This page includes an e-mail Richard and Tracy sent me in 2012, which proves my belief that they are sociopaths.  In it you will see every sociopathic trait–including empty threats and false accusations–and maybe recognize e-mails you have received from your own sociopath.  You will see how they began their stalking campaign. 

I wrote this post while a baby blogger, and added to it over a period of months, so it badly needed editing.  However, I struggled for a long time to look through this blog post again because of the presence of that e-mail and its tendency to trigger all sorts of emotional reactions: fear, pain, hurt, anguish, rage, etc.

But now I am finally able to do some proper editing, and re-post it.  It is quite long, but I did not want to change or remove what I wrote, which all relates to my abusers’ e-mail.  However, I have re-arranged it and added a clickable table of contents, so you can easily find and read whatever interests you.  [9/27/14]

Warning: The following contains venting of anger, to get it out of my heart and onto the page, to make the story authentic, and to show other victims of abuse that I feel your rage.

Richard and Tracy are Stalking Me Online and at Church

Now Richard and Tracy made a fake account on Blogger for the sole purpose of following my blog, of stalking me, watching everything I post.  They named it “Tracy Richard Doe” so I’d know who it was.  So I blocked it.

One of their friends, nobody I know, “Chia,” even friended me on Facebook at around the same time, then unfriended me the next day–probably there to spy on my wall.

I didn’t know what to make of it when she first sent me the request; Jeff thought maybe she was the mysterious visitor to my blog who lived in my own town, and not Richard or Tracy.

Not only did I not know Chia, not recognize her name, but I had not been on Richard or Tracy’s Facebook for nearly two years, we had no mutual friends, she was not Orthodox, we were not the same age, did not go to the same college/high school, so there’s no way she could’ve seen me on their Facebook and decided to friend me because we lived in the same city or whatever.

We had nothing in common at all, no explanation why Richard and Tracy’s friend would friend me.

I sent her an e-mail asking who she was, and friended her so I could check her e-mail address service provider against the service provider showing up in my trackers.  Almost the moment I did so, and the news of this showed up on her wall, I saw a sudden spike from the mysterious visitors on my blog.

I waited and waited all the next day for a response from her, so I could find out if she was the actual visitor, rather than Richard or Tracy, but never got one.

Finally, that evening, I went to her profile and discovered that she had unfriended me without one word to me.  I saw in her “about me” section that she wants to defend friends who are being treated badly (I forget the wording; I blocked her, and can’t double-check).

Yeah, this is what you call a minion of a narcissist, someone so caught up in the narcissist’s web that she believes all his/her lies and will stick up for the narcissist–even against the person whom the narcissist has bullied/abused.

This girl is being manipulated by Richard and/or Tracy into thinking she’s doing the right thing, when she’s actually participating in Richard and Tracy’s evil.

She’s being manipulated into thinking she’s helping friends who are being defamed, when in truth I am speaking up about how Richard and Tracy bullied me.  I’m the whistleblower being punished by the evildoers.

I blocked this person, feeling fairly certain that she was sent to my Facebook as a spy.

Richard and Tracy made a fake Facebook account for the sole purpose of sending me a harassing e-mail, with classic abusive tactics: deny, twist, blame, isolate.

Right after I found their e-mail to me, and filed a report (though not an official complaint) with the police about it, they came to my church.

I hurried to get to the communion line before they went through, but then Tracy came up directly behind me, practically pressing up against me, even though there was no reason for her to do that.  I could hear her heavy breathing.  I knew she was doing it on purpose to intimidate me: the classic tactic of “breathing down your neck.”

Then they hurried to the priest after church, probably to tell him all about how I was “oppressing” them, probably making themselves into the poor, persecuted victims of my “lies.”

You will note from their e-mail to me (quoted below) that they threatened me with a defamation suit if I told the priest about what was going on, even though Richard’s conviction is true and is on the public record, has been published by the newspaper, and Tracy’s abuses of me really happened!

[Note: This interpretation of the e-mail was based on this blog post, which they appeared to be addressing, because it’s the only explanation that made any sort of sense to me. 

You see, I made no “threats” whatsoever, and had to guess what they meant.  I told them I would call the police if they threatened violence against me for writing about them on my blog or for reporting them to CPS.  I told them if they bullied me again, I would tell again (i.e., write on my blog, tell my friends/family). 

My only “demands” were for them to apologize or leave me alone. 

As you can see, neither these “threats” nor “demands” warranted their response or lawsuit threat.  What I actually did was stand up for myself and tell them to bugger off, which is generally considered a good, healthy thing. 

So the only thing I could think of was that they meant the “Mutual Friends” post, though it was void of “threats” and written months before they found my blog. 

