bullying stories

A return to a peaceful spirit as my stalkers are defanged at last; also, glad to see my blog back!

Finally, my web host has finished whatever they were doing to protect us against botnet attacks, and my blog is back to normal functioning (I hope)!

But it was down for about a week, a long, frustrating week as my blog would go up and down, up and down.  I often had to turn off the redirect sending readers here from my old blog.

During uptimes, I installed better security and made adjustments, since you can’t rely on your host to protect you completely, especially on a free server.

I see from my security files that just in the last 24 hours, some bot from the Ukraine continuously tried to get into my blog’s dashboard for malicious purposes.  Apparently it would try, Wordfence would block it for a short time, then it would come back and try again.

But because of my security fixes, it could not come in.  😀  And now, because of Wordfence, I’ve blocked it permanently from trying again.

I have seen my stalkers trying to get in as well.  They are aware of this new blog, and have done searches for it which led them to my old blog, but not the new one.

I’ve seen them go to my old blog, but because the redirect for mobile phones was turned on, they got redirected here–and couldn’t get in.

I saw them try six times one evening to get in, when the mobile redirect was on, but they failed!

All they can ever see is the old blog, which is rarely updated now.  Now that my blog is back up and more stable again, the mobile redirect is back up, so they can’t get to the old or new blogs at all.

When the redirect is up, the only trace I can see of them is in Blogger’s stat page, when an Android browser is accompanied by a search term which I can recognize as theirs.  They do not show up in any other hit count trackers, because they are blocked.

I haven’t seen them back in a little more than a week, even though they had a long-established routine of checking in at least once a week, often twice or more–and several times a day when they discovered me trying to block them on my old blog a couple of months ago.

Strange how they won’t say a word to me otherwise, but will express their displeasure with me through their unwanted blog hits…..

Must be because they know I’ve been to the police about them already because of the e-mail they sent me, so they know I’m capable of doing so again.

This has been extremely helpful in restoring my broken spirit.  For almost a year I have feared what they may be planning next:

  • Will I get served with a lawsuit for telling the truth?
  • Will they send me another nasty message, threaten me, or assault me as Richard had once almost done to the person who evicted them?
  • Will they come to my church again on purpose to upset me and rub my nose in their lack of remorse for hurting and abusing me?

But none of this has happened.  No lawsuit.  No more nasty messages.  No assaults.  I haven’t even seen them at church since last August.  Their presence on my blog has been a constant irritant, but now I have successfully blocked them.

They are beginning to disappear from my life, even on the edges (ie, checking my blog), since I switched to WordPress.org and blocked them.  They are also beginning to disappear from my thoughts.  Not completely, but it is a huge step forward.

There is still the risk of seeing them more often eventually at church, if one of our parishes fails financially and our separate congregations begin blending.  I dearly hope that does not happen.

But for now, our two parishes remain open, and they are not directly in my life (just occasionally seen on the street).  My spirit is moving toward peace, toward calm.

I am working to accept that Richard was never the friend or the person he claimed to be, or he would never have let things get this way, that he must have been conning and using me.

I have become the webmaster for my church, and that has predominated my thoughts (and time) lately as I struggle to understand the content management system it uses.

My son just bought a couple of adorable spice finches who are very attached to each other.

Life is slowly but surely moving on.

Taking Back My Power At Last

I just read this:

CHANGE your perspective: Yes, he gets away with much because he has no conscience and he’s a very sick person, and he’s going to do what he’s going to do, but I have a LIFE I WANT TO LIVE NOW AND I AM IN CHARGE OF WHAT I CAN BE IN CHARGE OF: And THAT is your perspective.

How much of how he affects you now is that you allow him too? He recreates the bond over and over by doing something slimy and sneaky, triangulating others in your life, including the children. What perspective can you take on that means he has less power and that you have MORE, no matter what slimy, sneaky thing HE is doing?

Trying to fight with, convince, share, tell, order, complain, whine, REACT to a psychopath, means he still has the power. Every grievance that you share with him, even in anger, gives him power, TELLS him, LITERALLY what to keep doing that bothers you, and therefore he does it, subsequently triggering you, keeping you a victim and never moving forward with your life. —To Get “Unstuck”

I wanted the freedom to tell the world everything that was going on, whether Richard/Tracy watched or not, as a big F**K YOU to them (I WILL continue exposing their deeds like this, no matter how they threaten me, because their real names/identifiers are not used and I speak the truth) and a help for anyone in a similar situation.

