He Can Only Take Away From You What You Let Him

I want to talk about the terror.

The terror comes slowly. It doesn’t come with the first text. The first text, it’s more like…….. disorientation? You’re in your freshman seminar, it’s “phones off” so you have yours on Do Not Disturb, just sitting at the top of your bag. Then sometime during class, out of the corner of your eye, you see the silent ringer going off for a missed call. Or it must be a few missed calls, from a random number. Probably spam. You reach in your bag to clear them — and that’s when you see the long text. You read the preview. It’s from…. a concerned alumni?? You don’t read the full thing, though, and try to focus. But for the rest of the seminar it’s all you can think about. And in the back of your mind, you can just sort of sense it.

Something isn’t right. 

Class ends, and immediately you open the text, reading it in pieces as you walk out onto campus.

Hey, you don’t know me but I went to [Notre Dame] a couple years ago and I just found out that there’s a pretty messed up thread going around showing “fake nudes” of female sports players from ND. You were one of them, just wanted to let u know. Let me know if you want the link then.

You stop dead in your tracks. To this day, you can remember the spot where you were standing. Fake nudes … you were one of them.… Those words are like a grip around your throat. You try to calm down, but it’s hard to think straight. “Fake” as in what? As in, the nudes aren’t real? You know they’re not real, they don’t exist so they can’t be real. You don’t even know if this person is real. Why doesn’t any of that make you feel better? Suddenly your heart is racing. You can barely breathe.

You call one of your closest friends, who’s also on the volleyball team, and read her the message. Your voice is trembling. “What do I do????” Suddenly you feel annoyed, as weird as that sounds. I HAVE CLASS IN FIVE MINUTES, I CAN’T BE DEALING WITH THIS — almost like, in your head, you’re lashing out at the text. Like you know how they say to “make yourself big” to scare away a black bear? Of course, the text doesn’t scare away. It’s still there.

Your friend tells you to talk to Coach, which makes you nervous. It’s only January of your second semester and you’re not trying to make waves. But you feel like you have no choice, especially if there really is a thread online and this could be affecting other female athletes. You show Coach the message. She does a good job of calming you down. She sends you to your sport administrator, who puts you in touch with the school’s legal department. They tell you it’s probably a scam, but they’ll look into it.

When another message comes the next day, you actually don’t connect the dots at first. You see a handful of missed calls during Calc class from a random number — although this time it’s not totally random. It’s a 412 area code, Pittsburgh, same as yours. But then you check your phone after class, and the 412 caller has left a long text. “Hey Lily,” it starts. They … know my name??? It’s pretty much the same message as before: an anonymous person, showing concern, and telling you that fake nudes of you are being posted online. This time, though, there’s a link.

Now the disorientation has become more like panic. 

You’re with a friend as you leave class, and as soon as you finish reading the text you just turn to them and blurt out, “I HAVE TO GO.” You walk away, though you don’t even really know where you’re walking to. And as you drift around campus, in a daze, all of these different questions are rattling through your head. How do they know my name??? How did they get my number??? Why are they from Pittsburgh??? Is it someone I know???? Where does that link go???? Is this a scam??? Is this really happening???

WHAT is HAPPENING?????

When the terror finally comes, it’s at night. 

It’s a Thursday, maybe like 1 a.m., and you’re the only one home. Two of your roommates are out, the third is away at a study session. And you’re on your phone, setting your alarm before bed. A text pops up. But this time the text is different. This time, at the end, there’s not just a link — there’s an actual picture attached. It’s a picture that was originally from social media, of you with your friends and family. Now, though, it’s been edited with AI. 

Edited so you’re completely naked.

Your stomach drops. Your whole body starts sweating and shaking. Now you know the answer to one of your questions: This is really happening. That picture does not exist … only it does exist. You’re looking at it right now. You’ve never felt so powerless.

Now the panic is getting worse. Your dorm room is on the first floor, so you rush over to the windows and close them as quickly as you can. You lower all the blinds. Then you sprint to the door, and try to lock it — but for some reason it won’t lock. Suddenly that’s all you can think about: how exposed you are. How anyone, at any moment, could walk right in. You’re hyperventilating. You drop to the ground, and sit there with your back up against the door. It feels like the walls are closing in on you. Like you’re trapped and can’t leave. Like you’re in a horror movie, but it’s not a movie. It’s real. It’s your life.

You call your parents — your mom answers. You try to tell her what’s going on, and she tries to make you feel better. But it’s no use. You just keep asking her, “What should I do?? What should I do??” Then your mom puts the phone down for a second, and you can hear her ask your father, “What should she do??” You hear a long silence on the other end. You’ll never forget that silence, or the pain from that silence. Because that’s when it truly hits you: No one knows. No one knows who this person is, or what they want, or why they’re doing this. No one knows anything.

