What leaving an abusive friendship with a public figure looks like

The worst thing anyone has ever done to me is tell me I am nothing, that I am “the problem,” that I deserve pain, when they promised to love me. I experienced it from my mother for the first 18 years of my life, and then I experienced it from someone who was my chosen family — a much worse pain, perhaps, at least in my eyes and heart because it was someone I picked to be in my life, not someone who was there by natural fact. But the thing is that I didn’t pick them. They manipulated me, and trauma-bonded me, and love bombed me, and emotionally abused me and roped me into staying in ways that weren’t even clear until now.

It’s a chilly fall night in October of 2021 and in front of me is a beautiful dinner with roasted chicken and vegetables, garnished with rosemary and sitting on an antique plate. It’s beautiful enough that it becomes a social media post. But outside of the frame are bruises on my skin from being yanked like an uprooted plant.

A short time prior to the chicken dinner, the person who made it for me had screamed at me and called me names, getting physically violent after drinking. Soon, things were back to “normal.” They made me dinner. I was supposed to forget about it, or at least believe it was a fluke that wouldn’t happen again like it already had dozens of times.

I know that “MeToo” is ongoing but hushed, and I know that it’s already come for the publishing and media industry, but I unfortunately must add to it. In September 2021, I started intensive trauma therapy for the first time in years, which was necessary only because of what I will detail below.

I tried to avoid this but have to talk about the abuse I experienced in 2021 and name the person who put me in intensive trauma therapy. Last year I was emotionally, verbally, and sometimes physically abused or harassed by John Maher (John Maher), editor at Publisher’s Weekly.

That is, it’s mine and my therapists’ opinions that John Maher’s actions towards me (described below) were abusive and harassing. The majority of the abuse in the form of domestic violence lasted for 9 months, from February just before/while we lived together, until I moved out of our apartment in November 2021 (however as I’ve detailed further on Twitter, John began grooming me and manipulating me in 2017, and continued to manipulate me throughout the course of our four-years-and-some-change friendship). During 2021 specifically, John and I had MANY conversations about myriad behaviors of his, which I frequently pointed out as abusive, and which he acknowledged as such at the time. The majority of the time I had to be the one to initiate these conversations because John would physically run away from them, going back to his parents’ home on Long Island claiming he was giving me “space.” What he was doing was evading accountability and perpetuating an abusive cycle in which he would return, love bomb me and trauma-bond me, and then become violent and angry and harm me, then leave again. Rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat.

Over 2021, I spoke with John at least twenty times, if not many, many more, literally holding his hand and wiping his tears while explaining what he was doing was abusive. We even talked about how I could help him and find him resources for the trauma he claimed was making him “emotionally out of control.” (For context, the below screenshot was several weeks after an explosively violent situation in which he screamed ableist, mysoginistic, awful slurs at me, in public I should add, while drunk, then physically handled me, and then threatened to call the police on me if I refused to let him walk me home. I have detailed this incident in a separate Twitter thread about his abuse.) Although Michael J. Seidlinger (who is a well-known author and influential figure in publishing and media as well) did not witness these particular conversations I just mentioned because he was on vacation, he did witness much of the abuse as well as the conversations between John and I where I attempted to hold him accountable. Michael said to me many times “John is being abusive.” And I have that in writing.

A text message that John sent me a few weeks after a particularly violent incident he put me through, after which he left and fled to his parents’ home on Long Island. He never ended up going to EMDR, by the way, and consistently has lied to me and other people in his life over the years about his work in therapy.

Again, our former roommate, Michael witnessed this abuse, and though I begged them for help, ultimately did little to nothing, continuing to enable him. Michael, in particular, would go to bars and parties with him, watch him be predatory towards women, claim he felt disgusted and left but ultimately did little to prevent harm coming to those women.

After nights when John would get particularly violent with me in some way, shape, or form, I would then have to initiate a conversation and tell John repeatedly, in many of them if not all of them, that while his trauma is valid he still needed to own up to the consequences of his actions as a 32 year-old person and do better. He frequently responded, “But I feel 5 inside and I miss my mommy” (who, for context, died of a heart attack in front of John when he was five). I know from statements from other survivors of his abuse that he frequently weaponized this—not just to emotionally manipulate people, but to verbally abuse and tear down victims, and sometimes to sexually harass, assault, or rape them.

While I wish that last part about him feeling 5 inside and missing his mommy so his behavior made sense was a joke or exaggerated, this is not a joke. It is an excuse framed as an explanation I frequently heard from John. I have been told by others abused by John that he said almost exactly the same thing to them whenever they attempted to hold him responsible and accountable for his harm.

