I looked unglued because I was by the time he was done with me. I saw this same thing in Amber Heard.
I am uncomfortable with declaring Amber Heard a liar. Perhaps not everything she said was truthful but I do believe he was abusive and violent. I watched a lot of the Depp/Heard trial. He was an out of control drunk. Did she do things as well? 100% but to discount her is dangerous. He is older and famous. There is a huge power imbalance. It must have been very hard to speak up in the face of the online onslaught against her. After watching videos of his behaviour while altered and seeing his face during the trial I would say he enjoyed taking her down. It went beyond defending himself. I was so sad to see all of that 'dirty laundry' aired publicly. They both looked troubled. I can't watch a Depp movie anymore. I see his face at that trial. It looked far too familiar. The ex I mention above is just one man who I had issues with. There were others less severe but hard to recover from.
I've been in an abusive relationship too ... it was hard. I was lucky though, and pretty much everyone who knew both of us saw that he was mistreating me and took my side (even though I didn't ask people to take sides and didn't share some of the worst things he did to me). So I got a lot of support post break-up. I didn't watch the Amber Heard - Johnny Depp trial, but I have no doubt he was a crap partner. Amber Heard tried to make it sound like she was only a victim, however, when it seems they were both complicit in a dysfunctional and unhealthy relationship. I didn't like that she claimed the outcome of her case hurt *all* women though, and that's what I was trying to focus on here. Who knows what actually happened. I also think a lot of the time people who see themselves as 100% victims (failing to see their own role etc) actually believe it. Disordered personalities are often incapable of seeing themselves accurately, and incapable of taking responsibility for their actions and effects on others.
I am sorry that this happened to you.
Totally... and yes, I have never shared the worst things that were done to me with anyone (even in private). The Depp/Amber case did complicate things for us all but that is it, isn't it? I don't know how we move forward as the truth can be hard to determine and those tasked with assisting in this determination are not always reliable either... they have their biases.
I would not say I was 100% a victim. I was dysfunctional and reacted to the things done to me in ways that probably didn't help but that did not excuse the things he did to me which were a literal crime. When I spoke with the WCB lawyer about compensation he said he had never met anyone like me, that I did take some responsibility and wasn't looking to damage him. I still cared for him and knew his history which was brutal. I just wanted him to leave me alone... he was a stalker that broke into my home etc. All I asked for was 12 therapy sessions so that I could heal. I was given this and was very grateful. I have no idea what happened to him as I made sure the no contact order was in place and never spoke to him again.
My ex called me twice from a blocked number shortly after I gave birth to my daughter with a very scary "I love you ... I miss you ... I'm masturbating."
I wouldn't say I was 100% a victim either. I cheated on him twice, but really only because my attempts to end the relationship kept failing (he was very good at manipulation). I broke up with him in February 2020, and he used the pandemic as an excuse not to move out of my apartment. It was awful. I fled to a friend's house for two weeks to escape him, then hopped on OKCupid at the end of March 2020 to find somewhere else I could go. That's how I ended up meeting my husband ... and he was the one who ended up kicking my ex out of my place!
Oh gawd... how creepy is that. Clearly something is very wrong with that guy. I hope he gets some help.
I am so glad you found your husband. I have felt so safe with mine. I so appreciate this about him. Thanks for creating an opportunity to unpack some of this. It has all troubled me for so many reasons. I wish no one harm.
All this has me thinking once again that our punitive systems are part of the problem. There is a winner and then a loser. We miss opportunities for healing and growth because neither side feels safe in admitting any wrongdoing.
" Disordered persons are often incapable of seeing themselves accurately and [ are ] incapable of taking responsibilities for their actions & effects in others. " Another disparaging comment, Ms.Freud !
The "are" was omitted because the "often" applied to both statements, and clearly means that I do not think this is true of everyone with a personality disorder. Perhaps not the prettiest sentence, but it was a quickly dashed-off comment not a meticulously edited essay.
However, a distorted sense of self and impaired ability to take responsibility are defining traits of Cluster B personality disorders, and mentioned in virtually all of the clinical and research literature.
