A couple of months ago, Harvey Weinstein showed up to watch me perform on the Lower East Side in New York, so I said something along the lines of “rape is bad” on stage, and now the internet wants to hear what else I’ve got, which is pretty cool. A lot of people have reached out to tell me that I’m brave, which is gratifying. A lot of people have also reached out to tell me that I look like Ryan from The Office, which is exciting news as well.

“What am I going to do next?” seems to be the biggest question.

Let’s backtrack: In April 2018, I produced a comedy show called Rape Jokes by Survivors as a response to the #MeToo movement. At the time I was hearing a lot of bad, victim-shaming rape jokes at shows and thought audiences should hear better, funnier jokes about rape from survivors. This was the first stand-up show I ever produced.

Back then, most of my writing was about my own trauma because that was what was at the forefront of my mind. It was something I felt I had to write out of my system before I could move on to anything else, before I could even get on stage. I wrote screenplays about it, book treatments about it, poems and songs about it, and a lot of sad jokes that I will never utter outloud. They live in a zipped folder on my computer that should probably be labeled “PLEASE DELETE WHEN I DIE.”

At the beginning of October, it occurred to me that I’d been attempting to pitch and sell my rape-survivor comedy show as a tour and stand-up special for almost two years.

Two weeks later, on October 19, I met with a producer in Los Angeles who told me, frankly, that it was unlikely I’d be able to move forward with the project if I couldn’t find a famous comic to attach to it. It was a letdown to hear, but in part I was relieved. So much had changed for me since I first put together this show. I had at least 30 minutes of stand-up material not about rape; I was writing and producing a sketch web series not about rape. I had a punk band, ideas for books and movies—all not about rape! It seemed that it might be time to let this one go, and hopefully let go of some of that trauma too. It was a sign from the universe; the chance to just be funny about dating and sex and poop and anxiety and whatever else the cool comedians are talking about.

On October 23, I saw an infamous alleged rapist at a bar show in Manhattan. A sign from the universe—going in the other direction. Fuck. I panicked. I texted comedian friends, asking if I should say something. I asked the people around me if they thought I should say something. When some of them said, “No,” and made clear that this person had also been invited to their previous event, I knew I couldn’t just drop it. Fuck. I was supposed to be done talking about rape! When we make plans, God laughs? (Now I feel like the Forrest Gump of rape. Like that one? I have a great stand-up show about rape if anyone wants to buy it!)

The first impulse I had was: Talk about this on stage.

Trauma has been the monster under my bed for a long time. It was a huge part of my childhood, my college years, and my early adult years. I’ve spent a lot of time debating with myself whether it’s better for me to run from it, with it, or against it. What next course of action will translate most as, “Really, I’m okay, guys, don’t worry about me”? What can I do that proves I’ve moved on? Does it hurt more to talk about it or to not talk about it? What can I write that will say, “This doesn’t define me, but also it is a part of my experience, but also it didn’t ruin my life, but also I’m not ashamed to talk about it, but also I could be famous without this, but also if I’m going to be famous because of this obviously I’m going to stand up for survivors, but also I swear I’m usually funnier when I talk about other stuff.”