Mr. J, a Former Professor Series – Entry 5: The Collapse of Assumptions
I used to believe that time, education, and life experience would naturally give someone wisdom.
But I was wrong.
My disappointment didn’t just come from how he treated me. It deepened the moment I asked myself:
Should I really report him to TEQSA?
And with that question came a spiral.
I wasn’t afraid of the complaint — I was afraid of collateral damage.
Would his daughter suffer? Would she lose her scholarship if her father’s name got flagged?
Would my decision hurt a fifteen-year-old who didn’t ask for any of this?
Would someone else—quiet, innocent—be pulled into this storm?
I hated that moment.
I hated the uncertainty.
I hated not knowing what the right thing was.
I hated not being able to act — not because I was weak, but because I cared too much.
And it wasn’t until my therapist told me,
“You can’t save everyone.”
that I allowed me to choose myself.
⸻
And that broke something in me.
I had always been sensitive to children of divorce.
And somehow, this whole situation brought back my own buried memories — of growing up in a second family I never chose, of being called a c*nt in that household.
And now, years later, that man wrote poems where he still called me the same word.
He emailed them to me. After I had told him repeatedly to stop contacting me.
A poem — as if aesthetics could erase harm.
And worse:
The pain of having to walk away from my own baby never fully left me.
When he used his daughter — weaponized her — against me,
it wasn’t just manipulation. It tore something raw and unresolved open.
Others use guns.
He used his daughter.
Not to protect — but to wound.
If we had a daughter, I'd watch and could not save her
The emotional torture from the head of your high table
She'd do what you taught her
She'd meet the same cruel fate
So now I've gotta run, so I can undo this mistake
At least I've gotta try…– Labour - Paris Paloma
⸻
And that’s me.
The one who built the forensic matrix.
Ten categories.
Harassment. Protection Order breaches. Financial coercion. Image abuse. Defamation.
All the way down to Academic misconduct.
I wrote each field, carefully:
Specific Behaviour
Legal Risk / Concern
Applicable Law
Potential Consequence
Evidence
20 pages. In English. At 23. Alone.
The capillaries in my eyes are bursting
If our love died, would that be the worst thing?
For somebody I thought was my saviour
You sure make me do a whole lot of labour– Labour - Paris Paloma
No one saw how my sleep was wrecked.
No one saw the hundreds emails I crafted with precision to law offices, universities, institutions.
No one knew that one of the things that pushed me hardest was seeing my mother receive a message from him —
at 7am,
about money,
dragging his daughter in as leverage.
It ruined her day.
It wrecked mine.
And in the background of all this — I could still hear his voice:
“Have you ever tested your IQ?”
“You’re smart enough to succeed in anything, if only you were more ambitious.”
Success?
This is what ambition looks like now?
Succeeding at exposing the person who once promised to take care of you?
⸻
And I’m angry.
Not just at him.
But at the fact that at 23, I’m the one doing all of this.
When my peers are out living, working, celebrating, I’m at home in my apartment skipping company events, writing timelines, legal logic trees, evidentiary arguments.
I’m still the youngest at work.
But this situation has made me carry pressure some people in their 40s wouldn’t manage.
And yes — there were moments I wanted to walk away.
To say “let it go.”
To be normal.
But every time I tried, he messaged again.
Begged again.
And with every new message, my trust corroded.
The voice of my mother — almost in tears —
“How could he — a parent himself — treat someone his daughter’s age like that?”
never left me.
And that’s why I stopped replying.
⸻
He called me cruel.
Said I couldn’t commit.
But he, the man who kept financially supporting another woman who wasn’t even in a relationship with him,
asked me — someone who was in a relationship with him — to pay him back.
“I stalked, threatened, extorted, dragged your name into poetry, messaged your parents, sent you guilt-tripping walls of text after you said stop… but hey, why can’t you just move on?”
Received: 10 May 2025 - Day 65 of documented harassment
⸻
Things got better when I started writing on Substack.
It pushed me toward people I admire — not romantically, but intellectually. People who live with thinking
I stopped being angry about why I had to do this at 23
Every view made me feel a little more in control.
Every email I sent to universities across the US, UK, and Australia became a quiet act of reclamation.
