confronting abuser

Finally healing from the narcissistic abuse and toxic friendship

I can feel the healing at last.

It’s not as if the pain and hurt are all gone, never to return.  I do still feel pangs from time to time, when something reminds me of happier days of friendship with Richard (and there are a lot of reminders).

But several major things have happened to bring this on:

1) I confronted my abusers.  Even after they made fun of and threatened me, I never backed down, kept writing the truth, kept confronting them through my blog, kept pointing out that they are abusers/bullies not just of me but of each other, others and their children.  I kept confronting them through my blog since they kept coming back to it.

They could have ignored the blog, but didn’t, so I kept writing whatever the heck I felt like writing about what they did.  The well-being of four beautiful children–and of any other people they may befriend, get to care deeply about them, and then betray, since they have done this to others besides me–was at stake.

 

2) I told many others, who believed me.  I told them what Richard and Tracy did to me, and about the abuse in their household.  This was long before Richard and Tracy even found my blog.  Then after they found my blog and threatened me, I told the police–and told the same people as before, all about their stalking and threatening me.

All these people became allies.  Some even wanted to carry out elaborate vengeance which would make R and T’s names and crimes public in this city, but I told them NO, because that would just make things much worse.

I never had any intention of some kind of public exposure on the blog or in the newspapers including names etc., since that isn’t in my nature, and was amazed at just how inventive and vindictive these friends could get.  Their scheme actually brought on an attack of PTSD.  But it was touching to know they would do such a thing for me.

(I haven’t a clue how or where, but Richard and Tracy seemed to have gotten some crazy idea that I had threatened to do such a thing.  But no, I never did.  And the newspaper already exposed that Richard choked his daughter.)

The irony is that, as you can see in the above linked post, Richard and Tracy threatened to sue if I went public to members of the church/community.  But I had already gone to members of the community (friends who live nearby, and CPS) with my story, and had already gone to members of the church (my priest and a few friends in the church) BEFORE Richard and Tracy ever found my blog.

Reporters to CPS are immune from lawsuits, unless it can be proven that the report was deliberately false; my report was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.  We don’t run in the same circles here in town; I don’t even know who employs R and T these days, if anybody; they won’t lose income because of me.

Richard can’t become a priest no matter what, because my priest told me (in October 2011, BEFORE R and T found my blog) that Richard cannot be ordained, because he choked his child.  The police told me that no, R and T CANNOT sue me for talking to my priest, and they also cannot sue me for an anonymous blog with changed names.

 

3) I used my blog as a toxic waste dump, a healing device, to remove all the anger, hurt, pain, and the various time-bombs Tracy had tried to plant in my brain (damaging messages which keep coming back over and over long after the relationship ends).

Once they were removed onto the electronic page, I could begin to replace them with brighter things, so that one day, forgiveness and letting it go could be possible.

 

4) When I finally got the chance, I blocked them from my blog, which–after a couple of months in which they kept trying to find the blog’s new location but were blocked–led to them finally going away at last.  I saw them check the service schedule and possibly the Greek Fest page on my church’s website (I’m the webmaster), but they have not come to my church since August, did not come to Greek Fest two Sundays ago.  They just seem to have vanished from my life.  FINALLY.

The third anniversary of our friendship breakup is in just a few days.  For much of these past three years, healing has seemed like an impossible dream.  But I’m here to say that it’s not.  Even if it takes a long time, if you purge the toxicity, and if you let it, healing will come!

[Update 6/11/15: As soon as I posted this, they found my blog with a new IP address and computer.  But all they ever do now is look.  I rarely see them around town anymore, either.  Their threats were nothing but bluster.]

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.]

 

Exposing Narcissists/Abusers: Why We Should Do It

Why are we the ones that hide the truth?–on blogging about abuse

Silence is the victim’s biggest enemy.

There are countless other such accounts on the web by survivors of abuse, including My Trip to Oz and Back and Real Women’s Stories of Abuse, Survival and Jealousy.

The Boston Globe article A world of misery left by bullying references Alan Eisenberg, who began blogging his abuse stories anonymously to deal with the pain, then finally let the world know who he really was.

