Monica Lewinsky has waited 20 years for the Me Too movement.

Im so sorry you were so alone, Lewinsky wrote in a recent essay for Vanity Fair , recalling a message she received from a leader of the Me Too movement. Those seven words undid me.

Lewinskys essay in the magazines March edition describes how she grappled with isolation and trauma after her affair with then-President Bill Clinton became public in 1998. Only recently, with the help of the Me Too movement against sexual misconduct, has she felt less alone. A private exchange with a leader of the movement was powerfully reassuring, she wrote.

Somehow, coming from her a recognition of sorts on a deep, soulful level [those words] landed in a way that cracked me open and brought me to tears, Lewinsky continued. Yes, I had received many letters of support in 1998 ... But by and large I had been alone. So. Very. Alone. Publicly Alone abandoned most of all by the key figure in the crisis, who actually knew me well and intimately. That I had made mistakes, on that we can all agree. But swimming in that sea of Aloneness was terrifying.

Lewinskys poignant essay describes how it felt to be the infamous centerpiece of a scandal that rocked a presidency: The investigation; the onslaught of media stories and cruel Saturday Night Live skits; her own mother being forced to testify against her; and seeing details of her sex life and personal life displayed to the world.

To be blunt, I was diagnosed several years ago with post-traumatic stress disorder, mainly from the ordeal of having been publicly outed and ostracized back then, she wrote. My trauma expedition has been long, arduous, painful, and expensive. And its not over.

Lewinsky, now 44, said her experience would have been different if it had happened today. With the rising Me Too movement, Lewinsky wrote that she would have been instantly welcomed into a tribe.