You may have noticed that Project Unbreakable has been pretty quiet lately. For a few months now, those of us at Unbreakable have been making some pretty big life changes, and we have had to figure out where Unbreakable is placed. It has been a very long and incredible journey, but we are saddened to say that we will be closing our doors. We will finish posting all the submissions we have, but after we run out, we are no longer going to be accepting submissions for the website (but everything will remain up -- we aren’t deleting anything.)
We hope you understand, and we are grateful for your support.Â
I can’t really sum up almost 4 years of doing this project and I am having a very difficult time writing this. Nothing I can say really seems like it would be enough. Four years ago I was a college student who had no idea what I was getting myself into but somewhat miraculously, and accidentally, I created something that changed lives. That is a strange sentence to write, because I guess you never really know if you did anything or not, but I think I did. I hope I did.
I would be lying if I said that the rumors from other activists about my integrity didn’t get to me. When I started this project, long before sexual assault was in the headlines, activists were working together to end sexual violence. It doesn’t feel that way anymore. Someone said that because I am not a survivor, I don’t have the right to run this project and it -- pardon my French -- fucking broke my heart.
But that is not why I am leaving the project. I know my heart and I know that the things people say are just the things people say. My reason for leaving is deeper than what someone said about me. One of the biggest things I realized recently is that I was devoting so much of myself to this project but I wasn’t giving enough to the people in my life and even to myself. Maybe I was doing good things with the project, but if I didn’t put as much effort into the people I loved, I probably wasn’t doing that much good overall. I was neglecting what I really wanted in life just to keep everyone else happy, and that’s not the way to live.
I really am eternally grateful for the people who supported us, especially the people who followed from the very start. You believed in this project, you loved this project, and you made this project. It would be nothing without you. Most of all, thank you to those who were apart of this project, and thank you for letting it be a small step in your journey. I hope it helped, even in the tiniest way. It was an honor to be trusted with your stories.
Please take care of yourselves. Thank you so much, and thank you to Christina, Kerri, and Lydia for all the hard work they put into the project.
I am so grateful and humbled to have been a part of Unbreakable throughout its entirety. Watching its growth over time and it's outreach to an increasing number of individuals was, and still is, inspiring. Unbreakable will always be near to my heart and I completely believe that it will live on as an extremely beneficial part of this larger cause. The way the project bound people together, truly helped those on their journeys, and created a positive community of support, far surpassed any of our expectations. I cannot be happier that it did.
Although it's sad to witness the end of our little era at Team Unbreakable, I cannot thank Grace and all of you, for the dedication and support poured into this project. I will always treasure my time at Project Unbreakable.