Just Google “True abuse stories” to find many.  Some do it just to vent, some do it to help others who are going through similar things, to let them know they’re not worthless or stupid, that they don’t deserve abuse, that they’re not alone, and that there is a way out.

Sometimes it takes such a story to realize that you are being abused, that words can be abusive, not just fists.

In any case, rather than being accused of airing dirty laundry or “being a victim,” these people are being called courageous.

Writers and songwriters, especially in alternative and metal, also write about abuse experiences quite a bit.  From the above linked website Real Women’s Stories:

Concerning the member’s own personal stories of abuse, survival, and jealousy: For most of these women, just telling their personal story of abuse and/or survival to another trusted person is VERY hard.

Here, they have went a major step past that. They have written their stories for you to read and learn from and to build women’s self-esteem. Some of these women are still enduring the abuse and are looking for a way out.

All of these women should be applauded for their strength and courage to tell their true abuse and survival stories and to help others.

For most of these women, this has made them re-live a past that they would much rather forget, a past full of hurt, fear, anguish, resentment, abuse and real pain. They have written their stories for you and for themselves, in hope.

From The Importance of Sharing Abuse Stories by Rainbow Gryphon:

When we’re dealing with painful experiences, whether past crime or mental illness or abuse, it can feel sometimes like we have an obsession with reading about other people’s experiences.

We go to support groups where we can hear the story of others. We read memoirs about their experiences. We read blogs and lurk on forums.

Society urges us to move past our experiences and not dwell on them like this. If we’re honest with ourselves, though, I don’t think we ever completely lose the need to hear about others who’ve gone through the same experiences.

…With the explosion of the Internet, we now have access to the stories of people in every type of abusive situation, and I personally believe that this is a boon to abuse survivors.

We need to share our stories somewhere, whether it’s a blog, a blog comment, a forum post, or a social network, because it actually helps all of us move out of a state of victimization by reassuring us that our suffering is real because it’s being shared by millions of other abuse survivors.

From Top 10 Reasons to Expose Your [Abusive] Ex:

Tell your mother, father, and friends everything! This actually saved the life of Marcia Ridgeway, the Green River Killer’s 2nd wife.

He had tried to choke her from behind once. She told everyone, including her father who talked to Gary about it.

Years later, after his arrest, he told police that he had wanted to kill Marcia, his wife, but was afraid he would get caught because she told everyone that he attempted it once.

Remember that the next you think you are “protecting” your mate or marriage by not telling the abuse you suffer.

….Keep a detailed diary. This will help remind you when you forget how bad it is and can help you see your patterns. You can also later use it when you want to write a book or if you need evidence in court.

Dated journals are court admissible. (My journal was a god send. When Bob tried to “forget” what he had done, tell me he didn’t say such and such –I would have the date and time that he did!– My journal kept me from believing his words “you’re crazy, it never happened, you blow it out of proportion,” and other crazy-making ways he tried to turn it around on me.)

Write a book and publish it. Do your own web site with your story and pictures. Post all pictures that relate–things he tore up, the car he crashed, all his toys and you have none–whatever pertains and illustrates your life together.

From Top Ten Reasons Why Men Should Expose Abuse by a Woman [link no longer works]:

Exposing your abuser is a liberating experience. Abusers use every physical and emotional tactic to isolate, intimidate and terrify you into keeping your mouth shut–it’s about power and control. When you expose your abuse by a woman it’s an empowering experience….

Exposing your abuser empowers others to do the same. Most criminologists and sociologists feel that domestic violence against men may be one of the most underreported and under prosecuted crimes in the United States.

Police ignore the problem, DA’s often refuse to prosecute the crime, then judges throw-out the charges. If a woman ever is found guilty her sentence is minimal if she receives one at all.

The more information that is out there on these women, the more difficult it is for the justice system to ignore the problem….

It helps other abused men know that they are not alone. When this writer watched the YouTube videos on a Marriage in Plano it caused physical illness.

At the same time, however, it was important to know that other women operate off the same identical script. For the first time, this blogger knew that another man shared a similar experience. There is comfort in knowing you are not alone.  [Since this link no longer works, try this one instead, about documenting abuse.]