So you fear everything.

It’s the worst, loneliest feeling in the world. 

That’s the terror.

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I want to talk about the power.

The first time that I think I began to understand what this was about, I mean really about, it was when I went to the police. I went that next morning, to the Notre Dame Police Department, after getting the text with the picture attached. I met with the chief of police, and she was very kind. (Everyone at NDPD was.) But she said something that day that’s stuck with me since. She said, “I’m sorry this is happening to you.” It’s such a nothing phrase on the surface … but as soon as I heard it, it hit me like a brick. Something is happening TO me. It’s the first time I’d thought of it that way.

And then once I started thinking of it that way, I couldn’t stop. Over the next several months, the messages kept coming — and kept escalating. Some of them would escalate in tone and use more aggressive language, some would contain pictures, some would contain links.

Whoever it was, they were using an advanced “number-spoofing” software, so that any number I was contacted from would have an associated address linked to a vacant house in a random state — making it pretty much untraceable. There was nothing we could do. And it just felt like with each new development … as it kept on getting worse … my role stayed the same: I was who the thing was happening to. I felt like I had zero agency, zero power. We were fighting to find this person, we were fighting to get the AI photos of me taken down, and we were fighting to get AI photos of all the other female athletes taken down. But it felt like no matter how much fighting we did, and no matter what actions I took, I was still mostly just … waiting. I was waiting for someone I didn’t know, somewhere we couldn’t find, to write the next, awful chapter of my story.

And if I had to guess why people do stuff like this………. it’s for that exact reason. They crave that feeling — of holding “power” over someone. There were so many different moments along the way where I felt some version of powerless. Where I felt so helpless, so violated, so scared, so embarrassed, so small.

I felt powerless the day that I had to show the sergeant at NDPD all the messages I’d gotten. The NDPD was great to me, and I developed a really good relationship with the sergeant, and I know that showing everything was necessary in order for them to help. But even still … just the feeling of a total stranger looking at a naked picture of me … I’ll never forget it. And maybe this sounds dumb, but it almost didn’t matter that the picture was a “deepfake” — that it was only a nude because of AI. In my head, it might as well have really been me. I wanted to disappear forever. 

I felt powerless when the private investigator we hired asked me to let him copy the contents of my entire phone, so he had a record of it to use for the case if it ever went to court. Just like with the sergeant, here was basically a stranger who now had access to all of these intimate parts of me. Every message, photo, voice note, notes app entry … every single private thing or thought I’d ever had on my phone … it was now all in his hands. It was like so much of me was no longer mine anymore. 

I felt powerless on spring break. This was about three months after the texts had first started, and we were in Hawaii as a team for our spring training. And for the first time in a while, I was actually almost feeling good. I hadn’t played during fall season, so this was my “college debut.” And with everything going on, I’d been slow to make friends on the team…. but this trip felt like a turning point where I was starting to get closer to people. It was just really, really nice. And maybe because things were so nice for a few days, I think I let my guard down a bit.

So when I got a text from the area code of my small town, not even 412 for Pittsburgh, and it just said, Hey Lily wyd. I instinctively replied, who is this … and of course they wrote back: We went to [high school] together … All I want to tell you is that there is a fake nude of you online … Just wanted you to know … I can send the link if you want … ?

I remember being so unforgivably hard on myself in that moment. I was like, What’s wrong with you?! Did you seriously just text them back?! How stupid can you be?! I began spiraling. It was so frustrating. I was doing so well at the beginning of that trip — and by the end, somehow, I was just back to being sad and ashamed.

And then finally……. I felt powerless when I decided I’d had enough. By that spring, everything had been happening for so long that I think I’d almost become desensitized. Like I’d become resigned to the fact that this was just … a part of my life now. My parents would call, and instead of asking what’s new, they’d be like, “Any messages today?” Or sometimes I wouldn’t even wait for them to call. I’d just get a message, screenshot it, and send it right to them — rinse and repeat. But no matter how routine I tried to make it feel, it never actually felt routine. It never stopped feeling like this dark cloud hanging over me.

I finished out my freshman year, and right around then the messages began to get more hostile. They shifted in tone to something that felt more like disgust — disgust with me about the fact that these fake nudes existed, and what they thought it said about my character. 

