People who have been falsely accused of something big or serious. What happened after that and how has it affected your life?

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1. I was arrested and remanded in prison to await trial for a couple GBH charges. Bad ones. I’ll spare you the details but I was an innocent bystander at a nightclub who got swept up in an enormous brawl and did some fucked up things to stop from being crushed to death by like 20 bodies.

   Prison is horrifying and the experience has never left me even though I was only in for about 2ish weeks before the police prosecutors saw the CCTV and dropped my charges.

   The knock on effects are extremely complex trauma that is wrapped up in a whole era of my life.

   I have never fought on the street since. I have had a couple of instances where I’ve taken a couple of hits while non violently disengaging. I’m cool with my masculinity. I don’t need to prove it to some dipshit or anyone else in a pub. The only way I’ll swing is if you violently interfere with someone who is not me but with me. Hit me all you like. I did not like prison.

2. >What happened after that and how has it affected your life?

   I was arrested, lashed out at a lawyer who insisted that i had to confess regardless of how many times i told him i didn’t do it, at the end i got a lawyer for free (Not a state one, but someone whom i knew, he’s still my lawyer) the case was dismissed when the star witness (a child) forgot what it was supposed to say, i bribed the prosecutor to pursue charges against the person who accused me, her partner ran away to never be found, i thought that after the trial everything was going to go back to normal, pretty much everyone who i knew supported me through the whole thing, never did they ask if i did it or try to blame for it in any way, sadly for me, the city is a big place, not everyone knew me, i wasn’t fired, still decided to quit my job, i stopped going out for a while (People were really rude, my neighbor bought most of my groceries), one of my dogs was poisoned (He did survive), and when my house caught fire i decided i had enough and moved to another country, a year later or so i came back, relocated to another city and life moved on.

3. My boss fucked up an important file before sending to client then blamed me. Really tore into me, still wasn’t fully convinced even when I proved through file back up history / versions that it couldn’t have been my error.

   It’s one of the reasons I am paranoid at work. Will put things in writing all the time, include the file as an attachment instead of just a link (etc). Basically trying to cover myself ahead of time.

4. More careful of who I trust. A almost lost my job over false accusations.

5. I learned that people will believe anything, and quickly.

   I built a very tough outer shell and I do not put up with drama. If I think you’re about to start accusing me of shit, I stop speaking to you unless required. I also start leaving random sticky notes around the office spreading rumors

6. Ex gf accused me of domestic violence so I kicked her out of our shared apartment. We worked at the same place so I had so many people giving me so much shit until she left and people finally were willing to listen to my side of the story. It helped that I never once talked shit about her before she went, she burnt all those bridges herself by lying.

   Her ‘friends’ wanted to end me, but none of them wanted to be the one to take her in. Asking them why she wanted to come back to me if I was so fucking horrible gave them pause. It took until it came time to move her things that they realized I wasn’t the bad guy. They didn’t believe me when I said she was an alcoholic until they were literally moving like twenty boxes of booze out with her, I still remember one girl saying,” That is a lot of alcohol. Are you sure your friend isn’t an alcoholic?”

   I didn’t really face any consequences at work since I am far too valuable for them to lose.

7. Lost most of my friend group in 2013. Thought it was because i broke up with my girlfriend at the time.

   No, someone I rejected was claiming I raped and impregnated her. Being women, they assumed she was telling the truth.