From Exposing a Narcissist, Dealing with Blowback, and Guilt by Joyful Alive Woman:

For many women, especially victims of Narcissism, exposing their abuser is a very difficult issue. This extends all the way to pressing charges in the instance of an actual crime taking place.

We’re taught to be forgiving, keep our mouth shut, endure our burden. We are literally taught to be martyrs because “that is what good people/good women do.”

This applies to people who aren’t religious as well as those who are. It’s part of our cultural norm and identity….

Unfortunately, a frequent result of exposing and being doubted is that we become even more outraged than before, because people don’t believe us and/or they judge us for talking about it.

This blog post deals with the question of, should we share our abuse stories or is it being drama queeny?

The first commenter apparently thinks it’s being drama queeny.  But the response to that commenter is that no, it’s up to the abuse victim/survivor to share the story, please do so, and by keeping it quiet we allow violence to continue–that calling it attention or pity seeking to share it, carries on the abuse.

Another commenter echoes my own feelings: That it’s liberating to talk about these experiences, and she does so because she wants to share her feelings and her life.

The Importance of Sharing Abuse Stories by Laws.com
Blogging About Abuse: What You Should Know
The Importance of Telling Your Sexual Abuse Story

Also go to category on exposing narcissists for all my posts on this subject, showing what exposing the narcissists has done for me, at least.

Why My Stalkers’ Threat is Bogus: Going to my Priest is Well Within My Rights

What amazes me is the fury with which I was hit for musing, on one of my blog posts months before my blog stalkers ever found them, that if our churches were to merge, I would have to go to the priest of the merged church for help:

Richard’s church and mine are both very small and in financial trouble; the archdiocese has suggested they merge.  The two churches don’t want to merge, since they’re in different counties, and somebody would have to move.  But the option is still on the table.

If the churches merge, I will have to go to the priest with my concerns, and show him the proof that Richard is a convicted child abuser, to establish my credibility and prove that he is violent.

Because Tracy has bullied and verbally abused me as well, I will have to also show him an article I found on a contract one church drew up with a member who had been charged with molestation, a contract which was meant to help the member find redemption, but also consider the needs and fears of the victims.  We could modify it for our own needs.

For one thing, this was hypothetical and may never happen, because our two churches do not want to merge.  I posted that a year ago, and nobody has done anything to move toward a merge.

For another, when one person in a church has been abused by another person in that church, going to the priest/preacher for help and protection is perfectly valid and may be necessary to provide protection.  For example, see the article I linked about the contract one church drew up.

Disagreements between parishioners are one thing, but we’re talking actual abuse here, which caused me extensive spiritual damage as well.  It is my right–even in the Constitution–to go to my priest with concerns like this.

From what I could determine from Richard and Tracy’s vague and threatening e-mail (see Now I’m Being Stalked), this is the action which they warned me they would sue me for.

Also, asking for spiritual help and counseling from a priest, preacher or other qualified parishioner, to help with another, is not only perfectly valid, but commanded by Christ for handling disputes (Matthew 18:15-17), so that the body will not be divided.

So by threatening me, Richard and Tracy are fighting Christ.  A mediator would be absolutely necessary in a small church, in a situation as abusive and volatile as this.

[Update 9/6/14:] Not only that, but a police officer told me I had the right to do this and could not be sued for it.

Since my blog stalkers tried to use threats of lawsuits to keep me from handling this dispute properly within the church if our churches were to merge, I can only assume that it was because they know they’re in the wrong.  That they don’t want their abusive actions to see the light of day.

Keep this in mind as a red flag, because such threats are common from abusers, whether the victim has already told, or to prevent the victim from telling, those who could help.

Others have been through this, such as Julie Anne Smith, who have tried to have such a counseling session/meeting with their abusers, but the abusers have refused, choosing to sue instead.

(So far, Julie Anne Smith has won, all charges against her dismissed with the plaintiff paying her legal fees, while another blogger’s suit is just beginning.  But over and over again, I find plaintiffs losing such cases.)

Disfellowshipping from the church is only to be used for extreme cases, and I never intended for my blog stalkers to be disfellowshipped even if we did get that far.

The contract described above, is what I wanted, to stipulate that they keep their distance from me and not harass me, so I could feel safe at church without fearing for my emotional, spiritual or even physical well-being.