I had also hoped that sharing my heart on my blog would demonstrate to Richard just what he had done, reach him, show him that he needed to get things right with me or he would never be right with God….

But his lack of response, while continuing to read, has only confirmed my suspicions that he is a narcissist, possibly even a sociopath (he does have a history of violence and illegal activity).

My hope continued–until I posted that I wanted to be left alone for Lent, wanted to move on by no longer seeing him in my stats, and blocked him.

(I couldn’t block him before, as much as I tried for months, because Toolator (Blogger blocker) was not upgrading accounts to allow blocking dynamic (changing) IPs (your computer’s address).  Other blockers I tried, did not work.  But now, he’d switched to a static (unchanging) IP, so I tried Toolator again.)

Then, once he got around the block and saw my posts about blocking him, not only did he find ways to get around the block (going all over town using various wi-fis for the same cell phone and, apparently, figuring out how to defeat the blockers), but he began checking my blog constantly.

He and she, since Tracy checked my blog from her college campus once, so I’m quite certain they’re in on this together, are both narcs/sociopaths deliberately trying to keep me “stuck.”  Last year they ridiculed me for being angry at what they did to me, but they’re obviously trying to keep me in that dark place.

This fits the above description of how a narc will find out what bugs you from your complaints, then keep doing it–on purpose to keep you “stuck,” to keep you his victim, to keep you from moving on with your life.

Moving my blog to WordPress.org (especially with a redirect plug-in to transfer my traffic), then using far more effective blockers to keep them out, was the best thing I could have done.  I have blocked several of the IPs I found him using, including dynamic ones; even if he does find another internet source to hook into, his home network and a few other sources are blocked, so he can’t just come here any time he likes.

Now I’m taking my power back at last.  I see him still checking every day or two, but he’s stuck at the old blog, unable to come to the new one.

I’m beginning to feel free.  I’m beginning to move on.  I’m beginning to heal.

His character is so glaringly clear to me now, that I KNOW he was just using me from the beginning, that he lied to me about himself, reflected my own self back to me making me think he was very different, possibly even lied about his faith.

I mean, come on, these “Orthodox Christians” are not even respecting Lent, and never made an attempt, after we broke things off with them, to sort things out with us, to apologize for their own part in things, to do anything that was not selfish and self-centered!  They took, took and took again from us, but did not give back.

Reflections on Emily Yoffe’s article: Why I keep perseverating on the abuse, and why forgiving the abusers may be unneeded

Emily Yoffe recently wrote in The Debt: When terrible, abusive parents come crawling back, what do their grown children owe them?:

Bruce Springsteen’s frustrated, depressive father took out much of his rage on his son.

In a New Yorker profile, David Remnick writes that long after Springsteen’s family had left his unhappy childhood home, he would obsessively drive by the old house.

A therapist said to him, “Something went wrong, and you keep going back to see if you can fix it or somehow make it right.”

Springsteen finally came to accept he couldn’t. When he became successful he did give his parents the money to buy their dream house.

But Springsteen says of this seeming reconciliation, “Of course, all the deeper things go unsaid, that it all could have been a little different.”

I get this.  This explains everything.  He kept driving past the old house because he wanted to fix it somehow.

This explains why my mind has had so much trouble closing the door on Richard and Tracy: Not only did their constant presence on my blog keep me mired in the past and their hard-heartedness, seeing all the proof I put up that they were abusive, but refusing to apologize and make it right–

–but I kept going back to the situation because I wanted to fix it somehow, make it right.

Figure out what happened.

Figure out if I had it pegged correctly or was way off.

Figure out if I could post just the right thing which would get Tracy to realize how badly she had treated and misjudged me.

More importantly, figure out if I could post just the right thing to get Richard to realize how badly he had treated a loyal and devoted friend who would have done anything for him.

Yoffe also writes:

In a 2008 essay in the journal In Character, history professor Wilfred McClay writes that as a society we have twisted the meaning of forgiveness into a therapeutic act for the victim:

“[F]orgiveness is in danger of being debased into a kind of cheap grace, a waiving of standards of justice without which such transactions have no meaning.”