I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve here, but jumping in with sarcasm, insults, assumptions, and poor reading comprehension while invoking your "neurodivergence" as a trump card over someone who is also "neurodivergent" and explicitly states so in other essays and the "About" page is not exactly convincing me that neuroatypical people do not have significantly more problems with healthy communication and relationships.
My reading comprehension is spot on, and who are you to say that it isn't?! Lol. Another superiority complex based assumption. I'm trying to block you but can't find the block button - more evidence to you, I suppose, that the rest of us are lacking cognitive abilities.
You seem to read the worst into what are fairly banal observations (and where exactly did I say anything to indicate that I believed the "rest" of neurodivergents lack in cognitive abilities? I said neurodivergence is multifactorial and unique in every case, and acknowledged that some subtypes of autism (and ADHD for that matter) are associated with unusual talents -- however this is not true in all cases, and it's important to acknowledge that it can be a severely disabling condition when co-morbid with intellectual disability. This appears to be projection on your part). I mean go ahead and block me, I guess, I'm literally only interacting with you because you keep leaving angry comments here.
Given the overall allegations, and especially given the parts that are still undeniably true, I think it was entirely fair for colleagues and the system to shun and/or demote Galloway. Reputations are often shattered for spurious reasons, and no system exists to protect anyone from the harsh whims of fame. Where I part ways is in the failure of the university system and faculty association to properly reserve judgment until the facts were clear. It may seem odious to hold a position open and continue to pay someone accused of something as serious as rape, but that’s what should be done, absent severance or other mutual agreement.
Yes, he was fired for an "irreparable breach of trust" I believe and I think that's fair. He screwed up bad. And the optics of him marrying another MFA grad (although I believe she was an online student and didn't take any classes with him) was just awful.
I didn't go into the ancillary complaints but one of them was that he slapped a student (I think it was just after graduation) as part of an ongoing joke and while I lumped that under "guilty of immaturity" it's worth highlighting because c'mon.
Great post! I don't think I agree with your description of Steven as an "alleged jerk," but most of your comments seem reasonable and sensible. I also think it's a great idea to give yourself the freedom to break your "rigid format." I am sure your fans would agree. Keep up the good work.
I mean, cheating on your wife is pretty jerk-y, especially when you have kids. But it's not uncommon for people to cheat on spouses.
Key word is "alleged"! I realize lots of people will also disagree he should have been fired. It's been pointed out to me that professor-student relationships were not actually against the rules at UBC.
I always admire people who are prepared to admit they were wrong. The malicious attacks on Galloway were a tragedy and a travesty. False accusations are what have discredited the Believe All movement. Always listen and investigate accusations seriously, but whenever members of any group are automatically believed, bad actors will inevitably take advantage: It's human nature. In fact, slander and libel have been such serious problems throughout history that there is version of "Though shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour" in every ancient culture. The UBC Accountable letter made no claims about Galloway's guilt or innocence; it asked only that he be given due process. The attacks that followed had the same dynamic as the Salem witch hunts, the McCarthy years, and the Satanic day care scandal of the '90s in which we were told to Believe the Children no matter how easily disproven the charges.
One of the main issues I had with the Open Letter was that it empowered certain toxic voices and gave them power ... I thought the Letter could have been worded better to avoid this. But I tried to write my own words (here) carefully enough to leave an avenue open to others to publicly change their minds as well without losing (too much) face and pride. There's a part of me that thinks anyone can be reasoned with. This is incorrect. In retrospect, I don't think there was a way for the signatories to word the Letter (or any of their follow ups) in a way that would reach certain people. Some cannot be reached. There's a psychological concept called "splitting", common in disordered personalities; someone is either "all good" or "all bad". The signatories were "split" and seen as "all bad", and their goodness had to be denied. The problem is, splitters split themselves too -- and admitting they were wrong, admitting that they hurt people, is too painful for them.
