A Guiding Light During My White Collar Prosecution
By Anonymous
When I was first indicted, I did what most people in my position do: I panicked, I hired a lawyer, and I told almost no one.
The shame of it — the specific shame of a white collar prosecution, where your own decisions are at the center of everything — is its own particular weight. It is different from other kinds of suffering because it is so thoroughly entangled with identity. I had built my entire sense of self around being competent, ethical, successful. And now I was a defendant.
I found the White Collar Support Group by accident, late on a Sunday night, searching the internet for something I couldn't even name. Some evidence that I was not the only person who had felt this way. That others had survived it.
What I found was more than I expected. I found people who understood not just the legal mechanics of my situation, but the interior experience of it. The sleeplessness. The fractured relationships. The way time changes when you're waiting for a verdict.
I found, for the first time in years, a space where I didn't have to pretend.
That has been the guiding light: not false reassurance, not legal advice, not a promise that everything will be fine. Just the radical comfort of being truly seen by people who have been where you are. It turns out that is enough to keep going.
