Adult Bullying Is A Real Thing: My Story Of Trying To Survive

Typically, I try to keep my personal life, aside from our convention trips and the very few parenting posts I do, off of my blog. I wasn't going to make a post about this, but then I realized that I'm a parent, and kids get bullied. Children who bully tend to grow up to be adult bullies. So I don't know if my story can help prevent this sort of thing from happening to others or just to raise awareness that this sort of thing does happen and it's a lot more serious than you know, then I guess that's my goal. 

It all started when my former best friend was having girl problems. He would discuss things with me, and I would let him rant, but I generally tried to stay out of it. He eventually dragged me farther and farther into his problems no matter how hard I tried to crawl back out of it because I had my own problems going on and didn't need to be involved in someone else's. He dragged my other best friend into it as well. 

A woman he had dated was claiming to have gotten pregnant by him and had a miscarriage. Admittedly, I was skeptical of BOTH sides of the story to be honest, but in the end I stood by his side and tried to calm him down and make him step down from all the things he wanted to do. My other friend had been doing the same. He still harassed this woman and made it his mission to go after her. I'm sure at some point I said some things that I should not have and I immediately regretted it. To the point where I sat down on Christmas eve, after family had left and my kids were in bed, and wrote out a pretty lengthy apology message to the woman. I sympathized with her. I told her I was sorry for her loss and I told her I was going to try and get my friend to just talk to her and work everything out between the two of them because I didn't think it was healthy for anyone involved and I was especially worried for his two young sons. I managed to get him to agree to some sort of truce and when I went back to message her again and tell her that he agreed to the truce, she had messaged me the nastiest message I have ever read. She accused me of making a fake profile to stalk her, which is untrue. I used my daughter's profile to message her the apology because she had me blocked (rightfully so, yet she still was able to see things I was posting...). 

One day I had posted about being raped. The post had said something about someone I trusted doing something horrible to me and a few moments later, this showed up on her page:

It just got worse. My two friends and I made a pact to just ignore her and hope that maybe she would give up and move on. Nope. Instead she got worse. She made dozens of fake profiles and tried to friend request me from them, she messaged my husband harassing him and claiming I was sleeping with my beset friend when everyone knows I wasn't and she even gave out personal information about my friend and encouraged my husband to go to my friends place of employment and beat the crap out of him. She posted about trying to have my children taken away from me and my friend's taken from him as well. 

She started targeting my blog by tagging it in everything and calling me a bully. She tried to tell people I was stalking her, but I have her blocked on all social networks, yet she still somehow saw everything I posted and made comments about it on her page. 

She got real vicious. She targeted my Youtube videos, calling me a fat ass and saying that I need photoshop because I'm ugly. She really tried her best to make all my fans think I'm some horrible human being and ruin my blog and everything I had worked for. 

She made this and tried to spread it around all social networks:

She used my name, my husband's name, both of my children's names, and my location and tried to get people to believe I was threatening her when I had not spoken to or messaged this woman since the apology letter I wrote her. I don't even know this woman's real last name, but she certainly knows enough about me. 

I chose to break off my friendship with my guy friend of 10 years because I felt like he was going to far with things. He had started making fake profiles and facebook pages to harass her and bully her. I had told him I thought he was going to far, but he didn't listen. Instead, he tried to make everyone believe that I made those pages when I had no part of them. He also tried to make people think I made some business card making fun of this woman's miscarriage when I didn't. I have proof that it wasn't me who did it, but why would a bully listen to reason? When she was fully on my back and off of his, he left Facebook and ran from the mess he made. He just wanted someone to take the blame for everything. The last conversation I had with him was telling him that he needs to apologize to the poor woman for what he put her through and that if he valued our friendship, he would admit to his wrongs and put out the fire he threw me in. Instead of agreeing with me, he insisted that I needed God in my life because he stopped drinking and found God and it helped him. No, God didn't help him, throwing his friends under the bus did. And apparently the lack of drinking and finding God didn't keep him from trying to set other people up. 

After my best friend and I dropped him like a bad habit, he started messaging his girlfriend's ex. He told him that his girlfriend had screwed him over and he "wanted to bury her" and needed his help. Well, the guy went to the cops. My former friend got charged with harassment. He got caught this time. He had no one to pin his stuff on anymore so he got caught. 

I had assumed that now that it had been public what he had done and that it was 100% him that harasses his ex's and bullies them, that I would finally be rid of the bully. I was wrong. 

Then she started in on my costuming. I did one photoshoot and never did another one after that because she started calling me a freak and ugly and everything else. Some of you remember I posted briefly about it and explained that this is why I was hesitant to post about my conventions and costuming anymore. 

I had even made a completely new page for close friends and family and changed my name on it and then I went in and blocked all of her pages and profiles that I could find, and she still found me.

I finally felt confident enough after two months of not hearing anything from friends about her posting about me to start my convention and cosplay posts again. So over the weekend, my husband and I dressed up and went to a convention in Pittsburgh. I did have an anxiety attack while we were walking around the city because I don't feel comfortable in public anymore because of this stuff. I was constantly looking over my shoulder and convinced that others were talking about me and I feared for my life. I feared that after everything she has posted, that either her or someone she knew would spot me and try to harm me. I tried to stay calm and enjoy my weekend. I finally got over all of that and was excited to post about my weekend and share it with all of you. Next thing I know, I'm directed by someone to a post she had made calling me a freak again. The irony of it? In between calling me names and bullying me, she is always posting about how she's anti bullying and is all about "uplifting" others and telling women that they shouldn't care how they look or how much or little they weigh and that they should love themselves. So imagine my shock when I see this:

Just the idea that she bullies me one minute to the point where I've wanted to end my own life and then the next minute she posts anti bullying stuff really frustrates me. It almost makes me crazy. My anxiety is off the charts and I didn't sleep last night. I haven't been able to eat either. This woman is somehow getting away with everything and no one has noticed that the "victim" is actually the bully! You can't bully someone one minute and pretend to be a hero the next. 

I have contacted the police about her before and was told that it wasn't a crime to be an a-hole. However, they did tell me to keep track of everything. I have a 36 page file of all the harassment and bullying to hand over to them and I just added this new one to the pile this morning. I have publicly threatened to get authorities involved and it has not stopped her. Obviously. I hadn't taken it to the authorities yet because I thought the last two months that she was done. Clearly she's not, so I guess the police station is my next stop and then from there a lawyer. 

She is going to continue to try and convince people that I have done all these things that I have not done. I have physical proof in the form of text messages from my former friend that he is the one who has done all the things she blames me for, but anyone who stands up for me becomes a new target for her. 

At any rate, today I have realized that I will never be able to escape this torment. Ignoring her obviously does not work as she just get's worse and worse the more she's ignored. This is why I'm speaking out. I need to open up about what I've been through and I need to make people aware of it. I've contemplated shutting down my blog and everything that I have worked hard to build since 2011. I am in disbelief that a 40 year old woman has driven me to throw away my hard work and my dreams, be cooped up in my house, question everything I love to do, and make me consider harming myself or ending my life. I have to take medication to sleep at night and she has no remorse for anything she has done. 

I'm just a victim of a monster and I'm trying so very hard to survive. 

God forbid my children ever have someone be this evil to them someday.