Let’s just dive into things…
I’ve been going through a really rough patch lately with the adjustments to working nights on the online job. Often I’m getting 2 or 3 hours of sleep a night between shifts, if that, and trying to play catch up with sleep. It’s obviously not doing a lot for my health or relationships as I have a lot less patience than the virtue I’m primarily known for.
On top of it all, things have gone insane in my personal life with a lot of friends having a lot of issues. I’m going to document one of them here, just to cover my ass should this person continue her insane behavior.
The week of September 11th, I started instant messaging a gal who I knew from the blogosphere. She seemed like she was good friends with another gal I knew from the blog world and would be cool to hang out with since most of my online friends are off having lives these days. The first conversation was okay, she seemed to like to talk about the other gal quite a bit and it didn’t seem odd at all. She was someone who I thought was cool to talk to, but no aspirations here of anything else. She’s from another country and I’m not doing the cross the world romance again.
By the second conversation I noticed that something was wrong. Her moods would change based on things her friend did. She would claim to be crying her eyes out over a fight with the other girl (who again, she proclaimed to be so close that they were “family”), or over something the other girl had said. She told me she was so upset at the other girl that she was throwing her food away and refusing to eat.
She told me a tale of how she lost her job because of the other girl. Apparently they had IM’d or e-mailed or something and the IT guys found out about it and she was fired because the subjects that they talked about were so naughty that it violated company policy. She had since refused to go to interviews for new jobs, blaming daily fights with her friend for ruining her confidence.
After I quit my second job, I started to be around more and my mornings to evenings were filled with instant messages from this girl. I didn’t seek them out, I had been dumb enough to give her my primary instant message name and not my yahoo address that I give to people when I first meet them, so she’d bombard me with IMs throughout the day detailing her daily battles with the supposed best friend.
It was draining. By the second week of it, the girl refused to admit to have any capacity for fun in her life. Worse, for hope or dreams or anything. It was like being stuck in a room with my mother when my mother was on a “poor me” kick.
But worse yet, she began these rants and these hate filled ims about her friend. By the end of September, she’d literally spend hours ranting to me in IMs (with me working so I’d look at the screen on the MAC every five minutes to see if she was done), about things her “best friend” was saying. Often, as it turns out, she was telling the other girl sweet nothings and great things while she was telling me how much of a horrible person the girl was and how she’d kill the girl’s finance should he do anything to hurt her.
I think the final straw was the week she told me she was nothing, she had nothing, all she lived for was the other girl’s happiness. She would never be happy because she would hate herself is she disappointed the other girl in not being happy (this is the same girl who felt guilty because her friend said “sleep well” before signing off one night, the girl hadn’t slept well and told me she was crying her eyes out because she disappointed the friend for not having a good night’s sleep!). She began to tell me about how she was looking up private details of the other girl’s life on the internet (and was furious when she couldn’t find what she was looking for). She blew off a job interview and began starving herself and blamed the other girl for upsetting her. That was it, out of concern for her, I went to the other girl and let her know what this girl was saying and what she was doing.
Well, the truth about this girl and what she was telling me were very different things.
That set off a firestorm with the girl. I think I have 20 or 30 hate filled emails from her in the past two weeks. She’s seeking out blogs where they ask things like “if you were Jesus and you could cast two people into the lake of fire, who would you cast first?” and putting my name down. She sends me threatening emails about reading her blog and how she’s going to send the law to my house should I continue to read it.
At one point she had made her blog private and sent me a note that it was my fault because I was reading it and how dare I read it because it was costing her readers. Oh well. LOL. I’ve heard rumors that she feels that I’m 20 or 30 people online who have wronged her in the past and my whole name and persona is of someone in her country who she’s been fueding with for years now.
I. Wish. I. Had. That. Much. Time. On. My. Hands.
Let’s face it folks, a criminal mastermind I’m not. I barely have time to sleep, let alone have any sort of personal life of my own right now. The time and the effort to “get” anyone is something I don’t have in me right now. It’s also sort of embarrassing because I’ve defended this girl when people were harassing her and frankly, after I found out what she’s done to them, I’m sort of red in the face. She’s needs a lot of help and after her history of death threats, threats of violence, obvious mental instability and the lack of touch with reality (all in my humble opinion), I’m putting my side of the story out there in case anything happens.
I doubt she’ll cross an ocean to stalk me, but you know what? I’ve had worse things happen. Thankfully, I’m putting every instant message and every email I’ve had with the girl in a file. Should anything happen to me or the girl she’s obsessed with, friends will have that archive to refer back to and take to the authorities. I don’t say things in public without proof so my words are the truth. Documenting it is all I can do at this point, since all she’s done is sent me harassing emails, but you know, it’s better to be safe than to be sorry in this world. Protect yourself from the crazies you meet online and if they give warning signs… but all means, act. Cover your ass and be safe.
All I can say is I hope she gets the mental help she (in my humble opinion) needs and she finds some sort of peace.
Without showing up on my front doorstep.
With that, I am going to sleep. Next shift online in 5 hours.
Jim