Getting To Work, Often Means Unplugging For Awhile – A Letter To Krisya Ohana, And Anonymous

There are days when I sit here and I think, “I’m doing a good job, I’m focusing on my mental health, and I am doing the things that I need to do, to be centred, to make my world make sense.” But last night everything changed. Everything about my entire life changed.

When I was in Anonymous, I was instantly famous – all because I had a Twitter account with the word “Anonymous,” attached to it. It was the height of power for the people of the internet, it was the beginning of an entirely new world where the internet was no longer just a place to meet people and find easy sex. It wasn’t just a place to build a business or teach a class. The internet had become an avenging angel.

The Lulz led to prosecutions – by the hundreds – of activists, who wanted to change the world, break the system and rebuild it. Many of us died, went to jail, and institutions and were called crazy, psychotic, lunatics. Many of us had to run from one side of the planet to the other, only to find out through a newspaper that we were “legally dead,” but not physically so.

The lies and manipulation that we as a community of Hacktavists dealt with were traumatizing at least, and deadly at worst. The problem wasn’t that we were fighting against poverty, hunger, drug addiction, and systemic abuse that spans every non-white, abled culture on the planet, that wasn’t the issue.

The problem was that because there was and continues to be so much corruption, we couldn’t see who was at the top.

Last night I was laying in bed thinking about what would happen if someone really could Hack The Planet, what would that look like? If someone could have access to every digital file, on the entire planet, and the ones are hidden up in space, protected by satellites, what would the world look like?

This morning, it turns out, it looks exactly like it did yesterday. The sky is a bright blueish gray, the clouds are plentiful, and the sun is shining, but somewhere in the world, a group of people, unknown, Anonymous ghosts, are tapping away at hundreds of computers, connected to the internet, hidden by shadows.

Some of them are heroes, and some of them are the worst kind of evil this planet has ever known. They aren’t really demons, or vampires, or angels, or Gods, or Goddesses, but they could be, if they wanted to, if they took off the mask and showed the world what they are capable of, but for some of them, they don’t have the option of taking off the mask. Because taking off the mask means their actual physical and spiritual death.

I used to think that all I wanted was fancy shoes, a giant Lisa Vanderpump closet, and my own business, and I still want all of those things, but more than that, I want to make sure that no child ever again, feels the isolation and loneliness that comes with being forced to marry a man twice their age, at fifteen or fourteen, or twelve.

I never want any kid to know what it feels like, to believe that their body is not their own.

There are massive corporations and religious entities out there, that take advantage of their position in the world, and use it to hurt the world’s most vulnerable people. Disabled by mental health, addiction issues, poverty, houselessness, fear, anxiety, and depression, these people look for hope – not in the wrong places – but in corners where light can be seen, but often, this is a trick used by these organizations to destroy what’s left of an already soul-shattering existence.

Recently I had the opportunity to talk to people who are a part of a variety of organizations, it was a private and unpublicized meetup, designed to give people like myself, the opportunity to share our stories. I cried harder than I have cried in years, not because the stories were hurting me, but because the people who heard me, were actually listening. To me.

Every day I sit here and I focus on writing this blog as if I am running a marathon, one day at a time, not planning for a future, not even daring to have hope that I MIGHT have a future, because the people that I love, didn’t know how to communicate with me, didn’t know how to understand me, and I didn’t know how to teach them.

Patience, love, and the promise that if I was telling the truth, they would do everything in their power to help me shine, gave me the chance to do that. To tell my story, to shed some tears, and to release a lot of false promises and fake love.

The people of Anonymous had no idea who I really was, or what I wanted from the world, they knew my face and my name because I doxed myself, but they didn’t “know me,” no one has ever really known me. I’ve spent my whole life creating a carefully scripted identity, designed to protect anyone from causing me further pain.

But when I left Anonymous, I swore one thing, if I could help kids of abuse, I would do that. When you make a promise to the universe, sometimes it takes a while to figure out where you fit, how you fit, and what you can do to make that promise a reality. People get impatient, they think you’ve forgotten, or they act like you don’t care when in reality, you’re just trying to find all the right pieces so you don’t make a mistake, so you don’t make things worse, then when you started.

One of my deepest regrets is that I don’t have a list of numbered, alphabetical things one has to do, in order to find a place of the healing because some days none of those things work, but what I do have is a network that spans a billion different dimensions.

I never wanted to be famous. I just wanted to make sure that my littlest voice mattered. I just wanted to make sure that the little girl who saw the world, saw the lies, saw the hurt nad the pain, knows that without her, I wouldn’t exist. Without Jonquil’s birth daughter, Devon…I wouldn’t be here. As I am now, The Loud Mouth Brown Girl.

Anonymous taught me how to use the internet, how to dig into the deepest wells of the most horrible places, to find the men who did all those horrible things to me, they taught me that true vengeance doesn’t have to be about blood and death, it can be about freedom, and it can be about the release.

So. I’ve released. Six years of essays, six years of tears, six years of wondering “when am I going to find my happy place? When am I going to be free? When am I going to get to be a mom?” Six years of wondering, crying, and thinking no one was hearing me, when in reality, it wasn’t that they couldn’t hear me, it was that they didn’t understand the language I was speaking.

The internet is connected to every single satellite and device on the planet, and if you know how to kick down the right doors, you can find a world of information, that will change everything about the entire planet, just because YOU are the one who found it. YOU are the one who changed the world, but you didn’t know that, because you were too busy listening to the voices of your abusers, and their supporters and allies.

Turns out victims and survivors are actually more powerful than their abusers, they are more powerful than their bullies because we have legions of armies, and soldiers. Fighters, from around the world, didn’t know how to fight, because no one taught them how. Krisya Ohana taught me how.

On the night that I was gangraped I remember whispering “Krisya Ohana, I need you,” it was just a phrase, something to give me comfort, brought to me by a white comedian, who the world has repeatedly watched stumble and fall, who the entire world has seen grow, evolve, and become a better man, because of the people who love him.

Change is possible, but you have to want it, you have to fight for it. You have to kick, scream, yell, and take every advantage that you can because maybe you don’t save the world for yourself, but maybe you save it for all the kids who look at you like you’re the weirdest thing they’ve ever seen. Maybe they look at you like you’re weird because they see in you what they’ve always wanted to be.

Either way, it’s time for the Loud Mouth Brown Girl to take a much-needed, much-deserved vacation. I might post I might not, but when I do, I can promise I’ll still be me…I’ll just be…more me.

Sending all my love,

Devon J Hall