So you see how their response shows a huge amount of paranoia, and of an abuser’s typical intimidation/scare tactics.  (9/27/14)]

Jeff had hoped we wouldn’t have to talk to the priest, but when he saw Richard and Tracy go up, he knew it was necessary.

I have done nothing illegal, but stalking and harassment are illegal. Richard and Tracy are making it very clear that they are going to intimidate and harass me online and at church, and keep me from telling anyone to protect myself.

This is precisely how bullies operate.

I never even tried to control what they said about me when or where.  I just assumed they were saying nasty things about me.  But I didn’t go poking around looking for what they were saying. I just left it alone, let them say what they want, I’ll say what I want to my own friends.

I keep looking over what I wrote and seeing everything checks out.  I saw that, he told me that, he did that, she did that, Todd told me that, Todd and Richard both told me that, yet they claim “false facts”?  Eh?  I see none here.

Everything I wrote, I either witnessed or was told (by Richard or, in a couple of cases, by Todd, which I could corroborate with my own observations and what Richard said), or it was published by official sources.

There are no lies here.  Conjecture is in clear language to show conjecture.  There is no misrepresentation, no “false facts.”  If something is incorrect, then blame the person who gave me that information, not me.  I can verify where I got all my information, and make the defense of “truth or reasonably believed to be true.”

But more importantly, as the Narcissists Suck blogger put it in her stories about her sister, they still have their anonymity, and I have zero intention of revealing on my blog whom I’m talking about.

This blog is not about vengeance, but about sharing my story to help me get it out and to help others going through similar situations.

It’s the same as my College Memoirs, which are full of stories about how a few guys abused or used me, but I’m on more cordial terms with these guys today.

Then Richard and Tracy poked fun of me for still being upset about this etc.  Obviously they can’t read very well.  Did they not note the many datestamps on the blog posts and website pages?  Most of the blog posts were written months ago, and most of the website pages were first written a few months to a year after the events.  I have merely revised and added/changed things since then.

I see from context that they were complaining, for example, about “Seeing the Abuser Again,” which–along with being an honest portrayal of how abuse and bullying victims feel no matter how much time has passed–was written last November!

Also, this post, “Mutual Friends,” and others were not written for them!  They were written for other people going through this!

While some things were occasionally on the Web, most of the time, none of it was.  The site pages didn’t go “live” until about less than a month ago, after I scoured it for deletions.  The site pages have gotten extremely little traffic, and a check of Google Analytics shows no evidence of that one mutual friend [who subscribed to my blog back in 2009 or 2010] reading any of those blogs.

These were up for abuse survivors to find and read, to help them, and not advertised on Facebook because I wanted to keep them even from my friends.  I never told the mutual friend about the blogs or who they were about.

They were for people who are going through this and who understand the hurt and pain and anger.  They were so I wouldn’t overtax my friends–a form of therapy, because the aftereffects of this trauma have been far too much of a burden for my friends to share.

I have no regrets about posting them.  They constitute my story of abuse, which I have every right to share with the world if I wish.

As Patricia Singleton puts it so eloquently:

I have discovered that those people who tell me to “Let it go now. Move on.” are usually one of two types. They either have never experienced what I have and therefore know nothing about the process that it takes to heal. Or, they have their own abuse issues that they want to stay in denial of.

If you see me going through my issues and haven’t dealt with your own, then my struggle threatens your denial. That is why you tell me to let it go and to move on so that you don’t have to become aware of your own unresolved issues.

I feel sad for those who are still in denial of their own issues. I have little sympathy for those who don’t know what they are talking about because they have never experienced what I have.

If you haven’t been there, you have no idea of what it takes to live my life and to struggle to get better. Don’t tell me to get over it.

If you have been where I am and were able to let go of your issues by healing them, then tell me how you did it.  Share your experiences and what worked.

Don’t share your denial of your issues. I don’t need that. I did that, on my own, years ago and I know that denial just helps you continue to live in the pain. Denial heals nothing. When you are in denial, you aren’t happy. You aren’t free. The only way to freedom is through the pain, not around it.

…Some of you choose to share your own experiences, as I do, by blogging about them online. Others choose to write in private journals. Some of you still continue in the silence because you haven’t found your voice yet. It is for other incest and childhood abuse survivors that I write of my experiences.

Any time that someone survives abuse in any form and can write about that journey, that is inspirational. It isn’t light, funny inspiration. It is sad, thoughtful, sometimes tearful. It is always heartfelt. Sometimes it comes from a deep well of hurt.

It is always healing to be able to bring these thoughts and feelings to the surface and share them with others. It can be educational to share with others who have never experienced abuse in their own lives. Without awareness, you can stop nothing.

