r/Kitsap • u/KismaiAesthetics • 4h ago
News The š©show That Is The 23LD-1 Race
In case you missed it, Tarra Simmonsā 2024 campaign manager, Adeline Hayduk, posted an open letter Tuesday.
If youāre still deciding who deserves your support in this race, please consider Ms Simmonsā Ethics Commission experience (levied the maximum fine that can be imposed), her documented behavior towards fellow Democrats since even before the primary, the events that transpired at the nonprofit she founded and her vicious retaliatory streak towards those she perceives have somehow wronged her.
The 23rd deserves better than what has been on display for months now.
The complete text is below along with the link to the documents mentioned:
ā Yup. I was Tarraās campaign manager in 2024
Sigh.
Iāve started writing this post a dozen times and stopped just as many. Itās deeply personal, uncomfortable, and something I never imagined Iād need to discuss publicly.
Last week, someone anonymously sent me 77 pages of documents concerning Representative Tarra Simmons and Civil Survival, the nonprofit she founded and was subsequently separated from. They include independent investigations, employee accounts and correspondence raising serious concerns about her conduct and leadership.
Some of the information was deeply disturbing. Some allegations remain disputed, and I encourage people to distinguish those from investigatorsā findings.
But what surprised me most was the relief I felt. Not satisfaction or political vindication. Relief.
The kind that comes after spending months questioning your own perceptions, replaying conversations, wondering whether youāve misunderstood something or somehow become responsible for another personās emotional distress. And then discovering that other people have described experiences that feel painfully familiar.
I hadnāt fully appreciated how isolated Iād become until that moment.
Let me explain.
I was Tarra Simmonsā campaign manager in 2024. Following her reelection, we remained friends. By then, Iād grown accustomed to what I experienced as an unusually demanding friendship, one requiring frequent emotional reassurance and increasingly unreasonable access to my time.
Emotional manipulation rarely begins with an obvious demand for control. It starts with small concessions. A phone call you donāt have time for, a crisis you feel obligated to resolve, or a boundary you temporarily relax because someone is struggling. You tell yourself youāre being a good friend. And sometimes thatās exactly what youāre doing.
But thereās a difference between supporting someone through hardship and becoming responsible for managing their emotional stability. I didnāt recognize how far that line had shifted until I was already exhausted.
When the legislative session began, the early morning calls became routine. Nearly every morning, on her way to the Capitol, Tarra would call in emotional distress.
āMy party doesnāt understand me.ā āI have no one.ā āNo one ever does anything for me.ā
I listened, reassured her and tried to help. Eventually, I began dreading those calls. I even worried that if I wasnāt available to help her manage whatever crisis she was experiencing, I might somehow compromise her ability to perform her duties as a legislator.
Think about the weight of that implication. An elected official responsible for representing tens of thousands of people, and I was beginning to feel personally responsible for whether she could emotionally manage that responsibility.
It was an extraordinary burden, and it wasnāt mine to carry.
Eventually, I asked a mutual friend whether she could take over some of those calls. Iād begun quietly planning my withdrawal from the friendship because my own emotional well-being was suffering.
The last time we spent time together, I explained that my husband had just returned from six months away on military duty, my mother had recently died, and I had significant work responsibilities. I simply didnāt have the capacity to continue being so available.
She called the next day. I said Iād call her back. I never did.
And that was the beginning of something I was wholly unprepared for.
Messages began arriving through mutual acquaintances. My name appeared in email conversations that had nothing to do with me. Requests for āclosureā and ārestorative healingā continued, including another message as recently as this summer.
Just one conversation. One more opportunity for closure.
But Iād made my decision, and I repeatedly declined.
Hereās something I wish more people understood about boundaries: another personās emotional distress does not create an entitlement to your time, attention or continued friendship. I was not obligated to participate in someone elseās healing at the expense of my own.
Yet the more firmly I maintained that boundary, the more pressure I experienced.
Then came what felt to me like social and political consequences.
