After sitting on this essay for over three years, I’m publishing it now to try and achieve some justice for the situation that has been forced upon me, and to seek aid in a very dark time. A fundraiser for my medical and legal funds can be found here.
My name is Ignacio Martinez. I am a 27-year-old former politics writer residing in Austin, TX, and this essay has been staring at me from an open tab on my computer for the past three years after one of the most evil things a person can do to someone was done to me in July 2020.
I’m publishing it now because I am, at this time, at the end of my rope and I feel closer to killing myself now than I ever have felt in my life. After over three years of living in a disenfranchised state of silent pain, I fear that I am finally at a point where I can no longer continue if the parties who destroyed my life do not face accountability for their actions.
The situation that has been forced upon me has hyper accelerated my nihilism as I have struggled to see the point of trying to live a life that can be destroyed so easily by forces completely out of your control. The concept of my life having inherent worth feels completely moot now as the resultant hopelessness has seeped its way into every crevice of my psyche.
As the walls closed in on me in the past few weeks, I thought about publishing this posthumously in the hope that the money owed to me by my former employer, The Daily Dot, would be given to the people in my life so they could settle my debts and responsibilities.
I am now seeking aid because I think I don’t want to die. I need mental healthcare to deal with the incredibly traumatic event that has consumed my life for the past three years. Additionally, I need physical healthcare for issues that have arisen because of this. The most pressing of these is a shattered premolar tooth and the persistent pain I live with because of it.
In addition to requesting financial assistance from willing and able friends and family as I begin to rebuild my life, I’m also hoping to achieve justice. I want to pursue legal action against the person who made false accusations against me for defamation, and the people who created DeplatformUT, a now-defunct website that published the defamatory comments for harassment and doxxing. Additionally, I wish to seek legal action against The Daily Dot and the specific editor who erased me from the company system for the labor violations of withholding wages and wrongful termination–as well as sexual discrimination.
This all started when I was 23. I’m 27 now as of last week, and I’ve lost over three years of my life because of this incident. I’ve also lost my passion for writing, one of the only things I ever wanted to do in life. The field where I was actually building a foothold for myself after college before this all happened. The weight of getting through each day has been so mentally exhausting and taxing that the act of taking it day by day has left me feeling no longer human and more like a specter haunting my own life.
The account of what happened to me is as follows:
In July 2020, I was falsely accused of sexual assault by an anonymous source on a blog. I believe this accusation was made by someone who wished to cause me harm because of the strong opinions contained in my online writing. I have previously been doxxed because of this. Shortly afterwards, to avoid accountability, the people behind the website that published the fake accusations against me announced that they would be ‘briefly deactivating our account in order to recharge.” There has been radio silence ever since.
The original, quickly-deleted Twitter account can be found here and a snapshot of that original account can be found here. The website is here in its scrubbed state. Originally, there were snapshots of the website before it was deleted but all such instances have been pulled from the Wayback Machine.
The website included the following disclaimer on its home page.
The anonymous accusation made against me is as follows. To this day, I have no idea as to the identity of the person who submitted this.
But the damage was done. On account of the fake accusations made against me, my employer at the time, The Daily Dot, terminated my contract without notice or any form of correspondence. I know exactly which editor did this, but I will not subject them to the court of public opinion by revealing their identity. The company still owes me over $4000 in unpaid wages. Due to my status as a “permalancer,” (as opposed to a staff writer) I was also ineligible to receive unemployment from the company and only received partial coverage from the pandemic disaster relief unemployment.
I have managed to get by through gig work and a series of side hustles for over three years. I have not lived well, but somehow, I have lived. Initially, I told myself I would kill myself, “When I ran out of money,” and I have now reached that point. My savings are completely depleted, my credit cards are maxed out with nearly $10,000 in debt, and my credit score is destroyed as a result.
It’s pretty hard to reject the inherent absurdity and meaninglessness of life when your entire existence can be upended by an anonymous comment on a website shut down by creators trying to destroy the evidence of their crimes and avoid accountability.