Residual anger is perfectly natural when you’ve been abused, and it’s perfectly natural to want that person to stay far from you even years after the abuse.  Nobody wants to see their bully or abuser again, whether they’ve healed or not.  Why would they?  They know what’s coming, after all.

Standing up to and confronting your abuser makes you a survivor rather than a victim, so I did the right thing in standing up to them, telling them to leave me alone.  [THAT is what I told them.  I did NOT threaten them–except to say that I would call the police if they threatened me.  And that is just what I did.  (9/27/14)]

And to poke fun at someone else’s pain, and call them crazy for trusting their own senses and recognizing that they have been abused, is callous and cruel, especially when that person had been extremely kind to you for so long.

Their reaction shows the true nature of their souls, in black and white in that e-mail.  They can’t complain about misrepresentation when every word they wrote to me, and every action they take, proves me correct.

I suspected narcissism, but they have now proven it.

  • “Normal” people do not start stalking and seek to destroy the one who stands up to them.
  • “Normal” people do not go through life wreaking and disregarding destruction left in their wakes, blaming the victims for the abuse, and laughing at them for not just getting over it and being glad to see them at church etc.

Their behavior is classic narcissism.  It’s as if people like this are all following the same playbook.  You can’t take it seriously.

I’m so over caring what these people think about anything, that I laugh at their criticisms.  They’re not worth taking seriously.

And I’m just waiting for them to do something that makes this an easy case to prosecute.

Their threats are empty because I’ve done nothing illegal; their nastiness will soon become apparent at church by the way they harass me.  The parishioners love and accept me, so such behavior can’t possibly go unnoticed for long.

If I block anybody who’s not Richard and Tracy, I apologize, but I must cover my bases. I’m seeing evidence that they are using friends to spy on me as well–a friend of theirs and not mine who tried to friend me on Facebook out of the blue and then vanished–and now somehow Richard and Tracy got around my IP block to make a fake profile to “follow” my blog.  Oh, hey, they used cell phones.  That answers that question.

I already had all sorts of mental stims (NVLD thing?), which had been acting up in the past couple of years; now I have even more of them. (See my NVLD page for explanation.)  Which shows how ridiculous they were to reject my talk of NVLD.  Their opinions of me are worthless.

These people are targeting me because they perceive me as weak–and because they know I have proof of my claims.

The message they sent me:

Nyssa,

We read this in amusement. It gave us a good laugh to find
that almost 2 years later you are still fixated on something that we
forgot about a long time ago. As for your threats, promises whatever to
expose us you can take out a law book and read about defamation laws.
Richards’s court case may be public access and you are free to speculate
all you want without having all the information and facts. However the
rest of your writings about how horrible a person Tracy is and abusive
mentally deranged etc. have gone beyond statements of opinion. You have
represented in your writings false facts, not just opinions, about Tracy
that constitutes an actionable lawsuit. You are free to have your
opinion and feelings however the minute you go public to the members of
the church or community as you have threatened to do we will exercise
our rights to sue you for defamation against Tracy’s character.

You
talk about threats and bullies yet what are you doing? You are
threating to falsely accuse and expose lies about an innocent person if
they do not concede to your demands. We will not be threatened or
intimidated. We are free to go to church to worship our Lord God without
fear of retaliation from someone we see as not all there. You want
closure here it is. We are not sorry. We did nothing wrong. You will
never get what you want from us because we do not feel we owe you
anything. We will continue to be active in our church our community and
our town; if you cannot handle that then that us your problem not ours.
We will not move or change our faith to make you happy and comfortable.
As for the local parish being ‘your’ church. I think the archdiocese
would have a thing to say about that. The church is for everyone. We
have stayed away out of respect to give you time. We have gone to other
churches in town outside of our faith when gas prices or work schedules
prevented us from driving 40+ miles one way to church. However we miss
going to a church of our faith, participating in the mysteries having
that commune with our Lord, so we decided that when we can’t drive out
of town we will go to the local parish. We will not be pushed out of the
church by you, two years is enough time. So as fair warning for the
perceivable future our work schedules make long distance an issue as the
other parish is moving to summer hours and Divine Liturgy starts early.
So we will be attending locally A LOT this summer, we will even show up
on Saturday nights.

Here it is in all its ugliness.  The clarity of Richard and Tracy’s narcissism is shining through every word they wrote.  [See here when I run it through my “narc decoder.”]

My Answer to this E-mail

It’s hard to tell which of them actually wrote it, though it has Tracy’s malicious style all over it: I saw the same from her in 2010, saw the same from her to Todd in 2008, saw the same in her posts on the forum to people she didn’t like.

Jeff says he laughed at the idea that they “forgot” about this a long time ago–showing that I obviously never did anything to hurt Tracy, or she would’ve had to deal with that for a while.