For most of 2021, John drank heavily (anywhere between 2–20 cocktails a night or sometimes just liquor straight from a bottle by October), which resulted in many nights where he would completely black out, and violently verbally and sometimes physically abuse me. I want to be clear the abuse didn’t always happen when John had been drinking, but it often did. It included John verbally assaulting me, being ableist, sexist, and transphobic, sometimes slamming doors in my face or threatening punches, and more. He often claimed to have no recollection of this, an excuse he wielded to not do the work in therapy or elsewhere in his life. After all, if you can’t remember abusing someone, did you even do it? (Trick question!)

I have all of the texts and phone calls and Instagram stories, I have the photos of bruises and videos of me sobbing after interactions with him during 2021. All my closest friends saw me go through this and others including my therapists who I told details of this both during it and when I moved out and could process what had happened. I know evidence of abuse has not often helped any other survivors that come out publicly too much, but I have ample witnesses and proof if I need, though I’m hoping I’m simply believed, especially given what others in publishing have experienced of John’s behavior themselves.

After many conversations with John where I set boundaries and named the point at which I would leave for good, I finally reached my breaking point after several particularly bad instances of violence and emotional manipulation. In November 2021 after months of being told I was somehow “the problem” causing his out of control reactions (e.g. me saying something small he didn’t like, such as, “you shouldn’t emotionally manipulate people you date” would result in screaming, fists slammed into tables, even in public), I searched for and moved into a solo apartment as a last resort. I did an emergency move out of the apartment we shared, for my own safety, and crowdfunded almost $10,000 from friends for it. I left behind a lot of important memorabilia like photo books, kitchenware and art because I couldn’t safely go back to the apartment.

This is a photo of John and I, for reference, from a trip we took together up to Vermont for his birthday in 2020, where I realize looking back on it I experienced much emotional abuse and manipulation as well even then.

When John wasn’t out at a bar, there were nights that he stood outside of my door, liquor bottle in hand, waiting for me to come out of my room to confront me or start conflict. I had to lock myself in my room and hide.

One of the last interactions I had with John was shared with our former roommate Michael. They both called me repeatedly, angrily, demanding I pick up and talk about rent I “owed” in December 2021. This was despite setting reasonable boundaries, and the fact that I had moved out in November and had given them several options for new roommates who were willing to move in and pay immediately, doing most of the work to find a replacement for me. At that time, I told John that I would charge $2,000 on my credit card to pay my last few months of rent if it meant he would leave me alone. After yelling at me for 10 minutes, I hung up on him and said the rent would be paid as soon as I received my next paycheck.

This was an extremely volatile, sensitive situation that was made worse by financial stress, but this behavior was apparently permissible to Michael, who often enabled John during 2021, watching him get drunk and be predatory towards women, watching him abuse me and refusing to step in. For context, I have empathy for both John and Michael who have their own traumas that have contributed to their behavior. But Michael stood by and watched this happen, and I have it in writing from many text conversations that Michael actively acknowledged I was being abused and yet did nothing—though he promised he would stage an intervention, and never did.

I haven’t spoken to John since February of 2022, when he and Michael moved out of that apartment, and I had to negotiate financial closure. I don’t have any interest in talking to John unless he’s actively working to change his volatile reactions to difficult situations.

I decided in January 2022 that I would talk about some of my experiences more publicly but vaguely for my own healing purposes, but I had no plans of publicly naming John Maher, not to protect him but to protect my own peace, to not be blamed or put under scrutiny and more pain. I am not a vengeful person. I am an abolitionist and committed to being anti-carceral. I only want to recover and heal from the horrible things John put me through that replicated mostly all of my childhood abuse, of which John knew intimate details from nearly five years of friendship, during which time he watched me go through and was supportive throughout the restraining order I got to protect myself from my abusive parents. John knew that I had struggled with abuse from alcoholics, and that verbal abuse, among other behaviors, is obviously a huge trigger for me. He never once changed his behavior for more than a few weeks at a time for the duration of 2021.

Naming John Maher publicly as someone who abused me is not for revenge. In fact, the catalyst for talking about this is multiple people who have had relationships with John shared similar details of issues with alcohol, abuse, ableism, misogyny, and predatory behavior. And to be clear, my basis for making these statements is that people have personally described their experiences to me, and I believe them. And they have been too afraid to speak out for years because of John’s volatile reactions. Even more people have come forward to me, sharing stories about similar experiences with John, since I first posted this to Twitter.