Jean Bethke Elshtain, a professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School, writes that,

“There is a watered-down but widespread form of ‘forgiveness’ best tagged preemptory or exculpatory forgiveness. That is, without any indication of regret or remorse from perpetrators of even the most heinous crimes, we are enjoined by many not to harden our hearts but rather to ‘forgive.’ ”

I agree with these more bracing views about what forgiveness should entail. Choosing not to forgive does not doom someone to being mired in the past forever. Accepting what happened and moving on is a good general principle.

But it can be comforting for those being browbeaten to absolve their parents to recognize that forgiveness works best as a mutual endeavor.

After all, many adult children of abusers have never heard a word of regret from their parent or parents. People who have the capacity to ruthlessly maltreat their children tend toward self-justification, not shame…..

It’s wonderful when there can be true reconciliation and healing, when all parties can feel the past has been somehow redeemed. But I don’t think Rochelle, Beatrice, and others like them should be hammered with lectures about the benefits of—here comes that dread word—closure.

Sometimes the best thing to do is just close the door.

How can I forgive someone who refuses to repent? who would continue to violate my boundaries of being left alone, if I hadn’t switched to self-hosted WordPress and blocked them at the server level?

Even though my old blog is no longer maintained, and even though they are blocked from the new one, my abusers/stalkers continue to check my old blog at least every other day.  They know about the new blog, so I am quite certain they have tried to come here, but can’t get in.

The biblical passages on forgiveness seem to refer to, forgiving someone who has repented.  If my abuser refuses to admit to abusing me, how can I absolve her of it, treat her as if she never abused me?

Even a simple “hello” if I see her at church, would feel like soul murder.  How can I possibly do that?

I can, however, accept that she abused me, accept that she refuses to admit to it, and treat her as I would a rattlesnake. 

You don’t need to forgive the rattlesnake if it bites you; it’s doing what comes naturally, and would not be sorry for it.  You don’t say hello to a rattlesnake; you give it a wide berth and then run the heck away from it.

Maybe this time the stalkers will stay away?

[Update 10/22/14: About six months ago, at least one of my stalkers began using a new device and connection.  I thought it was a new fan, until they gave themselves away, probably Richard.  He seemed particularly interested in this post for some reason.]

So the new blog has been up for several days now.  The old one is set up with an automatic redirect so my traffic transfers over here.

So there we have one point for me, because I don’t “lose” after all by “cutting and running” from the old Blogger blog to get away from my stalkers.

The redirect has been working quite well.  It doesn’t work so well on cell phones, unfortunately, but a message is posted stating that the blog has moved over here to WordPress.

Point two for me is that WordPress (the self-hosted kind) is far better than WordPress.com, with all sorts of options and control over your own blog (such as plugins).

It’s also far better than Blogger, where the only available block was third-party Javascripts that may or may not work.  Even if they do work, a person can still figure out how to defeat them.

But here, I can block users at the server level: supposedly a very powerful block, no stupid Javascripts.

Point three for me is that my stalkers have been stalking my old blog every day or every other day since I put up the new blog, yet they have not been seen over here.

They’re not getting redirected, since they use a cell phone.  The change of address is very clearly posted, and they must have seen it by now, yet away they stay.  Either they’re not bothering to come here, or the blockers are working fine.  If they do find a way around them again, I can easily block them again.

So basically, the beginning of Lent has been emotionally turbulent, as I face the hard reality that Richard just is not a good man, was never a good friend.

Come to think of it, he kept directly telling me that he’s not a good man, but I didn’t believe him.  I’d call him a good man and he’d say, “No, I’m not.”  I’d say he was a “teddy bear” and he’d say he was a grizzly bear.  He’d tell me the horrible things he’d done; maybe I just wanted to believe he’d changed.

Maybe he did think his friendship was genuine, but never really cared about me, just cared about how good my narcissistic supply made him feel.

I thought maybe he wanted to see if I was healing.  But when I tried to block them, when I posted that I wanted to pull the blog plug on them during Lent, cut off this last remaining contact with them, they began checking my blog several times a day! 