They say they “forgot” about it–well, as Jeff says, that’s because they weren’t the ones who got hurt (which, he says, also belies her claim on 7/1/10 that I had somehow been hurting her).

For them to “forget” about it, tells you the true caliber of their characters.  To so abuse somebody that she’s left in tears and PTSD for years, then just forget it ever happened, is a hallmark of abusive and narcissistic behavior.

These claims of defamation and “false facts” are bogus:

Not only did I tell the truth about everything I witnessed Tracy doing (backing up my opinion with examples and research rather than just throwing out some baseless accusation–also, normal, healthy people don’t abuse)–

–not only did I clearly and accurately tell what Richard told me–

–not only have I kept them both anonymous–

–but Richard truly did get convicted by a court of law of choking his child.

You might as well accuse the writer of Narcissists Suck of defamation for all her posts describing the narcissistic traits of her sister and mother.

Or countless other writers of blogs about abusive experiences, in which they say they believe narcissism and/or BPD is driving their abusers’ actions, even without official diagnoses–because the actions are still there, still causing damage, with or without an official diagnosis.

And the behaviors I witnessed in Tracy–they’re all described in various online sources about NPD/BPD (narcissistic personality disorder and the malicious version of borderline personality disorder)!  I have also been told that Tracy’s mother has BPD, that Richard himself said so.  And this e-mail Tracy/Richard sent to me–It oozes, it drips with NPD/BPD!

No, I give my opinion on NPD/BPD, state it as opinion, and then back it up with facts–things I witnessed with my own eyes/ears, and things Richard told me about himself, including in an e-mail which I still have–and research into abuse, narcissism and BPD.  This allows the reader to decide for himself if I’m full of crap or not.

[Update 8/17/12: I just discovered that, two days later, they even went to the trouble of sending this message to my alternate Facebook account.  They had not known about the second one, opened up after the breakup, yet somehow found both the new and old account and sent this same message to both.]

Also, I got all my information about the court case straight from the official online court records, and from the newspaper.  It’s not a secret, or the newspaper would not have published it in both its online and print versions.  The state also saw fit to publish the information online.

Because these are publicly accessed resources, I am clear of any charges of defamation for publishing what I found there, or telling anyone I choose, even though Richard and Tracy say I don’t have all the facts.

It’s just the same as if I published information found in an encyclopedia that turned out to be false: I cannot be guilty of defamation for that.  I also cannot be found guilty of defamation for telling people what I found there on the public records, because it is both public and true, and because it was published by the local newspaper.

You’ll note that this e-mail does not say anything like, “Richard is sorry for what he did,” “Richard is trying to do better,” “Richard wants to be a better father who does not do things like this.”

No, it just says I don’t know all the facts.

So what if I don’t know all the facts?  What facts could possibly make this better?  If it wasn’t your 9-year-old child–what, did you choke somebody else’s child? 

Why did you admit to doing it if it wasn’t true? 

If there was enough there for the courts to convict you, if you did not go to trial to defend your innocence but pled no contest, if the newspaper published this conviction (as it did) and said that you admitted to choking your daughter, then don’t try to make it sound better than it was!  There’s yet more narcissism.

I also have looked into laws about defamation, slander, libel, false facts, malicious intent, etc.  Writers have to deal with such things all the time, and I have often worried about them when writing my fiction and nonfiction, which incorporate my life experiences.  So I have several articles from Writer’s Digest about this which I collected over the years, and have also found information on the Net.  A few things stand out:

  1. Truth is an absolute defense.
  2. Opinion is not actionable.
  3. For it to count as defamation, malicious intent, slander, etc., it has to be something you know is a lie but publish anyway.

And I state right here, right now, for all my readers, that I have not and have never lied about this situation.

My family and friends can also be my character witnesses that I do not spread lies about people, that I avoid lying in general.  If there were something which I knew was false, I would not have put it in these published, online accounts.  Everything in these accounts on Richard and Tracy, I know or believe to be true.

I can trace each statement of fact I have made here to its origin, whether I was an eyewitness, or Richard told me that, or Todd told me that.  As for what Todd told me (second-hand information),  it is only in a couple of cases, and I can back them up with what Richard and/or Tracy told me and my own observations.  So I have every reason to believe Todd is telling the truth as well about those things.

In many cases, I even have e-mails, online chats or other printouts to prove timelines and that I was told these things by Richard.  I even have an e-mail from Richard, and notes from a follow-up phone conversation with him the next day, which prove I’m telling the truth about her abuses.  I also have at least one of Tracy’s e-mails verbally attacking me, one she sent to my husband Jeff.

If something is an opinion, I have done countless hours of research (which is what people with NLD/Asperger’s do, far more than other people might) which has given me that opinion, so I can back it up.  I have fact-based reasons for all of my opinions, even if it turns out that my opinions are off-base.

