A week or two before the episode was released, a stranger sent me a direct message on Instagram with a link to "Law & Order": a trailer for "SVU": "I think this is you.

As I watched the trailer, I thought it literally looked like us. Two blondes in dancewear kissing. It was obvious that they looked exactly like me, a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet, and my ex-boyfriend Chase Finlay (opens in new tab), who shared my revenge porn with his friends.

I found it odd and disturbing. You never know how the media will portray you, and this was a TV show taking what happened to me (opens in new tab) and making it their own.

And I felt angry. That's how I've been feeling lately about a lot of things: no one at SVU told me about my story, no one told me they were making an episode that was clearly based on what happened to me. The disclaimer at the beginning of the show states that the episode is fictional, but everyone knows that "Law & Order" is "ripped from the headlines." This summer, one of the show's writers followed me on Instagram. Now I know why.

Before I go any further, I'm a huge fan of "Law & Order" and "SVU" is probably one of my favorite shows. I watch it almost every day and used to. I think the conversation the show has created about sexual violence has had a positive impact on society. But this time I felt like they took advantage of me. That's a terrible thing to do to a survivor of sexual violence."

In the spring of 2018, two years after I graduated from the School of American Ballet where I met Chase, I found explicit images on his computer. He had taken a video of me without my consent and shared it with other dancers and company donors. [Editor's note: Finlay claims that Waterbury consented to being photographed nude (opens in new tab). I sued Chase, the dancers, the donors, the Company, and the school. Chase resigned. The other two dancers were fired, but with the help of the union they appealed the ruling and the company offered them their jobs back. The case is still ongoing.

After watching the trailer I called my lawyer. 'Are you allowed to tell this story without my permission?' 'Is it legal? My lawyer said he did not think there was much they could do. I mean, SVU has been doing this for 21 seasons. They obviously have the legal means to get around it. Besides, my lawyer said, this episode is kind of a good thing. Because it shows that my case was bad enough to be investigated by Olivia Benson on TV. Hopefully, they said, it will raise awareness about what happened to me.

But this is the problem with their fictional disclaimer. If someone who doesn't already know about my case sees this, they will think it is completely fictional. I don't exist, and it never happened to me.

This episode spun my experience into a much larger crime: a sex trafficking conspiracy involving a choreographer and artistic director and company donors who bid for sex with ballet dancers (opens in new tab). As if my experience wasn't bad enough for a 40-minute TV show and needed to be enhanced for entertainment value.

But some things SVU really cut from the headlines (opens in new tab). The boys who recorded the sex and disseminated it lost their jobs, but then filed a wrongful termination lawsuit. After I came forward, City Ballet was already without permanent leadership, as its long-serving artistic director resigned (opens in new tab) amid separate allegations of sexual harassment and verbal and physical abuse. (The Company conducted an internal investigation into the allegations against the former Artistic Director and announced that the allegations were unsupported. (This report was never made public.)

When this episode aired on March 26 (open in new tab), I was at home in upstate New York with my family. I watched it with my mother and brother and within 5 minutes I was crying. During the first commercial my mother said. You don't have to watch this stuff. But I wanted to know what they were going to do with my story, with my life. It was awful to watch, but I couldn't look away.

I remembered the first time I found pictures, videos, and texts on Chase's computer. Obviously it was horrible, but I was experiencing it on my own. No one judged me or wondered how I had gotten myself into that situation.

As I sat and watched the episode, it was as if I was experiencing it all over again. This time, the entire SVU audience was watching and asking themselves, "What the hell is wrong with this girl?" and "Why is she so naive? And I just felt, once again, so foolish. The people who did this to me were preying on a young, naive woman. And then I sat down with my mother and experienced it all over again. It really sucked.

I know the writers didn't need to consult with me before making this episode, but if they had, I would have told them this: you need to acknowledge that revenge porn is real and that it is serious. We need to acknowledge that revenge porn is real and that it is a serious problem. I wish they would have included a website or phone number at the end of each episode (I don't know why they don't do that for every episode) as a resource for those who have been victimized and are seeking help. And I wish they had not made the ballerinas do cheesy choreography or at least put them in pointe shoes.

If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual assault or harassment and is seeking help, please visit RAINN.org (opens in new tab)