But the unwillingness of my blog stalkers to recognize their own part in things and apologize, even after we have spoken to my priest, and for them to react so harshly against the idea of counseling with the priest, leaves me free to disfellowship them from me.

But this page on resolving disputes between congregants, from a Protestant denomination, sums up quite well why this is so vital in a tiny church:

Many branches of the church of God are small in the number of members. Most of our individual congregations are quite small too. There were positive and negative aspects of the large congregations of our former fellowship.

Because of the much greater numbers of people in our old congregations, there were more opportunities for friends and companionship, but there were also more opportunities for offenses.

This fact also allowed the offenders and the offended to “resolve” their differences by merely ignoring one another and gravitating to another set of church friends. We do not have that luxury in our tiny congregations today!

We have very limited opportunities for friendship and fellowship within our tiny congregations on our little “church islands.”

Remember that our little church congregations are small islands of truth and righteousness, isolated and surrounded by the vast ocean of Satan’s world.

We need to stick together. We should not be giving offense to our beloved brethren, and neither should we be so touchy and sensitive that we are too easily offended.

Let us strive to get along together and to love one another with the godly love that is unique to the brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ.

If our churches were cathedrals, or at least as large as my husband’s church (500), we could easily lose sight of each other in the crowd (and neither church would be in financial straits and talking mergers, either).

But no, our churches are so tiny that you can barely move without bumping into each other at some point.  A person can barely speak without everyone in the room being aware of it.

In mine you have the little sanctuary and a little office upstairs, and the basement downstairs, and that’s it: no classrooms, even.  Theirs is even smaller.

My priest is already aware of the situation, but because our churches have been reticent to merge, there has been no reason to ask for a formal contract as described above, or for formal counseling sessions involving my blog stalkers.  The best means has been to simply avoid each other (though stalking my blog hardly counts as “avoiding” me).

Most of the time they’re not at my church, so there is no problem with this, and I have felt no need to go further.  But my church is in the final stages of negotiating a salary for my priest; if he rejects it, I don’t know what will happen.

If the idea of merging is put on the table again because of our recent, sudden change in finances, then I’ll have to ask for formal help–or go to a church which is farther away, but free of this drama completely.  Or if they start coming to mine on a regular basis, I will have to ask for formal help, because I won’t uproot myself from my own church.

And they will not be able to sue me, will have no right to, because I have and will have broken no law–and because it would be a violation of my rights.

Neither option is appealing.  But if I have to ask for formal counseling, it is well within my rights as a parishioner and an abuse victim–and my blog stalkers would have absolutely no basis to sue me over it.

I would keep out opinions of motivations, etc. and stick to what happened and how it made me feel, not out of fear of a lawsuit, but because it would not be right or tactful to bring such things into counseling sessions with a priest.

It’s not his job to sort that stuff out, and I would be far better served by keeping things clear and to the point, no speculation.  I’ve noted that people involved in custody battles are advised this as well.

In other words, what works for venting to friends in cyberspace, is entirely different from what works for negotiations, and could actually work against the desired result.

Why this would so disturb my blog stalkers that they would call it a “threat” (when it wasn’t even directed at them, just musings written months before they found my blog), and threaten me with a lawsuit if I did this, I have no clue.

You can easily see that there was no hint of a “threatening” tone in the “offending” paragraph.  Unless, of course, they recognize what they did was wrong, and that this would force them to face that.

What I do know is that their threat is groundless, and because of our First Amendment, the courts would not even touch it.  How churches deal with contentious members, is entirely up to the churches.

I am 100% supportive of outing these fools by name. Unfortunately, there are many who don’t understand that outing them is a direct consequence and they should deal with it. They don’t.

Instead, they seek low-life attorneys willing to send cease and desist letters to scare us into thinking we’re committing a crime.

We’re not!! It’s called freedom of speech.

If they think we’re lying and hope to sue us for defamation, libel, or slander, they need to prove that in court. The burden in U.S. courts is on the complainant, not the defender. I believe it is opposite in some countries, including Canada and the UK. :) –Paula, Lance Armstrong’s Jailhouse Confession

 

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