I Will NOT Be Silent
My Trip to Oz and Back is much like my own blogs, an account of two years spent by the writer with her girlfriend, which was actually a 50-page letter sent by the author to her ex-girlfriend.
That was in the late 90s, when the author had never heard of borderline personality disorder, so there had been no official diagnosis for her to point to. But the more she learned about BPD, the more she knew her ex-girlfriend had it, so she posted this letter to help others who are dealing with someone with BPD.
It has been on the Web since 2003, and by November 2006 had received 53,000 hits. As the author wrote on the main page,
Writing this was cathartic. It doubled as a form of therapy. I actually did send the letter; however, I doubt that it had much effect. The more I learned about BPD, the more I realized that the likelihood of this person ever really understanding, was probably close to zero….
Why would I want to put such a personal document online? There are several reasons. First, I wanted to give an accurate portrayal of what it is like to be in a relationship with a person with BPD. There are many books and websites on BPD, but relatively few from a significant other’s point of view.
Second, I am hoping that someone out there might read a bit and identify with it. When one is in a difficult situation, sometimes just hearing about another person’s similar experience can be affirming–as in, “I’m not the only one.”
Finally, I consider myself a success story–see the final chapter, the epilogue. My wish is to give hope to others.
Like me, the author changed names and identifying details. This is to protect the guilty as well as the innocent.
It’s the most baffling part of Richard and Tracy threatening a lawsuit, because I never used and never intend to use their real names in these blogs–and anything I would tell my priest about this, would be the truth, and not in any way actionable.
Joyful Alive Woman also wrote about her abusive, narcissist, former female friend.
Post by Prozac Blogger:
Why the past still haunts me is for that exact same reason. As long as they aren’t exposed for who they truly are, I can’t rest.
All this time I thought it was because of the horrible things I’ve seen that I can’t let go. Actually it’s the fact that I’ve been forced to keep it inside that makes it impossible for me to move forward.
It’s not only that, the fact that they are moving on with their lives makes it all even harder. I need justice. I need them to be exposed. —Major Breakthrough: Exposing the Truth
I know how you feel, Prozac Blogger. The more my bullies try to silence me, the more I speak up. The more they try to threaten and intimidate me to get me under their thumb, the more I wriggle back out from under it.
I will not stop going to my church because of them. I will not let them frighten me away from my own church, a church which they have always hated anyway, so the only reason they’re coming to it now is to intimidate and oppress me, a sinful, black-hearted attitude straight from Hell, which God will deal with.
I will not shut up to pacify my bullies. I will not remove my blogs. I will fight any and all attempts to silence me.
They will find that I’m not as weak as they thought I was. The stubbornness of my family is proverbial.
I’ve been speaking out about Richard and Tracy’s bullying ever since the very day of 7/1/10, when they told me, “Don’t go crying to Jeff, because we don’t need the headache.”
And I will continue to speak out about it. I will document here, online, every single thing they do to continue to stalk and intimidate me.
I will not let them bully me at church and cut me off from my support system. The more they oppress me, the more I will tell.
The only thing that would stifle my need to tell, would be if they repented for what they did–and they have made it very clear (see “Now I’m Being Stalked” for their e-mail expressing this) that they have no remorse. I will not let them censor me like some government book-burning fireman (Fahrenheit 451).
This is not about revenge. If it were, then I would’ve used their real names so Google searches on them would lead to this. I could even have made things up, written lies. But I did neither.
No, it’s about sharing a story in my own life for a few different reasons:
- to vent/get it out
- to share with others who are also dealing with abuse/bullying and validate their own experiences
- and because as a writer, I am driven to write down and share the interesting or bizarre stories I see happening in real life. As you can see from my College Memoirs, it’s hard to explain why I feel the need to share my stories, just that I do.
They seem to think they can intimidate me into silence, but they can’t. I would fight them even in front of a judge for the right to tell the truth about what they did to me and others. If they do sue me, I will win because I am telling the truth and have done nothing illegal.
Forcing abuse/bullying victims to be silent about their abuse, would have a chilling effect, as other abuse/bullying victims continue to hold their silence and continue to be victims rather than survivors.
Just because the abusers/bullies don’t like what we have to say, does not make it a “false fact.” The truth is not libel or slander or defamation, and it is not gossip to tell how we’ve been abused and bullied.
We must not be silent: That’s what the abusers and bullies want of us. We need to turn the tables and speak up without fear of retribution.