Then maybe a month later (so like late May), I was back home and hanging out at a friend’s place one night — when I got a call from a random number. Only this time, for the first time, it wasn’t a call. It was a FaceTime. And this probably sounds crazy, but I’d gotten so attuned to the patterns that I instantly knew something was wrong. I left my friend’s, made the long drive to my parents’ house, and they were asleep by then so I went straight to my bedroom. And right as I was getting in bed, more texts started coming through — and these were the worst ones I’d ever gotten. The most vulgar comments … more and more pictures … and they wouldn’t stop.

I remember putting my phone down, crying so hard as I heard each new text alert, and just hugging my dog SO tight and repeating to myself, Mom and Dad are right down the hall. Mom and Dad are right down the hall. Mom and Dad are right down the hall. I barely slept that night. Then I got up the next morning, I walked downstairs, and — with what felt like the last ounce of energy in my body — I said, “I’m done. I’m sorry. I can’t keep doing this anymore. I have nothing left.”

And that was the truth: I really did have nothing left. Before those first texts found me, back in January, I was so excited……… about school, about volleyball, about life. It’s like I had this “full tank” of aliveness, you know what I mean? And now I was just on empty — I was down to zero. 

I was down to feeling like I was no one.

I guess that’s the power.

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I want to talk about the future.

The thing I’ve come to realize about someone holding power over you is: It can actually feel like they control the future. And after a while? It can start to feel as if you no longer have one. Which is when people get depressed — and when they make decisions that are impulsive, and irrational, and sometimes catastrophic. It’s when people harm themselves. It’s when people, especially young people, take their own lives.

And while you don’t know how my story ends yet, on the most important level you do. Because you know I’m still here … I’m still alive. And if there’s one thing that’s true about these types of stories, it’s that getting to the other side of this alive makes me pretty lucky. And I guess that’s why I wanted to write about it, and talk about what happened. Because I want everyone to know that there IS an “other side” — and there is help out there. Like … I just think of all the ways I was supported during this ordeal, and it takes my breath away.

I had my parents, who’ve always been my rock. I know that this was just as much their fight as it was mine. I had my coaches and teammates, who let me pour myself into our team as much as I needed to, as often as I needed to, and had my back throughout. I had all of my loved ones … my siblings, my friends, my extended family. They gave me the strength and resilience to survive the darkest times. And lastly, I had everyone at Notre Dame. Whether it was the administration, or the legal department, or the police department (especially the sergeant at NDPD, who promised he’d treat my case like it was his own daughter’s, and kept his word), or so many other people … the whole school provided me with so much care and understanding. They’re a big part of why I felt ready to take on this fight, and why I had the resources that allowed me to do so.

The thing is: A lot of people, probably most people, don’t have close to the level of support that I had. So when something like this happens to them? They can’t find their way out. They might not realize there is a way out. And instead they just feel more and more ashamed, and more and more trapped, and more and more alone.

Honestly……… “deepfake nudes” isn’t a phrase I even knew existed before all of this happened. If you’d told me about it a few years ago, I probably would have said it sounds made up. I’m not proud of this, but I might have laughed. Just the idea of it — I mean, it’s so insane. Who would ever think that’s something to actually worry about?! It all seems so ridiculous. But the problem is … that’s exactly why it works. That’s exactly what these people prey off of. It’s because it all just seems so ridiculous, so insane, so embarrassing, so your own fault, that there is such a tendency among victims to retreat inward. And to keep their shame a secret.

And the reason I asked The Players’ Tribune if I could write this article, it’s because I feel like if I have any kind of platform at all, I want to use it to reach out to anyone who’s been a victim of AI deepfake nudes, or who can relate to my story in any way…. and I just want to say to those people: I’m so, incredibly sorry this has happened to you. You aren’t alone. And I promise, whatever it is, there’s life on the other side of it.

I know that because I’m living mine.

It definitely hasn’t been easy. After that night at my parents’ house, after the messages became more vulgar, it was clear that something had to change. I bought a SIM card for a new number (and had to lie to everyone about why, which I hated), and then we set it up with our private investigator so my old number went to a generic phone that we bought from Walmart, and that only my mom had access to. She’d check in with me about some of the activity, and give me updates on the case … but nothing else. I never had to SEE another long, disturbing text, or another AI nude of myself, ever again. And that made such a difference.

When we finally ended up catching him, it was because of something very ordinary: He made a mistake. In one of the waves of calls and texts, he forgot to use the number-spoofer, so it showed up as coming from his real, actual number — and that was it. I guess it’s kind of “anticlimactic,” as the end to an ordeal like this, but I almost feel like there’s something fitting about that. Like, I think that when you’re being tormented by someone, they start to resemble a kind of super monster in your mind. As if they’re the villain in a horror movie — and no matter what measures you take, or strength you show, they just keep coming, and coming, and coming, and coming. Like they have magical powers. But the truth is??? You’re not in a horror movie. And there isn’t a monster. And these people don’t have magical powers. In my case, he literally just … had some dumb software. 

