I'm in the entertainment industry and there was a film I was part of where the director was emotionally abusive, and we'd been in a toxic on/off friendship for three years where he'd been consistently awful and it was a cycle of him apologising, me forgiving him and him slipping back into his old ways sooner or later. A bunch of things went down on the film and it went on hiatus for several months, during which I had time to think with some help from another friend who specialised in counselling and coaching for PTSD and trauma thanks to her own experiences with similar people in the entertainment industry. I decided I didn't want to stay friends with him, and it killed me to stand up for myself, especially with his manipulative non apology.

It didn't stop there. I'm not one to cancel anyone or shout from the roof tops on social media, but I also wasn't quiet about what I went through. I told a few trusted friends and unfortunately trusted the wrong person, so eventually word reached the guy and another mutual friend I'd sadly previously had a lot of respect for (but there were plenty of red flags in hindsight). Got victim blamed, made out to be crazy and unstable, accused of trying to vindictively destroy a promising career and throwing "a great opportunity in his face" (when said opportunity involved my safety being put at risk, pressure into things I didn't agree to and being made to feel guilty for not wanting to work with someone who'd SA'd me in the past). And to finish off, he threatened to destroy my career, and the other guy was caught out sending emails to people he didn't even know who were friends of mine that I was "trying to sully [his] reputation" (and amusingly was so lacking in self awareness that he legit thought he could gaslight one of my best friends into believing his version of events when she decided to cut him off too in solidarity with me).

Needless to say it left me suicidal for three days, couldn't leave my house for a good while, lived in fear that they might come after my family (the abuser knew where I lived), had panic attacks whenever the train stopped at the town closest to where the guy lived, couldn't go to public events out of fear of running into one of them and had to scale back my social media posts in case I got attacked there (decided not to block out of fear that might antagonise them further and just let it blow over until they decided to do all the unfollowing). The hurt got increased when my best friend's reaction to the situation was an "I'm still gonna work with them sorry" that made me lose a significant amount of love and respect for him (he seems to be trying to make amends now but the mud does stick). I got through the worst of it thanks to the aforementioned coach, but I'd be lying if I said I was fully over it. But there's nothing like the entertainment industry to make you eternally regret ever standing up for yourself and not just continuing to take it.