And I’m not just fighting for myself. I’m fighting for Todd, too, and what Tracy and Richard did to him. I’m fighting for Phoebe Prince. And I’m fighting for all of us who have been bullied.
As posted on Exposing Online Predators and Cyberpaths:
TRUTH is a 100% defense to defamation, slander or libel. Accusing someone of defamation, slander or libel when they are telling the truth or giving an OPINION, however, CAN BE actionable.
The irony is that when they came around, I was finally done writing about this, had gotten most of it out of my system, did not plan on writing much else about it. They weren’t coming to my church anymore, and I thought I wouldn’t have to see them again. But then they started harassing me over sharing my story, and are giving me all sorts of new fodder for blogs…..
As if it weren’t bad enough that they spiritually and emotionally traumatized me through this whole experience, as if it weren’t bad enough that they bullied me and then Tracy verbally abused me, now they’re trying to silence me from telling the truth, trying to threaten and intimidate me for speaking out. Their narcissism is confirmed.
This quote from Princess Fi’s BETRAYAL, DEFIANCE, LIES, DENIAL, INJUSTICE, FORGIVENESS ISSUES sounds especially familiar:
It’s very hard when people are deliberately and defiantly non repentant and hard faced – turning up in church as if nothing is wrong and nothing has happened. Having to cope with your abusers turning up in church whilst deliberately sticking 2 fingers up at God is beyond the capacity of describe.
Having to cope with your abusers continuing to use the church as their cover story is beyond awful and beyond hypocrisy. Having them do all of that on that back of having lied and denied to prevent justice and to prevent exposure is disgusting and distasteful at the very least.
It is utterly appalling for me as a victim, for those who gave evidence against them to the police and for the church leadership who now know the truth about them. It’s totally ghastly and repulsive to be brutally honest. It is as if they have no conscience at all.
Sometimes when people have lied and denied for long enough they actually believe their lies and denials to be absolute truth regardless of evidence to the contrary. Thus they worm their way out of it and can be incredibly and frighteningly convincing in their true lies….
Without confession, repentance, admission of guilt or other things which lead to closure surely it will always be there at the back of your mind. Having to watch your abusers behaving as if nothing untoward happened and all is normal fuels the fire. When people have been so deliberately cruel to you and are so defiant when faced with the truth where can you go?
How can such defiance be coped with, processed and gotten out of your mind. It is in reality and in all truth extremely difficult. It’s almost impossible to forgive cruel people who lie, pretend all is normal and do all they can legally to silence you and keep their evil deeds secret.
And so does this from From Chrysalis to Beautiful Butterfly:
One thing’s for sure I’m not going to protect them anymore by keeping silent about what ‘THEY’ did.
Another thing’s for sure, I ain’t going to spend the rest of my life feel intimidated by ‘them’ and living in fear of ‘them’ anymore.
The last few months have shown me ‘they’ are the weak ones. ‘They’ are the ones who have stuff to fear NOT ME. ‘They’ are just bullies and cowards and may choose to spend the rest of their lives living in delusion and denial BUT I choose to speak and live in the TRUTH. There is enormous strength in doing that!!
“It is the right of every victim to speak about the crimes committed against them!” —How Dare You Expose a Child Abuser?
When you seek out your abuser
You may find yourself wanting to search for your abuser on Facebook. You may have questions like What is he/she up to? Is he/she successful? Is he/she hurting other people? You may find yourself wanting to tell your abuser’s friends what he/she has done or to contact him/her to have your say.
All of these feelings are normal and many survivors have struggled with the same things. It is always a good idea to think through any decisions and to not act spontaneously. If you find yourself feeling like this, give yourself time to process these feelings and to think about why. You might ask yourself:
Why do I want to contact him/her?
What do I hope to accomplish?
What will I do if I do not get the reaction I was hoping for?
How will this affect me and my healing?
Giving a decision like this proper thought can help you. You need to make sure you aren’t damaging your own well-being in order to find out more about your abuser’s current life or exposing them to others. It’s important to take time to think about what you hope to achieve and why you have this urge to make contact.
You may well find that actually having contact with them is not at all what you want and discover other ways of releasing the things you want to say to your abuser or their friends, through letter writing (sent or unsent), art, therapy and so on.
When your abuser contacts you
You may find that your abuser uses Facebook to try to make contact with you, which can be something very difficult for a survivor. If this happens, you should consider immediately blocking this individual. Please see below for how to block someone.