I have also used fake names for Richard, Tracy and others in this story, use a pseudonym (I avoid using my real name on the Net as much as possible and use a pen name for my fiction), and the names I used for Richard and Tracy are in no way similar to their real names.  I have kept out various identifying details.  As for the very few physical traits, they can describe countless other people, especially in Wisconsin.

And as I wrote before, they tried to turn everything around on me, tried to make me into the bully for speaking up about how they bullied me, cried about being bullied–after Tracy had constantly bullied me for two and a half years in various ways.

I see clearly here that Tracy considers it her right to say all sorts of horrible and untrue things about and to me, but cries foul if I speak up about what she did, show how she bullied and abused me, even though everything I said happened, happened.

They denied the abuse, tried to gaslight me into thinking I did not see and know what I saw and know.  They also denied abusing me, even though I have shown, here on my blog and in more detail on my website account, how outrageously they behaved on 7/1/10, how they verbally abused and intimidated both Jeff and me, behavior which cannot be justified in any way, shape or form–yet they still insist they did nothing wrong and will not apologize.

This shows their lack of recognizing right from wrong in their own behavior, and justifying their own abusive behavior, a typical narcissist trait.

They had read in one of my blog posts:

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.

Because Tracy has 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.

If Richard comes to my church again, my husband and I will have to address the elephant in the room, and confront him with the child abuse case, tell him we know what he did and he can’t keep coming here, intimidating me and bringing up all my feelings of grief and anger all over again while I’m trying to worship God.

This–me saying I would tell the priest about Richard’s conviction and Tracy’s abuses of me, IF OUR TWO CHURCHES EVER MERGED–must be what they meant about me allegedly “threatening” to take this “public” to the church and community, which I never threatened.  (Richard and Tracy go to a church in another county.  Both our churches risk closing if we don’t merge, but neither of our churches wants to.)

Since the e-mail was not clear, I am forced to go by context/subtext.  And after scouring through my posts, including the ones I wrote to them (which only told them to stay away from me and said absolutely nothing about me going to members of the church or community), this is the only thing I can find that could possibly be what they meant by this “threat” to go “public.”

They also read the page (in the long version of my memoir) numerous times which described Richard’s criminal conviction and how upset I was about it, what a scum he was to choke a kid, along with other blog posts which also referenced it.

On the night they first discovered my blog, they read that page seven times, and the other pages only once or twice.

Every time they went back on my website, that’s the page they kept looking at.

There was only a small amount on that page about Tracy, things barely even mentioned, which had already been detailed in full in previous pages which they only looked at a couple of times.

Nearly all of this page was about what Richard had done and the evidence of his violent nature which I found as I thought back over the past couple of years.

When I removed the pages from my website for a time, that’s the page they looked at to make sure it was gone.  When I copied the pages onto my blog in June, that’s one of the first pages they looked at, and spent some time on.  (I also noted that they spent 20 minutes reading about how Richard had behaved with me.)

I have every reason to believe (from this and other evidence) that Richard wants to keep this conviction quiet, even though the newspaper published the information.

After all, since they read that page numerous times, they knew quite well that I had already reported them to CPS a year previous.  And, well, reporters in good faith to CPS are immune from lawsuits.

Oh, yes, and I had already told my priest and a couple of friends at church about what happened, including Richard’s conviction, before Richard and Tracy even found my blog, though I didn’t mention this in my blogs.

Which means that they must have been referring to me telling the priest about Richard’s conviction and Tracy’s bullying of me, that not only do they not want me telling the truth about how Tracy treated me, but they also don’t want word of his conviction getting out.  The evidence I see from their hits on my webpages, is that the story of his conviction worries them far more than anything else.

But this was no “threat”: This was me telling my readers, if there were any, what I would do if the churches merged, and not addressed to Richard or Tracy at all, who found it months after I posted that.

The closest thing to a “threat” was me telling them directly to apologize or stay away from me; that I was not using their names and was using a penname and had every right to blog about what they did to me; that if they bullied me again I would tell again; and that if they so much as left an angry message on my answering machine, I would report them to the police. 

There was absolutely nothing in anything I wrote threatening to “go public” to the church and the community, just what I had already done, writing about my experiences with fake names on my blogs, and continuing to do so.

See for yourself here and here to see what I actually wrote.  Use the password “thetruth” to access.

The only thing that even faintly resembles their claims here of a “threat” to go public to members of the church/community, would be the above quote about going to my priest for help and counsel, and showing him my printouts of Richard’s criminal record to prove that I am telling the truth about their abuse.