It was difficult to see anything clearly when I was enmeshed in the UBC creative writing subculture (and, even more toxic, a certain Twitter subculture); I don't know Galloway or his accuser, but almost all the other writers around me at the time seemed convinced of his guilt. When I pushed back against some of the extreme behaviours (e.g. the blacklisting), I was harassed via email and Twitter. I had some chronic health problems at the time, and other drama going on in my personal life. I was very busy. Not sleeping enough. Drinking too much and not eating healthy enough. I think I would have realized what was going on sooner, and spoken up sooner, if I had been healthy enough to do it. Instead, I quit my job, deleted Twitter and disappeared for a while so I could heal. The truth is, going back as far as 2016 and 2017, I knew many of the most vocal anti-Letter people were toxic, and said as much in private conversations -- even though I assumed Galloway was guilty at the time.
Since publishing this post, a small number of people who used to love bomb me when I was an influential CanLit "gatekeeper", and told me to my face that I was a friend (etc), have now blocked me on social media.
It stings a little, but I did a bunch of mushrooms with some friends yesterday, listened to a friend play his guitar. Two weeks ago I sliced off a chunk of my thumb in a blender-blade-related accident; it was a deep cut and there was a lot of blood. On the mushrooms, I watched as blood rushed to the wound and pushed the scar tissue to the surface and it dramatically healed (not fully, but it looks way better and now I can ditch the bandaid). A reminder that wounds, both physical and emotional, can heal, with time and love (and plant medicines!).
Meghan! It's not easy to change one's mind, to see a different way. And to say so publicly.
You've made many excellent points here, thoughtful.
Agreed with Oscar, and know from my own work here (yesterday's post WILL go up today...!) that it's best to dispense with "rigid." It serves to prepare us not to be rigid in other ways, too... and cut ourselves a bit of slack from the madness!
Haha yeah I don't know what I was thinking. I could never even follow a short story outline when I tried to make one (as you might remember from teaching me)!
It's a rare writer who is rigid; scares me to think of really...
I'm convinced (I've convinced myself?) that we produce the same amount, or what we need to, when we give ourselves time and space to do so.
Thank you for publishing this. I have been following Brad Cran's substack from the outset. Whether or not Mr. Galloway acted like a jerk (and I do not know the man personally), he was and is entitled to defend himself against malicious lies. Perhaps the Canadian literary community could pull together and help Mr. Galloway rehabilitate his writing career.
Tellingly, his new wife went through with the marriage after he was put on leave in 2015, and has stuck with him this entire time. Even more tellingly, his ex-wife, while presumably pretty angry at him (and fairly so), did not come forward with any allegations of poor behaviour of his part herself.
I don't know if Galloway will want to write again, but if he does, I suspect the best route for him to rehabilitate his career would be a memoir (or a fictionalized memoir) of these events. Which would be extremely psychologically taxing on him and his family. But if that happens, I suspect it's way off in the future, well after the defamation case is finally over.
I was one of the authors to sign the letter. My only trepidation at the time was my modest literary output of a few trivia books disqualified me for being on any list with Margaret Atwood. Not that due process should be jettisoned. The whole thing smelled off from the start and I hope Steven Galloway is doing ok. He’s pretty much off the digital grid as far as I’m aware.
So interesting, including the comments. I wrote about the Depp-Heard trial as it happened. You might find it interesting--including the comments.
https://constantcommoner.substack.com/p/the-depp-heard-trial-and-what-it
Thank you for sharing! There was an interesting argument, in the comments, that Heard did not technically defame Depp in the op-ed by describing him as abusive (while neglecting to mention her own role) because the question was, "Was Depp abusive?" and the answer is clearly "yes".
I was in an abusive relationship for four years (emotional/manipulative, not physical). It nearly broke me. It took me around eight attempts to break up with him because he was so manipulative, and because we lived in a place I owned and I couldn't just flee and move out, but had to convince him to leave.
At one point, he told me he had told a female coworker about our relationship, and she said it sounded like I was abusive to him. I'm not sure what he said, but the focus was on the attempted break-ups and that they didn't take -- I guess he made it sound like I was going hot and cold on him, instead of acknowledging that he'd pressured / promised / guilt-tripped / manipulated me out of each break-up. He also told her I cheated on him, which is true (I don't think he ever cheated on me).