They took their cell phone all over town, using different connections, which you can do with Android phones.  Tracy even checked my blog from her college campus!  (Aren’t you supposed to focus on your studies?)

It proves that they don’t want me to recover from what they’ve done.  They want to keep me mired in the crap they flung at me!  They don’t want to let me go!

I’ve presented to them every bit of evidence (other than one e-mail/phone conversation which would lead to harm for the person who exchanged it with me).  I have proved my innocence and that their behavior to me was wrong.

If they still can’t see it, if they still justify what they did, it’s because they don’t want to see the truth.

And no amount of arguing and convincing can work with a person determined to excuse abuse; I have no desire to keep pounding my head against the wall.

Now I struggle, fighting down very human desires for revenge, focusing on justice instead.  I have always avoided revenge because revenge is evil.  Revenge means posting their names and calling in friends to help tear them apart.  That would be evil.

But justice is good.

Justice means that I keep up my blog, but without naming names.  My blog cannot possibly do them harm without names.  No one can Google their names and find this blog.  Employers cannot possibly find it and decide to deny them jobs.  It won’t hurt any businesses they might decide to start.

Justice means that if they decide to make my church their own, rather than staying at the one they like much better, then I must go to my priest for mediation.

Justice means that if they send me another nastygram, I call the police (again), this time to press charges.

Justice would heal; revenge would cause me more harm than it would them.  Yet even my justice, they treat as if it were my revenge that must be stopped.

The TV series Once Upon a Time does an excellent job portraying narcissists/sociopaths/psychopaths.  For example, Regina has a heart, and is more narcissistic/sociopathic, while her mother, Cora, has no heart (literally) and is a psychopath.  Cora infected Regina with her evil; now Regina wants to infect Snow White with evil.

In the latest episode, Regina took out Snow’s heart (a magical ability which does not kill the person) and saw blackness forming in the middle of it, because Snow did an evil deed in order to kill Cora.  Regina cheered, gloating that pure-hearted Snow will now become like Regina–which means Regina will have won.

Not only does this reveal the heart of narcissists and sociopaths, but it demonstrates how easily good people can fall if we allow narcs to contaminate us with desires for revenge.  No, the best revenge is living well.

No, I’ve been steadily writing about this on my blog for about a year and a half.  From what I’ve seen of other abuse blogs, that’s normal.  Now I want to move on to other topics.  Still post about abuse/narcissism/bullying etc., since these things are important and people still need help.  But focus more on other things, getting back into the artistic side.

I have reviewed various websites and legal documents, and found absolutely no basis for their threats to sue for defamation, as you can read in Now I’m Being Stalked.  No, this blog is no more actionable than flame wars on forums.

I have also spoken to a policeman, the one who took my report about the e-mail in the above link.  He said that with changed names, I’m doing nothing illegal.  He also reassured me that they cannot sue me for talking to my priest about this.

Various abuse bloggers, themselves often threatened, have checked into this and found that they are safe from legal action as long as they do not name the person on their blog.

That message from my stalkers is so absurd–paranoid and delusional–as to be laughable.  My stalkers ranted and raged against imaginary threats which I never made: I have reviewed my posts again and again, and never once did I say I would name them publicly on my blog or try to push them out of their faith/community.  I only said (in a post written months before they found it) that I would go to my priest for mediation if they joined my parish.

You can’t sue a person for asking for help in a volatile matter between parishioners, and the policeman confirmed this.  But then, I have seen this again and again, Tracy imagining some slight or other offense, and then yelling and screaming at people for things they haven’t even done, while refusing to believe they haven’t done it.

I’ve already been to my priest for help in this matter, and I have not lied, whether to my priest or on these blogs.  Every time I look over what I’ve written, I find nothing but truth and opinion, which are both protected in this country.

So as much as I often wonder what they’re doing on my blog so obsessively, not letting up after 10 months!!!, if they do find some ambulance-chaser, the judge will throw it out of court as a frivolous lawsuit.  And Hubby will countersue for legal fees for wasting our time.

Now I can say what I want without worrying about what they think.

So far, so good.  The blog here is quiet.  I hope that I will soon be able to breathe more easily, and focus my efforts on my goal for Lent: transferring my rage and bitterness from my heart into the accounts I have already written.

I have already confronted my abusers; there is nothing more left to do.

