Personal impact of whistleblowing

All whistleblowers suffer. Edward Snowden may have gotten a couple million selling his story, but his every day life sucks.

When you blow the whistle, you’re isolated from everyone. For me, the bank told everyone I was a terrorist, so many freaked out about me possibly killing them, whereas others recognized I was being railroaded and stuck by me.

My girlfriend left me when I blew the whistle, and it drove a wedge between me and my friends/family. The heat of standing against a large corporation scared many people in my life away that I thought were friends. At the same time, people I previously only recognized as auxiliary characters in my life become much more important.

I don’t trust anyone anymore, which made my romantic relationships suffer quite a bit.

Still I continue blowing the whistle whenever I see corruption.

I’ve gotten laid a lot more than I ever did before. In fact, with nothing left to lose, I lived the last four years throwing all caution to the wind. In doing so, I’ve made a lot of enemies, experienced a lot of amazing things, and met people I never would’ve otherwise.

I describe a lot of the downsides to whistleblowing because they exist, but they’re not things I dwell on. I’m actually happier than I’ve ever been. Blowing the whistle freed me of mental constraints and sparked a personal journey that evolved me as a person.

I’ll be featured in the December issue of High Times discussing a jail term due to a court case stemming from my whistleblowing effort all that time ago. It’s a bit of a double-edged sword overall.

The one point I’d stress over anything else as to what happens to you when you become a whistleblower is you drive yourself insane. Your reality becomes detached from the shared reality of everyone else. That’s when I noticed my life was getting crazy and deduced it must be a reflection of myself.