Long before Daria Ilgen decided to run for office, I experienced what I believe were efforts by Tarra to influence my relationships and standing within our community. Friendships became strained, and spaces where Iād previously felt welcome became uncomfortable.
I cannot claim to know every private conversation or another personās motivations. What I can tell you is how I experienced it.
I felt punished for withdrawing access to myself. And perhaps most disturbingly, I began changing my own behavior to avoid certain people and places, afraid that speaking openly would only make things worse.
After decades of organizing communities, advocating for marginalized people and challenging institutional power, I found myself calculating which rooms I could safely walk into because Iād ended a friendship.
That realization still makes me profoundly sad.
But it also speaks to something much larger.
Isolation is one of the most effective mechanisms of coercive control. When people fear social or professional consequences, silence begins to feel like self-preservation. And when everyone believes theyāre the only person experiencing something, nobody realizes how many others may be going through something similar.
Thatās why reading those investigation documents affected me so deeply.
The October 2023 independent investigation described an āoverarching fear of retaliationā so significant that it hindered investigatorsā ability to interview employees. Investigators also documented an incident in which staff members found themselves having to comfort and reassure Tarra after an emotional outburst in which she threatened to leave with the organizationās funding, putting their jobs at risk.
And then I read something on page seven that stopped me cold.
āNo individual that we interviewed expressed a belief that Ms. Simmons is a capable leader.ā
Those are not my words. They are the words of independent investigators hired to examine what happened inside the organization Tarra founded.
The findings donāt independently prove my personal experiences, nor is every allegation in those documents an established fact. But reading about employees who feared retaliation and found themselves managing the emotional needs of someone in a position of power was profoundly unsettling.
I recognized dynamics that had made me question myself for months. Suddenly, I wasnāt trying to understand everything in isolation.
Thereās another dimension to this that I believe deserves serious consideration: political power.
We live in an environment where challenging a leader can be treated as betraying a cause, where accountability becomes disloyalty, and where someoneās personal story or trauma can become a shield against legitimate criticism.
I believe deeply in trauma-informed practices and restorative justice. People deserve compassion, dignity and opportunities to heal.
But trauma can help explain behavior without excusing the harm that behavior causes others. And restorative justice cannot be restorative when participation is coerced.
You cannot demand someoneās emotional labor in the name of healing or insist on access to someone who has withdrawn consent.
When the person exercising that pressure also holds public office, the implications become considerably more serious.
This is especially relevant given the Washington Legislative Ethics Boardās separate findings concerning Tarraās use of legislative influence, including its finding that she attempted to pressure an employer to fire a complainant. Those findings are under appeal.
My experience is not that ethics case. But itās one reason questions of power, retaliation and accountability are so important to me.
I want to be clear about something. This post is not an endorsement of any candidate, nor is it a claim that every allegation circulating about Tarra is true. Itās my firsthand account of a relationship I experienced as emotionally manipulative and coercive.
Iām sharing the documents I received because I believe people deserve access to information relevant to those who hold public power. I encourage everyone to read critically, distinguish findings from allegations, and form their own conclusions.
I also know what may happen after I publish this.
My motives will be questioned. Some will attempt to turn this into a campaign issue or personal vendetta. Others may try to discredit my experience altogether.
Frankly, the fear of those reactions is part of why Iāve remained silent for so long.
But Iāve come to realize that I was still allowing someone elseās potential reaction to determine whether I could speak about my own life. I was still making myself smaller to avoid conflict with someone who no longer had any right to influence my decisions.
And Iām no longer willing to do that.
I wonder how many others have watched relationships deteriorate or reputations suffer because they refused to accommodate someone elseās demands. How many have remained silent because speaking up seemed more dangerous than keeping the peace? How many are waiting for someone else to go first?
Well, Iāll go first.
Because when people begin sharing experiences, they can recognize patterns that were difficult to see alone. And when communities stop punishing people for setting boundaries, fear begins losing its power.
That doesnāt mean abandoning fairness, evidence or due process. It means allowing people to speak about their
#silentnomore. ā
