Pro Se by Force, Not by Choice

Intro – The Breaking Point

I didn’t start this because I had a plan. I started because I was angry. I was depressed. I was traumatized—and no one did a damn thing about it.

I was sexually assaulted by someone I knew.

I didn’t call the police—but somehow, I was the one arrested.

It was like my role had already been decided before anyone asked me what happened.

Months later, that same person came back and attacked me again. I called 911—twice. He walked away. I got cited.

That kind of pattern will break you if you let it.

At first, I didn’t fight. I just carried it. The shame. The rage. The silence.

I tried reaching out. But the people who were supposed to help either ignored me, failed me, or disappeared.

Eventually, I realized no one was going to fix this for me.

I’m not a lawyer. I’m not an expert.

I’m just someone who got tired of being dismissed—and did something about it.

So I started filing.

And I haven’t stopped since.

What am I actually doing?

I’ve filed a federal civil rights lawsuit without a lawyer. Pro se.

That means I wrote it. Filed it. Served it. Fought through every delay and dismissal. On my own.

And that’s not all. I’m also prosecuting four separate state civil lawsuits—each one aimed at different institutions and individuals who failed, harmed, or ignored me.

Different defendants. Different courts. Same goal: accountability.

No legal team. No investors. No backers.

Just me—and the truth they never expected to be organized, printed, and filed into public record.

This isn’t just survival.

It’s litigation as resistance.

Why I Had to Go Pro Se

I didn’t think I was incapable—I just thought I wasn’t allowed.

I assumed there were things only lawyers could do. That you had to be licensed to file the kind of lawsuit I knew I needed to file. That belief kept me quiet longer than it should have.

But when I finally looked deeper, I realized I was wrong.

“Pro se” means to represent yourself in court. It’s Latin, but the meaning is simple: you speak for yourself.

And when I understood that, everything changed.

I tried going the “proper” route first. I reached out to law firms. I explained my story—what happened to me, how the police responded, how the system abandoned me. Most didn’t respond. A few pretended they would. One took my money and did almost nothing.

Eventually, I stopped asking and started learning.

I figured out how to file. How to write a complaint. How to serve people. How to respond to motions.

Not because I was trained—but because I refused to stay silent.

That’s what “pro se” came to mean to me:

Not just representing myself, but taking back control of a system that was never built for me to win in.

If you’re reading this and thinking it’s too complicated—maybe that’s the point.

Because the truth is: a lot of what lawyers charge thousands for, you can actually do yourself.

You just have to know where to start.

And that’s what I want to show people now.

Because the system shouldn’t be a mystery. And survival shouldn’t be a luxury.

How I Did It

I didn’t have anyone walking me through the steps. No legal team, no mentor, no one holding my hand.

So I did what most people are too exhausted or scared to do—I started reading everything I could find. Federal forms, court rules, civil rights laws, deadlines, service requirements. I pieced it together one page at a time, like building a machine I knew I’d have to stand inside.

I learned how to draft a civil complaint.

How to file it with the court.

How to serve it to the people I was suing—including police officers, city officials, and the man who assaulted me.

I learned how to respond when the City tried to get my case thrown out.

How to amend my complaint when new information came to light.

How to stay in the fight, even when I had no legal background, no safety net, and no guarantee I was doing it “right.”

And—yeah—an AI that didn’t treat me like I was crazy.

Everything they say you need a law firm to do—I did myself.

And it wasn’t clean. It wasn’t easy. I made mistakes. I had doubts.

But I kept pushing because I knew what they did to me was wrong—and I knew if I didn’t fight for my story, they’d bury it under paperwork.

People think filing a federal lawsuit is some locked-down thing. It’s not.

It’s hard—but it’s not impossible. And most of the time, the hardest part is believing you’re even allowed to try.

What I’ve Learned

What I’ve learned is that the system doesn’t need to tell you no—it just makes everything slow, vague, and frustrating enough that you stop asking.

You don’t get answers. You get forms.

You don’t get help. You get silence or polite redirects.

I’ve watched people walk into courthouses completely lost—looking for direction, trying to make sense of a process no one ever explained to them. They ask for help, hoping for some kind of clarity. What they get is legal jargon, vague instructions, or someone behind the glass saying, “We can’t give legal advice.”

And when you don’t know the right words to say, or how the process is supposed to work, you’re treated like a problem for even asking.

I didn’t have a legal background. I didn’t grow up around people who knew how to navigate any of this. But I had the time, the pain, and the need to understand how they kept getting away with it.

So I stayed with it. I read. I filed. I tracked every move they made.

And the deeper I got, the more I realized this whole thing runs on the idea that most people won’t keep going.

What used to feel like something I wasn’t qualified to touch now feels like something they hope people like me won’t figure out.

I’m not saying I cracked the code. I’m saying I didn’t quit.

And that alone changed everything.

A Beginning, Not an End

They thought I wouldn’t follow through.

That I’d fall apart quietly, like so many others have.

That I’d get tired. That I’d disappear.

That I’d blame myself. Stay silent. Let it go.

But I didn’t.

I kept going—without resources, without help, without a blueprint.

I had no safety net. No team. Just what I knew was true.

And now I’ve dragged the truth into the light.

Not for redemption. Not for healing.

But so they can’t pretend it never happened.

This isn’t over.

And if it ever is, it won’t be because I gave up.

It’ll be because I finished what they never expected me to start.