And I had also mentioned in that same blog post that I would show the proof of his conviction to any mutual friend who asked, but that I was not directly telling the mutual friends (all of whom were on the Internet) whom I meant, nor was I certain they were paying any attention to my Facebook wall.  I’ve since edited the post, but as proof, this is the version that Richard and Tracy read:

When you have been abused by a friend, or when you have discovered that your friend is a narcissist, or when you have discovered that your friend has a dangerous personality disorder such as borderline, mutual friends may or may not believe you.

I have posted on Facebook and my blogs what really happened, that Richard and Tracy abused me, abuse their children and abuse each other, and that Richard has been convicted of choking his daughter.  But I didn’t use their real names in these posts.

Mutual friends have seen the posts, but only one has acknowledged figuring out who I was talking about.  That one, Todd, already knew what Tracy was really like, having been her target two years previous.  When he found out about the criminal case and saw the proof for himself, he dropped Richard on Facebook.  So somebody believes me!

The others–I don’t know if they even know who I mean.  Richard and Tracy are still on their friends list, so even though I can’t see the blocked posts, I can see the mutual friends responding to their posts.  If they do know who I mean, do they believe me?

One mutual friend dropped me from Facebook almost a year ago now, with no word at all of why; this was Chris, my replacement as Richard’s BFF when I kept thinking for myself instead of following everything Richard said about politics and everything else.

Websites often warn that you can lose mutual friends after being abused and/or being caught in the web of a narcissist.  They’re still caught in the web, and don’t believe this person could do what you say he’s done.  Maybe one day they, too, will come to the truth about the narcissist, but for now they think you’re crazy, bitter, whatever.

I wonder how the mutual friends can possibly not know who I mean, since I haven’t posted on the walls of Richard and Tracy for a year and a half, when I used to post there all the time.  (These people are connected via Internet and don’t live near each other.)

The mutual friends may occasionally respond to my posts of what happened, but they don’t acknowledge knowing who I mean.  They never ask for proof of my assertions that Richard has been convicted of choking his little girl, and is now on probation for it.  But if they only asked, I would give them three links which would prove to them beyond a shadow of a doubt that I’m telling the truth.

These are three publicly available links; one is from the website of the local newspaper, and two are free, public, state-run websites, one with court cases and the other an inmate/community supervision locator.

All the information is on those three links, including mug shots, name, birthdate, addresses, what happened over the course of the case, details of the choking incident.  Yet they never ask; they keep Richard and Tracy on their Facebook; apparently they are in denial.

Maybe they’re afraid to face the truth, that their friends are abusive, violent people who have hurt many and who have already lost many friends, both individually and together.  Yeah, well, the truth is right there if only you want to face it, the proof is all on the Web that he’s not the amiable, big-hearted person he pretends to be.

It’s hard for me to deal with this.  I avoid poking around too much in the posts of mutual friends, for fear that I’ll see them reply to Richard or Tracy, because I get a sour feeling in the pit of my gut when I see that.

There is still too much grief; there is still too much disbelief that Richard is a narcissist, even though I see the proof in his mug shots, the lack of remorse, the contempt instead of shame.  There is still too much anger at the injustice of Tracy’s projection of guilt onto me, at her abuses of me, at her gaslighting and vicious, nasty behavior.

Hubby wants me to no longer care what she thinks of me, and that’s what I want, too, but the anger and feeling of injustice still burn hot.

But when I do accidentally see a mutual friend responding to a post that is blocked from me, as I did last night, I start wondering,

“Are Richard and Tracy acting like nothing has happened and they’re just normal, healthy people who wouldn’t hurt a fly?

“Is Richard pretending to all his friends that he never got charged with choking his child, never got convicted?

“Are they pretending to all their friends that Social Services is not involved in their family, even though it says right there in Richard’s signature bond agreement that he was ordered to cooperate with Social Services?

“Or do the mutual friends know all this, but not care that Richard and Tracy claim to be Christians but are severely lacking in morals, just as Richard kept being friends with the creeps who sexually harassed me in 2009, and got upset when I suggested their morals were lacking?

“Do they believe Richard or Tracy if they say that I’m the crazy one?  Does Tracy still post things like she did on 7/1/10, when she posted on Facebook that she was having a GREAT day because she no longer had to sit back and be quiet and nice, that she finally got to say what she wanted to say?”

(My husband said to that, when I told him yesterday about her post, “Say about *what*?  When was she keeping quiet and nice, and about what?”  Which is what I wonder as well, because I really don’t know.  I tried to be polite and kind to her all the time.)

I wonder,

“Is Tracy still staying with Richard even though he almost killed her daughter?  Is Richard still staying with Tracy even though she hits him and he once told me he had to hold himself back, but if she ever hit his face, he’d tell her, ‘You’re not a woman,’ and hit her back like she was a man?