Living with and trying to process the trauma of this incident for the past three years has been an endless cycle of swallowing and vomiting bile. I know that if I don’t try to stop that cycle, the grief of what has happened to me will eventually and assuredly lead me to take my own life.
Although very few people saw these false allegations against me initially, I am now in the odd position where I want as many people as possible to know about them in hopes that the Daily Dot will feel pressured into paying me the wages they owe me and those accountable for these gross misdeeds against me can be held accountable for their actions.
One of the few reasons I haven’t killed myself is because I have a completely guilt free conscience. I know that any allegations made in reference to me are complete fabrications, but the thought of having to remain silent with my truth is becoming unbearable.
I have often considered letting this situation go and attempting to rebuild my life. However, I have realized that I can’t start that process without first making an effort to seek justice. I can’t stand that the people who defamed me sleep well at night while my increasing stress has caused me headaches, ulcers, and teeth grinding that caused my top right premolar to shatter in my mouth. Up to this point, I’ve simply endured the pain because I figured there would be no point in fixing it if I was going to kill myself soon anyway.
The reason I’ve waited so long to deal with this is because in the immediate aftermath I had no resources to help me. When I lost my position, the pandemic was at its height and I lost my main source of income. Additionally, I am a person who simply does not have access to the safety net of a support system that many would assume as a given.
My parents live three hours away from me and I haven’t seen them once in nearly five years. I left home when I was 17 for school. I’ve never had the small luxuries of being on any sort of family plan for streaming services or a cell phone plan, much less ever had any form of insurance or access to any form of healthcare provided for me. There was no car purchased for me when I moved. There was no guaranteed place to return to during holidays in college or items in the mail to wait for in the lead up to birthdays. There was no one to take me to dinner after graduation. I’ve been on my own my entire life and I’d like to think prior to this incident, I had done a decent job in setting up the foundation for a decent life with the scant resources I had available to me. I’d also like to think that in my young adulthood I managed to hide the precarious nature of my life and the complete lack of security I’ve experienced.
I’m very aware of life not being fair; I’ve been witness to that my entire life. But I’ve made peace with that truth, and accepted the tribulations that will come as a result. However, this situation has shown me a level of unfairness that I cannot physically or mentally bear. This attack took from me against my consent the one thing I’ve truly had my entire life: my ability to fend for myself.
It’s disgusting that somebody attacked me like this.
It’s disgusting that somebody lied and exploited the act of coming forward with instances of misconduct to try and destroy me.
It’s disgusting that all the people who ruined my life disappeared and have not had to face consequences for their actions.
It’s disgusting that I’ve lost over three years of my life where I’ve suffered in silence.
It’s disgusting that I feel like I’ve been lying to the people in my life by presenting a facade of seeming somewhat okay even though the thought of ending my own life has been in my head every single day.
It’s disgusting that I’ve kept people I love in my life at an arm’s distance for several years because I knew it would be easier that way when I eventually killed myself.
It’s disgusting that I have hundreds of unreplied messages on my phone from people who think I’m ignoring them when the reality is that I no longer have the strength to pretend that I’m okay.
I feel disgusting having to ask for help in a public avenue.
It’s disgusting that my name is now tied to this.
It’s disgusting that I’m forced to navigate the concept of spectacle against my consent just to try and save my own life.
If you know me and are reading this, the only thing I apologize for is not being the best person I could be in the past three years. The trauma of this event has permanently altered me. I used to care about a litany of causes and want to help wherever I could but now I find myself only thinking about how to continue surviving. I’ve lost so much of myself and I don’t know how much of it I can ever get back. I simply have not been able to operate at the capacity of the person I once was because the weight of wanting to end my life has crossed my mind and burdened me every single day without escape for over the past three years. I can’t and don’t want to live like this but at least at this moment I also don’t want to die.
This is not me asking for a second chance or redemption, I don’t need that. This is me fighting tooth and nail to get my first chance back. This is me trying to project the last remnants of hope I have left out to the world before I completely give up.