Lent has just begun.  We have two services a week, in addition to Sunday services, for the first few weeks of Lent.  Easter (Pascha) is May 5.

[Update 4/18/15: Since that time, they switched Internet Service Providers and began stalking me with different IPs.  But their usual IP has been the same since September 2013, so I could block them at any time: I just choose not to.  Well, except now and then, when I want to mess with them. 

Nowadays, instead of bothering me, I find their antics on my blog highly amusing.  Such as in the above note from October 2014, describing when they came on from an unexpected place in April 2014, began obsessively and hilariously stalking my blog and probably raised its Google ranking, and then sent a little “guess who” in my blog stats. 

These antics also make me almost certain that they deliberately drove by me a second time back in January 2013 because they wanted to spook me.  (I know they know it was me, because I heard their little girl call my name when she first saw me.)  Because if they can do this, they can do that.  It fits their modus operandi.

These antics prove that they’re sociopaths beyond any lingering doubt.  “Normal” people don’t behave like that: They’d either try to make things right or go away eventually, not carry out a campaign of intimidation and obsessive blog-checking.  “Normal” people have better ways to spend their time than trying to terrorize people. 

This proves they’re sociopaths, and they do this because I’m one of several people who have seen through their mask and know what they really are.  I’ve seen before how Tracy can go after perceived enemies.

But they’re amusing sociopaths at least.  If you can laugh at them, their power over you is gone.]

Reblog from Light’s House: Narcissists are Two-Faced, Vindictive, Smear People Who Oppose Them, Etc.

From Things Narcissists Do at Light’s House (also click on the green links to read how these characteristics manifested in my own story of Richard and Tracy):

4. THEY’RE TWO-FACED.
Narcissists have two faces — their real face and their stage face. And neither is anything like the other. Which one you see will depend on how long you’ve known them.

Narcissists can be very charming and know how to gain favor. Anyone who doesn’t know a narcissist well will tell you the narcissist is one of the greatest people they’ve ever met! They believe this is one of the most intelligent, kindest, most interesting, funny, agreeable, most attractive, talented or accomplished people ever. They may wish they themselves had it so “together” or were so popular.

However, anyone who knows that same narcissist better (family members, longtime coworkers, etc) will tell you the narcissist is one of the most horribly frustrating and toxic people they know, and the mere mention of their name makes them feel uneasy, angry, frustrated or otherwise unhappy.

Being the only one who is experiencing a narcissist’s real face, while all other family members or coworkers can still only see the narcissist’s stage face is a very lonely, painful and frustrating place to be.

Thankfully, the number of people who can see through the facade tends to increase with time.

5. THEY’RE VINDICTIVE.
If you dare to question a narcissist or request things like healthy boundaries and honesty, you’re going to become public enemy number one. The “Mr. or Ms. Wonderful” mask immediately comes off, and there is no level they will not stoop to in order to “punish” you.

They have myriad ways of attempting this; some are covert, and some are open and obvious.

The narcissist has a seemingly inexhaustible obsession for making people who cross them “pay”. Once they set their sights on you, you’re a permanent enemy, and their seething spite will feel as intense years down the road as it did when it first began.

The length of time they can keep up the full intensity of their hatred for you and their campaign to exact revenge is absolutely dumbfounding to non-narcissistic people.

7. THEY SMEAR PEOPLE WHO OPPOSE THEM.
Narcissists are allergic to healthy boundaries and fairness. If you question the insensitive things they do or put any limits whatsoever on their bad behavior, you will be targeted for social, professional, or personal obliteration.

Whatever narcissists perceive to be your psychological or situational “weak spots” will be their prime targets.

For instance, if the narcissist knows that your greatest fear is social ridicule, that will be the main focus of the smear campaign.

If he or she knows that recently, you made a mistake for which you feel guilty, that will be used against you.

Narcissists know that the more effectively they can pinpoint your insecurities or flaws, the more successful they will be in eroding your confidence and your influence.

And if they manage to do that, they stand a good chance of getting back the power they planned to do whatever they pleased with before you “got in their way”.

See the other points at the above link, at Light’s House, “Things Narcissists Do.”

Update 9/7/17: Light’s House has been off the web for some time, but I found a link to an e-book by the same author, so I updated my links to that.

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