“Doesn’t Richard realize that this never ends well, that if he doesn’t get out now, the violence will escalate over time, until one day he’s beaten her up or even killed her, and the law won’t care who hit first, and will throw him in jail?  Especially now that he already has a child abuse conviction against him!”

I’ve done all I can.  I told Social Services what I witnessed and what Richard told me.  I told my priest what happened, and though I did not tell him Richard’s identity, I believe he’s figured it out.

I’ve tried to tell my friends the truth, whether mutual friends believe me or not, or even know who I mean.  I suggested to my husband that he report the threat Richard sent to him back on June 28, 2010, but he doesn’t want to.

The rest has been done by their oldest daughter, who had the amazing courage to report her own step-father to the police, and by law enforcement and Social Services.  I really should let myself rest with that, but I keep feeling like there’s something else I need to do [to help the children].  But what else would there be?

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.

Because Tracy has 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.

If Richard comes to my church again, my husband and I will have to address the elephant in the room, and confront him with the child abuse case, tell him we know what he did and he can’t keep coming here, intimidating me and bringing up all my feelings of grief and anger all over again while I’m trying to worship God.

I thought, the last time he came, that he was showing signs of repentance for what he did to his little girl.

I hoped again, hoped he was cooperating with Social Services, hoped they were making him go to anger management and parenting classes, hoped he was working on those violent tendencies that drove him to tell me he was going to kill the lady who evicted him in 2009, to want to hit his wife [if she hit his face], to choke his daughter until she passed out just because she wasn’t cleaning up after herself.

Those violent tendencies that drove him to tell my husband that he’s easily provoked to physical violence, that he was ready to fight verbally and physically, that because my husband was sticking up for me against Richard’s bullying, Richard felt angrier than he had felt in years.

I hoped that Richard now realized, thanks to his conviction and nearly killing his daughter, that he needed help desperately.  I hoped he was full of shame.  I hoped he would finally come to Hubby and me, and try to make things right.  I hoped that good side I thought was there, would finally get him to do the right thing, and this grief would end, I would get my friend back….

But then I saw the five mug shots taken a few weeks after he came to my church, and they were full of contempt.  Hubby says Richard also looks like the cat who swallowed the canary, like he got away with something.

There are also the many things he himself told me which show him to be a narcissist:

  • using conversational hypnotism to get me to open up to him,
  • his boast of arrogance,
  • his boasting about all his past women and getting them fighting each other,
  • telling me that his exes would sit around at the same table talking about how evil he was,
  • joking about his big ego,
  • faking speaking in tongues to his congregation while preaching….

There were so many things he told me which painted a distinct picture of narcissism in his youth.  But he had led me to believe that he had turned away from such things, respected women now, was being saved by the Church.  I had this image of him, this friend, that may never have truly existed.

In 2009 or 2010, he complained about having to “pamper” me, even though I never asked him to, said that Tracy actually got angry with him for not saying things she knew he wanted to say while I was visiting.

This makes me wonder, WHAT things?  How much of what I believed was his personality and character, was real?  Was it all an act?  Did the person I saw as my friend–Did he ever even exist, or was he just a persona invented by Richard to lure me as his narcissistic supply?

I’ve been a victim of narcissists in the past; now I was vulnerable because I’m very shy, have trouble making close friends, all my close friends were living so far away that I hadn’t seen them in some time, and I have always wanted one of those platonic friendships like Frodo/Sam, Bill/Ted, Anna/Clarissa, Anne/Diane, Gus/Shawn….

After all, in one of his favorite chat rooms, the other people were very surprised to hear that he wanted to be a priest.  I have every reason to believe that Richard is truly a narcissist, that I’m not just making up some idea in my head to make myself feel better.  The proofs are at least as clear as the proofs of Tracy being a malignant narcissist and/or borderline personality disorder.  The biggest proof is the look in his eyes in his mug shots.

I thought he had changed from the violence and “dog” days of his past, was now gentle and sweet, especially because he wanted to be a priest and we were always talking about theology, the Church and God.  But now I see him as just as much a predator as he was in his younger, “dog” days, just more subtle.

After all, why should I believe him anymore that he’s changed in this way, when he also claimed to have changed in other ways–turning away from violence in general, no longer abusing his kids–only to be proven a liar when he planned to kill that lady in 2009, threatened my husband in 2010, and choked his daughter a few months later?

I’m very disappointed in Richard, very disappointed to have to let go of the belief that he could still be saved from himself.  It’s very difficult because for all this time, I’ve hoped that the good in him would one day win out and I would have my friend back.

Even at my angriest, I’ve been sad over having to give up his friendship, and hoped it was only temporary.  It had been such an important friendship to me, and I had thought for so long that it was important to him as well, that he didn’t want to lose my friendship or my husband’s.