It was just some guy.

I can tell you the exact moment when I felt like I had a future again.

Our whole family went up to this lake house in June, to vacation for a week … and as luck would have it, that was the same week when we found out they’d caught him. He was a stranger to me, but not to this type of crime — a repeat offender, on parole. I remember hearing that, and I couldn't help but feel all this anger and defeat. That he’d somehow done something like this before and was trying again.

They held him for the maximum allowable time for a parole violation, then released him with a strict “no-contact” order. And maybe a day or two later, my mom asked me to talk in private. She was like, “Do you recognize this number?” That had been our protocol over the previous few weeks. She’d get contacted on my “old phone” from a random number, then ask if I recognized it. And if I didn’t recognize it, I’d just say, “Nope,” and we’d move on with our day……. even though we’d both know what that means.

“Nope” means it’s him. 

So when my mom asked me this time, and I didn’t recognize the number…. I tried so hard to just say “Nope” and move on. But I couldn’t. In my head I was like, We CAUGHT you!!! We KNOW who you ARE!!! How can you STILL be DOING this?! It’s OVER. I was so upset, thinking about how much of a reflex it must have been at that point for him to call me, text me, be in contact with me. Thinking about how entitled he must have felt to some part of me. I just completely broke down, and started sobbing uncontrollably. I realized that even a no-contact order wouldn’t stop him … and the light at the end of the tunnel I’d been seeing started to fade. And I will never, ever forget that moment. Because that’s when my oldest brother heard me sobbing from the other room — and he rushed in, and hugged me, and made sure I was locking eyes with him — and then he said these words that I’ll cherish for the rest of my life. 

He said, “Lily, remember…… He has NOTHING of yours, he has NONE of you. Keep it that way. He can only take away from you what you let him.”

A month later we had our court date, though the details of that don’t feel super important now. Actually, this detail does: I wore red pants. I’d watched the Simone Biles documentary, and in it she talks about how red was this big color for her during the Larry Nassar trial. How it signified power. So I figured if it’s a good enough color for Simone Biles, it’s good enough for me :) I’m glad I wore those pants. It was a hard day.

In the end, they struck a plea deal with him. As badly as I wanted him to be brought to full justice with a trial, I also couldn’t stop thinking about the satisfaction I knew he’d get from me “having to face him.” So a plea deal felt right to me. Honestly, I never even found out what he looks like. I think it’s better that way. 

I’ve been wondering a lot about closure lately. I’ve been wondering about what it actually means … it’s a hard concept to wrap your head around. “Closing” an experience or a feeling. And it comes in so many different forms, ones you can’t always predict. For me…… I found closure from that day in court, for sure. I also found closure from knowing that this man would face a prison sentence for his crimes — and that the website referenced in his texts (containing other female athletes’ AI deepfake nudes) would permanently be shut down.

And this might sound weird … but as much as all of those things brought me a lot of closure, the thing that brought me the most closure had nothing to do with a punishment, or an outcome, or even a court date. The best closure that I got actually came the day before my court date — at volleyball practice. I’m 21 now, and I’ve been playing volleyball since I was in third grade. But no exaggeration…… that practice of ours, the day before I went to court, it’s the single best practice I’ve ever had. I was flying around the gym, I was getting after it on every drill, I was sharp, I had stamina, I had energy, I had confidence. And it probably doesn’t take a genius to understand why. 

Something about that practice, on that day, just felt like confirmation. Confirmation I needed, for some reason, that he didn’t win. That he didn’t defeat me. That my story didn’t have the ending that he maybe hoped it would.

The truth is, I still don’t know how my story ends. I’m still going to therapy a lot. I’m still working on trusting people again, and being fully social again, and putting myself out there again. I’m still figuring out what kind of person I want to be as an adult, and how much of “what happened” I want to take with me.

But for that one practice………... It was like all of that could wait. It was like my whole body was shouting: HERE I AM!!!!! LIVING MY LIFE!!!!! You know??? Not in some courtroom, with him, talking about this thing he did. But in the gym, with my teammates, doing this thing I love. And doing it really freaking well — which I’m really freaking proud of. Sorry, I shouldn’t brag…. It wasn’t some big game. I’m not some huge star. But in my mind? I was truly powerful that day. I played SO great. I went so hard.

I felt so free.