If your abuser is sending you harassing or threatening messages, you might consider reporting them. You can find information on reporting them to Facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/help/?page=798
Although it may be your instinct to delete any messages from an abuser, we recommend saving any threatening messages and keeping a log of any contact with the abuser. This will come in handy if you decide to speak to the police about what has happened. –Ash, Facebook and Survivor Issues
You told me that if I wrote to you again that you would flush my letter down the toilet, “a proper receptacle for your crap,” is how you put it. That’s fine with me. That is your right to do so.
But it is also my right to express myself about the violation that I suffered as a child. A crime was committed against me and I have a right to speak about it.
If that makes you or anyone else uncomfortable, then that is something you ought to look at within yourself.
Your behavior is why child sexual abuse continues. Those who try and silence victims by calling them names, by trying to demean them, and by using threats against them is what throws a blanket of protection around child abusers.
So go ahead and flush this letter down your toilet because you can’t flush the truth and won’t stop me from speaking it.
Your pretending that I do not share this planet with you will not stop my book from existing, nor will it stop me from getting my book into the hands of other survivors of child sexual abuse. I intend on helping people, even if you don’t want to help yourself. —A letter by “Alethea” to a sister who denied abuse
[Update 6/2/14: From an update to the above letter, which Alethea finally sent to her sister:]
It is always curious to me when people who have hurt someone so profoundly will totally deny any responsibility or offer an apology.
Do they not understand that a sincere, honest, heart-felt apology and an offer to make some kind of amends is all we ever want from them? For them to be honest with themselves and then with us?
Consequently, Jesus commanded us to continue the disciplinary process, (if at all possible,) by calling in the help of one or two fellow believers, or people the abuser might respect.
We follow this step in the hope that abusers may be convicted by the fact that their victims no longer stand alone. When abusers realize they cannot bully their victims in secret any longer, our united confrontation might shame them into conviction of sin.
Should our abusers fail to listen to one or more witnesses as well, Jesus commanded victims to take the matter one step further by “telling it to the congregation.”
Make his or her abuse public, in other words. Expose your abuser to greater conviction.
If at all possible, stand up in the presence of your abuser and in front of the whole congregation, family, or whomever you are able to call upon for help; tell them of the abuse and the steps you have taken, and ask them to investigate and judge the matter. —Dealing with Abuse and Abusers God’s Way
Have you watched the movie Gaslighting with Ingrid Bergman? In the movie, a woman’s lover slowly but surely makes her feel as if she is insane.
The movie title lends itself to a type of abuse, oftentimes the gateway mode of abuse clearing the path for grander abuses later in the relationship. Gaslighting occurs when someone persuades you to “believe the unbelievable” (The Gaslight Effect: How to Spot and Survive the Hidden Manipulation Others Use to Control Your Life by Dr. Robin Stern) despite your instincts’ whispers of “Something is not right here…” –Kellie Jo Holly, Gaslighting
- A history of conducting frivolous, vexatious and malicious legal actions and threats, especially (but not exclusively) against anyone who can recognize the sociopath for what he is
- Only after the sociopath is exposed and relieved of position, or they move on, can the full depth of their destructive behavior be fathomed and the consequences calculated
- Is skilled at identifying, undermining, discrediting, neutralizing and destroying anyone who can see through the sociopath’s mask of sanity at all times
- Restricts the actions and rights of others (especially those holding the sociopath accountable) whilst aggressively protecting his or her right to do anything without being hampered by social norms or legal requirements
- Pursues endless vindictive vendettas against anyone perceived as a threat or who attempts, knowingly or unknowingly, to identify or reveal or expose the sociopath, or who makes efforts to hold the sociopath accountable
- Is adept at appropriating rules, regulations, procedures and law to manipulate, control and punish accusers regardless of relevance, logic, facts or consequences persists in and pursues vindictive vendettas using self-evidently false evidence or information, even after this is brought to the attention of the sociopath
- will often manipulate minor bullies of the Wannabe type (who on their own might or would not merit the label ’serial bully’) into acting as agents of harassment and as unwitting or unwilling conductors/ proxies of vendettas —Sociopathic Characteristics–Is Your Cyberpath One?
By sharing your story, you can validate the experience of hundreds of other abuse victims who are unsure about what is happening to them or who believe that abusive relationships are “normal”. —Break Your Silence
A blog post from someone also being accused of libel and threatened with legal action, for speaking out about her abuse.
Also, another such blog post: Oh, I’m Sorry, am I Blogging Too Loudly?