When he told me this, I thought about it ... then told him that no one deserved to be in a relationship with someone who mistreated him, and that if he felt that way, we should break up.
He backtracked immediately. No, no, no, no break-up, we're good together, you can change, I can change etc etc etc.
I think it's common for emotionally abusive people ... vulnerably narcissistic people ... to feel like they are the ones being abused. It's more than just DARVO tactics, it's cognitive distortions where they can't see themselves clearly. My ex was like this. Extremely sensitive to slights, but oblivious to how he hurt others. I'm not sure if he was trying to manipulate me with that conversation, or if he actually believed it, but he didn't believe it enough to not want to be with me.
But the fact that my ex didn't want to let me go and I wanted the relationship to end spoke volumes. And, tellingly, when I finally ended it, he dragged his heels moving out, wanted to stay friends, and creepy-called me afterward, while I mostly hid behind my new boyfriend (now husband) and wanted him out of my life forever.
Returning to Depp/Heard, I think it's very possible Heard was emotionally and psychologically abusive and that she has borderline personality disorder (as a psychologist stated). I have to wonder whether she mentally broke Johnny Depp, and his abuse and spiral into anger and substance abuse was partly in response to that. It doesn't excuse physical violence, obviously.
Wow, your story is harrowing. I'm glad you were finally able to get out and find your own happiness.
As I said about Depp/Heard, I don't know what really happened and neither does anyone else. The dynamics of any relationship are complicated and often baffling to outsiders. Our only involvement should be to help when we can if we see help is needed. Otherwise, we're interfering voyeurs pretending to know what we really don't know.
It's a hard call. We have a tendency to want to help, to want to analyze, to want to understand. But what if we get it wrong? Are we helping or are we hurting?
Agreed! I think this happened in the Galloway case too -- people projected their own experiences onto the case, over-analyzed their past interactions with Galloway etc. I only mentioned the Heard/Depp case because of Amber Heard's comments, which bothered me.
While I was initially swept up in "Me Too", I realized that any time I've complained about a guy, I've always been believed (I suppose because I was never asking anyone to take action on my behalf, and because I don't have a reputation for lying, if anything I'm known for being too bluntly honest -- of course, I omit things or hold my tongue too, as does everyone). Post-Me-Too, I had the opposite problem ... I mentioned incidents to other women and was believed too hard ... they were too quick to want to punish the guy for relatively small offences (e.g. another student in my program ran a hand from my neck to my lower back in a creepy way while I was walking away from him). So I ended up feeling forced to back track and defend the guy because I didn't want him to be disproportionately punished. Which was annoying. I miss the days where I could share stories like that and people would just respond with "What an asshole" instead of jumping to "WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS! DO YOU NEED COUNSELLING?"
Oh, I so agree! I've had my share of gropings and unwanted advances but overall my feelings about men are based solely on the individual. Not all men are bad. That would be foolish to think that. But not all women are good. Those reactions are much too simplistic and can often cause more harm than good. In any case, these conversations are necessary--and it's meaningful that they stay 'conversations' and not arguments. Thanks for this.
Absolutely -- I should mention, after I broke up with the crap boyfriend, during the March 2020 Covid lockdowns when he refused to move out, a male friend from high school who was trained in crisis support let me stay with him for nearly two weeks and helped me get in touch with other supports and craft text messages to ask my ex to leave my place. But most importantly, he didn't have an ulterior motive. He never made a move on me or asked for anything in return. A truly good man.
❤️❤️❤️
Difficult territory for me @Margaret Atwood ofcourse I don't know the case but followed the Depp/Heard one people have used such assault claims to blackmail and defame anothers, which does indeed lay shadow on genuine claims. Back to blind justice, I suffered domestic violence (not sexual assault) when weakened after childbirth, gross violence it was not denied, admitted as deserved or caused by myself who did not raise a fist but certainly managed somehow to cause another to. Now did I? Certainly not no I caused no offense. No charges were made though the offendent went to jail and lost his profession but not because of me, though he liked to blame me as this made it easier on himself and frankly the injured take that too much too. I sat and wrote my first novel instead if persuing any legal case, my way not everyone's.