I share the details and statements I do now because I cannot sit idly by while he maintains power in the publishing industry and the influence to harm more vulnerable people, especially as I know he seeks to publish books and further his career in other ways. I do not wish for John Maher to have any more influence in publishing spaces or any others until he’s taken all of the steps to stop serially harming people who are all too scared to hold him accountable. John Maher, who perpetrated egregious harm in the form of manipulation, and breaching consistently stated physical boundaries, love bombing and more, will never be accountable until people in his life stop enabling him, and until he holds himself accountable, which he never has.

I wish John no harm, only for his healing. If you continue to be friends with him or work with him I hope you have a serious conversation with him and work to hold him accountable instead of comforting him, which I wish I had done less of personally. I hope that if you work with him in a professional capacity, you limit the access he has to vulnerable people like young interns and people who might be put in compromising situations by him. I have watched him and listened to him speak disgustingly about people in sexual and predatory ways that I truly never wish to hear again. I experienced sexual harassment myself in ways I never wish to experience from a “friend” again. He needs consequences.

I’ve already reached out privately to many people who need to know this information about someone they’ve been close to or have worked with professionally. I hope the people currently close to him are safer than I and others have been, and are not experiencing abuse now. If you’ve read this far and if you have the influence to help make sure that John Maher can’t abuse any more people, whether it’s people he’s predatory towards at parties or bars, or people he’s friends with and becomes close to, I hope you do.

Personally, I am as angry and disappointed at those who enable him as John, to be honest. His public behavior and persona is VERY different from what I and other victims of his abuse have experienced.

All I want is peace and for John Maher to never put anyone through anything even remotely similar to the abuse, manipulation, and harassment I’ve gone through at his hands ever again. He caught wind of this and immediately deleted his Twitter account. Guilt speaks for itself.

But there is nowhere to hide. Because you cannot hide from the years of hurt you have caused people you claim to love. You can only choose to run from it or look at yourself in the mirror and heal it. Because it hurts you, too. And I know he knows that because I heard him say it was hurting him, and I believe that.

Ultimately, moving out of our shared apartment in November 2021 was difficult but an emergency for me so that I could survive the intense suicidal ideation I was experiencing as a result of the abuse—which by the way John never let me handle alone (he would often breach boundaries and come into my room to hold me as I sobbed about him, when I had asked for space). I had no private or personal space in which to grieve the active domestic violence I was experiencing that made me so unsafe.

Now, however, I am the most at peace I have ever been. Intensive trauma therapy has helped a lot, and I’ve healed in beautiful ways I never knew were possible. Since leaving, I’ve been able to get better at setting boundaries and saying no to people, identifying red flags, leaving situations in which someone is trying to trauma-bond, love bomb, or otherwise emotionally manipulate or abuse me, and more. I have love and support in my life that I know is true, constant, and pure. I am not afraid of what will happen to me for speaking about this publicly. I am afraid for what will happen to John. But that can’t be my problem. Because I held his hand through 9 months of active abuse, and I dried his tears while he cried about how much it hurt him to hurt me. And I will never stay for something like that again.

This story has a happy “ending” after abuse but only because of my community and specifically close friends who have supported me through this in the last two years. I feel sorry that John isolated himself and does not have that same community support now, because he ruined every relationship he’s had in his life that was meaningful, because he refused to grow.

There is still a lot of healing to do in therapy and in my relationships in my life, but I survived. I caused hurt to people I love, too, during that time period because I was so unwell from the abuse I was experiencing. That is not an excuse but an acknowledgment. I am lucky to still have people in my life who love me and stayed for me even while I could not be my best self during challenging moments. If you are not here anymore, I understand and respect that. If you are, I am grateful beyond measure that I am seen wholly for being more than the lowest places I’ve been.

Everyone needs compassion, I believe, as an abolitionist. Everyone deserves community. The worst things I’ve done shouldn’t define me, the same way that the worst things he’s done shouldn’t define John. But as he’s a public figure with power, I do want the things he’s done to inform what opportunities he has presently and in the future. I do not wish him suffering but the desire to be accountable and grow.

I’ve gone to 15 years of therapy to heal from my own traumas to make sure that I can live the intentional life I want, treat people I love in the ways they deserve to be treated, and make peace with even the parts of myself I don’t like. This is what we all deserve.

May the bridges I burn light my way, as I search for sources of it that will not turn me to ash in their wake.