Every Sunday at 12:00 am EST, a group of postcards are published on Postsecret.com. This was something that was started a long time ago by a man named Frank who originally set up an answering machine that people could call into and leave their anonymous secrets. It graduated to an anonymous postcard opportunity that people could send in to his address, and he would publish a handful every week.

Then he started making collections of books. Devotees would make their own postcards and instead of mailing them in, they would go to bookstores and slip them inside books waiting on shelves with their rightful owners. Or the postcards would make their way inside library books, not necessarily by the last person to check them out, so one could never assume there was a clear path of those secrets.

Frank started doing live shows where people could submit their secrets to be read aloud. Now there’s a theater performance where the postcards are being acted out like little short plays. For a while, a Post Secret display was up at the Smithsonian, and a display of selected submitted postcards was set up in San Diego to visitors to admire.

I’ve been a faithful reader of Post Secret for years now. I also have a few books. But I rarely send in postcards, and I have never left cards in library books or items being sold in a book store. The past few months have been really tumultuous and I really felt the need to spill my guts – because some things were getting lost in the shuffle of current events.

My heart skipped a beat because recently, as I was scrolling down the published postcards, there was one of mine. I actually mailed off three cards at the same time. This one made the cut. My handwriting, my cut-out pictures, my outrage and fear and exhaustion. I kept looking at it. I wondered if anyone I knew was looking at it and recognized my handwriting. I also wondered if it even mattered, because I’m always outspoken, and after a while, people just tend to tune me out anyway.

But then it happened again: another one of my secrets was published. However, it’s not my type, it’s not my picture, and it’s not the entire message. Frank only used the first line and went and found a stock photo and pasted some text onto it. I was edited. 

This is what it’s like to be a woman, every single day. I honestly didn’t know that he was editing others’ post cards that were being sent in before posting them. I have no idea how often he does it. But I can tell you there is nothing I said that was illegal or immoral. He has published secrets that talk about suicide, murder, abuse, theft, and just about anything else under the sun. I can assure you that mine included none of those. Yet, he decided that I needed to be censored. 

This entire past week as we have sat through Kavanaugh and Ford being questioned, those of us women and men who acknowledge the trauma have endured either long term or short term understand this concept of being censored, and of having our experiences being minimized. When we do reveal our secrets, whether it’s in front of the entire world or it’s with something as small as a postcard, we are automatically accused of lying. In the meantime, our testimonies are changed and twisted to something unrecognizable. 

The biggest lie is that “two families are being torn apart” by these proceedings. Focusing only on Kavanaugh and Ford for a moment, Kavanaugh is only going to be disappointed if he doesn’t make it on the Supreme Court. He has had a lot of insulation from the Republican party telling him he’s a good guy, no matter what he has done and what he does now. Ms. Ford, on the other hand, has had death threats. She’s been called a liar when she can’t remember the finest of details, even though she remembers far more than Kavanaugh. In order to stay alive she’s had to go into hiding. Kavanaugh hasn’t. That isn’t equal treatment by far.

What hurts me the most is hearing from other women that Ms. Ford (and the other women) must be lying because this is the first time they are hearing about this. I know for a fact one of my family members was abused and we never talked about it, even to this day. I have had friends and co-workers tell me about their abuse from their family members. I have had friends either try or succeed in raping other friends. I have had my own experiences with sexual violence, as have countless women I am close to. During a recent discussion with another woman, we acknowledged that the official statistic is supposed to be one in six women experience sexual violence, but we don’t actually know someone who hasn’t had something happen – whether they want to admit it or not.

But we don’t sit around and talk about it. We certainly don’t call 911 the minute our sick uncles pull their dicks from our 4-year-old mouths, or when we’re struggling to figure out if we gave a friend mixed signals and if the cop is going to believe us if we call it in, even when we’re in full panic attack and the shaking never stops. (I’m saying “our” and “we” because these experiences belong to all of us.) Sometimes I don’t hear other women’s experiences until decades have passed. I can’t talk or write about all of mine.

What can we do now?
– Believe victims
– Stop shaming victims
– Stop treating men who manipulate and violate others sexually and violently as if they are the victims – they are not
– Vote for public officials who support women’s rights and human rights in November, not a patriarchy.

It’s a small list, but it will make all the difference.