To UK Universities’ focusing on Human Rights, Ethics & and Institutional Accountability
To Australia Universities’ working on Postcolonial Theory, Epistemic Injustice, Power In Discourse
To US Universities’ Department of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies (including Ivy League circles) as its reflection on academic ethics and symbolic harm as a global concern
And every message I sent to the ones who mark things official
Four agencies.
Four tags.
And not one said it was fine.
And even if some posts don’t get comments or likes —
I see the views.
I see them reaching 900, 1000.
I see the silent reading.
And that’s enough.
For now
Credits:
- Photo by Patrick Hendry on Unsplash
- Visual and lyrical references to “Labour” by Paris Paloma are included here as part of a feminist critique and reflective commentary. This use is non-commercial and falls under educational fair use. All rights reserved to the original creators.
Read the full series
- Entry 1: The Man Who Taught Me Ethics by Failing All of Them
- Entry 2: The Disappearance of the Public Poet
- Entry 3: The Hanging Tree Case Study
- Entry 4: Hidden Like Accountability
- Entry 5: The Collapse of Assumptions (you are here)
- Entry 6: The Ethics of a Tinder Bio
- Entry 7: How He Ate Told Me Everything
- Entry 8: What Makes a Scholar Dangerous
- Entry 9: Fragment of Life, Fragment of Accountability
- Entry 10: Anatomy of Disappointment
- Entry 11: Legal Defense Challenges: A Framing Statement
- Entry 12: Six Years After Ronell – What Academia Still Doesn’t Get
- Entry 13: QUT and The Man Who Raped Me
- Entry 14: Why Sarcasm Toward Institutions Can Backfire
- Entry 15: P*ssy or Toxic Masculinity?
- Entry 16: Who is Your Favorite Comedian?
- Entry 17: And What is Your Favorite Song?
- Entry 18: Grant Proposal — Narrative Ethics as Survivor-Led Forensics
- Entry 19: The Coward Behind the Clone
- Entry 20: [URGENT HIRE] CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS SPECIALIST
- Entry 21: [URGENT] Legal Counsel Needed for Complex Reputation Rehabilitation
- Entry 22: YOU’RE AN ABUSER. STOP CONTACTING ME
- Entry 23: Seeking Counsel for a Fallen Academic
- Entry 24: Internal Legal-PR Briefing
- Entry 25: For Journalists – Legal & Ethical Clearance Summary
- Entry 26: Symbolic Prostitution, Transactional Intimacy, or Just a “Loan”?
- Entry 28: Why He Simply Cannot Shut Up
- Entry 29: Forensic Commentary on “LARGE Language Muddle”
- Entry 30: Don’t Just Threaten My Future. Because I’m Going To Archive Your Present
- Entry 31: Open Letter to the Person Who Tried to Break Me with Defamation
- Entry 32: Defamation, Harassment, Doxxing Class 101
- Entry 33: Confidential Crisis Recovery Proposal
- Entry 34: Forensic Behavioral-Somatic Report
- Entry 35: Forensic Commentary on the Tattoos
- Entry 36: QUT and the Abuser They Once Had
- Entry 38: When Poetry Becomes Revenge Porn
- Entry 40: A Man Built for Applause, Not Accountability
- Entry 41: Neurobehavioral Addendum
- Entry 43: Why Does It Sound Like a War Metaphor?
- Entry 44: Forensic Commentary on Racialized and Fetishizing Language in “Hidden Like Rice”
- Entry 45: Public Misuse of Former Academic Affiliation
- Entry 46: The Two Things That Didn’t Leave a Bad Impression
- Entry 47: When Affection is Just an Alibi (A Bundy-Inspired Reflection)
- Entry 48: Humbert, Lolita, and the Fetish of Fragility
- Entry 49: The Fetish of Smallness as Symbolic Violence
- Entry 50: Motif Risk Analysis
- Entry 52: Can an Abuser Be a Good Father?
- Entry 53: Who Protects the Children?
- Entry 54: From Blackmail to Children
- Reflection: The Miscalculation
(More entries coming soon)
→ [Back to Start: Introducing Mr. J, a Former Professor Series]
© 2025 Linh Ng. All rights reserved.
This publication is intended for educational and reflective purposes only.
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Please do not reproduce, redistribute, or translate this content — in whole or in part — without written permission.
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Misuse or decontextualization may lead to formal clarification or takedown requests.
This work has been reviewed and quietly followed by scholars, educators, and ethics professionals across multiple sectors.
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