I’m ashamed

Why my new Elle story makes me so uncomfortable.

Journalism is too opaque and misunderstood. Chills gives a behind-the-scenes look at how dangerous investigative journalism gets made. 

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Allison Mack of NXIVM notoriety tried to recruit me. How did I almost fall for it? (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Lounging poolside on the roof deck of a friend’s gym in Nairobi, I was desperate to relax. I’d just spent 10 days reporting on sexual violence in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo after receiving a tip that toddlers were being raped in a small village in eastern DRC. This was in February of 2014.

I’d gone on a few emotionally intense international work trips by that point, and they weren’t getting any easier. Burning under that Kenyan sunshine, I couldn’t get the awful images and stories out of my head. But I was also dreading the return home to New York City. I knew that few people in my social circle would understand the horror now coursing through my body like blood. I was also heading back to a marriage on its last legs. 

Just then, my phone buzzed with an email from a minor celebrity saying that she followed me on Twitter and thought we had “very similar visions for what we want in the world.” She said she was working with “an incredible women’s organization,” and asked if I’d be open to a Skype chat. I told her yes. Her next email explained what she wanted to discuss:

“The organization I work with is a global community of like-minded women from all different backgrounds who are seeking to redefine femininity from the inside out. 

What I mean by this is, it is our belief that all the struggles that happen in the world stem from a lack of education and understanding on the part of those creating the problem, i.e. all of humanity. 

[Read the rest of this story in Elle magazine]

This was just the start of my correspondence with Allison Mack, an actor who’d been on the TV show “Smallville,” and — I now know — a prominent member of NXIVM, a malicious cult headed by Keith Raniere, which branded women, turned them into sex slaves and kept some locked away for years.

I came across Mack’s 2014 emails a few months ago, having had no memory of our communication. Upon reading our exchange, I felt something that I even have trouble typing here now, let alone in a national magazine — I felt shame.

As I started this piece for Elle, I didn’t plan on going in the direction I landed on. I’d originally pitched the story as a look at the different ways cults try to recruit men vs. women, having been struck by the “you-go-girl” ridiculousness of Mack’s emails. She’d “love-bombed” me, spouted gobbledygook and used the promise of sisterhood to lure me in. But as I spoke to experts and other women who’d been contacted by NXIVM, I realized that the group had approached each of us in different ways. In each case, they’d crafted an angle that would specifically appeal to us as individuals. Me, by appealing to my empathy and desire for well-being; another, to her ego; and yet another, to her youth and uncertainty.

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I’m still settling in to writing from a more personal place than I have in most of my career. This story in particular proved to be more and more uncomfortable as I wrote.

Coming up as a journalist when I did meant being tough, dealing with ruthless editors and competitors from other outlets. Journalism has been a dying industry as long as I’ve been in it, and that’s forged a cutthroat approach for many reporters; we were all vying to make a few hundred bucks here or there on freelance stories, or trying to hang on to a coveted staff-writer position. Also, journalists have egos, whether we admit it out loud or not: Seeing your own byline is always a thrill.

In my two decades in the press, I’ve more often than not been the only woman in the room. I’ll never forget how when I worked at The New York Times (my first time around, 2002-2005) as a 20-something I daily endured the stares of schlubby men as they popped up to ogle my body from their cubicles, like filthy-minded gophers. Or the way male bosses tried to pull my focus off women’s stories and toward men’s, as if all of journalism didn’t already mainly tell the stories of men.

So, having been forged in the bourbon-soaked, “nothing-fazes-me” world of journalism now means that admitting I am ashamed, publicly, feels frightening.

As soon as I wrote the sentence about shame in the Elle story though, I knew that I’d found the key to what would make the story resonate. I would use my own vulnerability to write a compelling article, much as NXIVM used my vulnerability to manipulate me. And that, to me, equals strength. The kind of strength women have if we can stand it.

In the story, I explained that I was a different person seven years ago. But not all that different, perhaps. Back then, I wore an armored coat publicly, and suffered from the traumatic work I did in hidden ways. I would have been mortified to admit to anyone that I was vulnerable, that I couldn’t do my job as well as anyone else — just like a woman soldier needs to prove she can run an obstacle course as well as her male cohorts during training, or how an injured gymnast is compelled to finish her floor routine, even though she’s got an ankle injury.

Allison Mack appealed to my vulnerability as a way to get me involved in what ultimately turned out to be a damaging, manipulative cult. But I guess she did help me in a roundabout way: Writing this story has shown me that vulnerability, when utilized deliberately, in a considered way, is actually a sign of fortitude.

So, yes, I was ashamed that I was nearly duped by NXIVM. But as of this writing, I will no longer be ashamed to say that publicly. Admitting my weaknesses will, from here, be my own small way of “redefining femininity” — my personal way of recognizing that the things that make us vulnerable actually make us healthier, more complete, people in the end.

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On Chills, there are no ads, and no outside influences because of it. This is a subscriber-supported space that gives a behind-the-scenes look at how risky investigative journalism gets made, from a journalist with 20 years of experience. Read Chills for free, or subscribe for bonus content like this. You can sign up here. Thank you for supporting independent journalism.