Thank you, it means a lot to hear you say that. At the time myself and the other leader were the only ones seen as capable for the job at our level of executive leadership for the branch, and he wanted us to work together. I tried and did so for a month, but finally I had to cancel one day because I truly could not get up. I'd be bed bound until about 4pm normally, moving my computer setup around my bed so I'd be able to get enough work out the door to not lose my job, but one day it was 7pm and I was underlining an event at 8 I hadn't planned for. I called, sobbing, and said I had to step down. I couldn't do it anymore. I thought I was weak and stupid, simply not able to better separate our personal and comradely relationship. It was a cudgel this member of the NOD kept wielding over me. It hurt, a lot.

It's only by stepping away and out of that situation that I was able to rebuild my life, and eventually I came back to handle many logistical matters I'd helped to create and were important for the branch, but after misogynistic attitudes towards me by a member of the new local leadership that stepped up after I said I was stepping down for health reasons, and overhearing him say how slow I worked and while I was literally working in the next room over while he didn't realize; I was kind of done.

Notably in my experience as well, we had one of our first members of the branch be found to be sexually harassing not just one, but many comrades. I'd found out our NOD person had essentially played the same playbook of cauterizing every man who he'd sexually harassed to the point where none of them realized anybody else had experienced it as well, it was only when I found out and I severely pushed the matter that it went to, not the NDC as far as I could tell, but instead my NOD liaison and members of the NOD who were certainly not women. I don't recall the specifics of that conversation, but there was a lot of talk about "definitions" (which is important, but it felt ridiculous coming from these guys) until I finally just kept butting in and saying that if we did nothing the local branch wouldn't survive and also I would not remain. When I needed someone like me, I had nobody who could advocate for me. It's not because my comrades aren't wonderful, they are, but I told my NOD Liaison first out of a respect for hierarchy and I was cauterized too.