Andrea Dunlop

But you know, so obviously, some of those technologies were around when you were growing up, but obviously, you're growing up in very specific set of circumstances.

And then, you know, I assume those things were not available to you, you know, the way they are on the outside when you were in prison.

And what kind of, when you were in prison, what kind of sort of technologies and communications were available to you while you were in prison?

So you didn't have kind of unfettered access to social media accounts and that kind of thing.

So, you know, then you come out of prison and then you immediately develop this just massive social media following, you know, millions and millions of people following.

And, you know, that would be jarring, I think, for someone in any set of circumstances, frankly.

You know, I think the experience of going viral, I think, can be downright traumatic under the best of circumstances.

And this was obviously not the best of circumstances.

So I wonder kind of like, yeah, how you've navigated that piece because, you know, I was listening to an interview with you.

You're talking about

That you had something like 8 million followers on Instagram and then deleted that account, which I think for people who are, you know, the large number of people that are pretty obsessed with building that kind of following or anything, even sort of a percentage of that kind of following, just sort of –

feels almost just as inconceivable, right?

So yeah, so talk to us about that kind of, that decision and just some of the decisions that you've made around social media and how you've navigated that, because that's just the most intense experience I can imagine on social media.

Yeah.

I mean, I'm glad you're talking about that sort of intense pressure for you because watching from the outside, I just thought this young woman has been through so much.

They have not had time to heal, develop coping mechanisms, all of those things that really I had to do before I was ready to talk about anything that I'd been through publicly.

And there are

like many many important distinctions between you know your experience and mine um namely being that I'm not a survivor of childhood trauma and that is different I was older when I made the decision to talk publicly and it had been a long time since that those events actually sort of happened in my life and I'd had a lot of time to process and something I've thought about a lot as a

I've interviewed various survivors and as I've talked to people who are considering telling their story publicly, whether they're a family member or a direct survivor of the abuse, is trying to help them make sure that they're ready for that because people are going to have opinions.

You cannot control.