So why won’t he man up and talk to us, why won’t he fight for our friendship, apologize to us?  Why did he plead no contest and still show, in his pictures, contempt for law enforcement, which is only doing its job protecting our weakest citizens?

Somehow I must accept that I now have proof of his narcissism, that he’s not the man I thought he was, and somehow I must stop longing for his friendship back.  But I don’t know how I’ll do that.

When I speak of new evidence I’ve found for Richard’s narcissism, my husband doesn’t sound surprised at all.

I keep remembering things that make me think Richard really does have a good heart, but my husband keeps remembering things about Richard that rubbed him the wrong way, made him think that Richard is actually heartless, such as his politics, or that he lacked in empathy and wasn’t a good, caring friend, such as when [first I and then] Hubby tried to explain to him why I resisted Tracy and how I was being unfairly treated, but Richard did not listen.

My giving nature keeps looking for the good in Richard, despite all the evidence in front of me, or how angry I am with him.  But Hubby seems to just nod whenever I have some new revelation.  For example, when I showed Hubby the mug shots taken a month after the conviction and a couple of weeks after Richard seemed repentant and humble at church.

For Richard to act this way at church but act contemptuous while dealing with law enforcement over his despicable acts–I was shocked and dismayed, but Hubby didn’t seem surprised at all.

…You will note that I stayed friends with Richard and Tracy even though I knew they were both being asses to Todd.  Of course, Richard told me enough things about Todd to make him sound like a horrible person in general, even though he’d been close friends with Todd for years, so I began to disregard the crap being slung at Todd over the game.

So maybe it’s not so surprising that Richard’s other friends are still with him, even though I’ve exposed the abuse.  If they’re still caught up in his web, they may not realize just how badly he’s acted, even with the evidence in their faces.

I still stayed with Richard even though I knew he almost assaulted that lady.  As one person wrote to Todd about Richard after finding out about the court case, “He always was an a–hole, but you were his friend and didn’t notice.”  Several people also said that Richard is a narcissist.

…Todd was one of those loyal friends, even though they lived far apart, and when he stayed with Richard on vacation, he wrote on the forum about how much he loved being with Richard, wanted to move in with Richard for good, was actually planning it for a time.

But then, a couple years later, the blowup and fallout happened, and he began to come out of the spell.  Now, he’s the only other friend of Richard I’m aware of who no longer wants a thing to do with him because of the choking incident.

If I had still been friends with Richard when it happened, I wonder if somehow he would have convinced me that he was being persecuted by the guvmint, and I would have stayed friends with him, even though he had done a despicable act that goes against everything I believe in.

…Mutual friends, face the truth, or you’ll be next.  Richard and Tracy are both unstable people, and without me around, they need a new target.  Face the truth, try to get them to face the truth, do something!  I’m sick of being afraid to run into them at church or on the street, for fear of what they’ll do.

If Richard doesn’t take his conviction seriously, if he keeps complaining about police states and the police and how we need to defend our own homes and get rid of the police and fight CPS–one day, he’s going to be the one shooting his wife or killing one of his kids.  Or Tracy will be the one killing him, because she’s crazy, too.  Or at the very least, those kids are going to be so screwed up.

I don’t want to see that happen, but I’m so afraid that with the light sentence, they’ll somehow fall through the cracks and the dysfunction will continue.  After all this time, I still worry like a mother hen over what will happen to Richard, what will happen to the children.

And now that he can no longer be a priest, and any political aspirations are no longer possible because of his criminal record–what will he go after next?  Will he be like Elmer Gantry and just move on to the next thing?

Keep in mind that the references I made on Facebook were vague and sketchy, with no names.  I also made no mention on Facebook of the blogs/webpages about the situation, only telling some details of the story to Todd because he had been in my situation before.

(My Facebook wall is private and mostly made up of friends/family/old classmates; it’s my main way of telling my friends what’s going on, and getting support.

(I don’t believe people should be quiet on Facebook about being bullied and abused, because speaking out can be a great help for them.  Everyday drama can be tiresome and TMI, but abuse/bullying victims should tell everyone they can, to decrease the power of the bullies/abusers.

(More full, explicit details were put in e-mails and chats to certain friends/family, NOT to my Facebook wall.)

I did not tell the other mutual friends whom I meant, and even distanced myself from them, never sending them e-mails, just occasionally responding to something they had posted on their Facebook walls.  I often pondered just how much I should tell them, wondered if I should ask for their help, but was afraid to be too detailed, too explicit in what I wrote on Facebook.

I wondered if it was right or wrong to tell them what happened, if it would be seen as gossip, or if it was my duty to warn them about the narcissism, or if it was my obligation to tell them about the bullying or abuse so they could do some sort of “intervention.”

I never asked them about Richard or Tracy, never let on to them just who I meant by “ex-friend,” just occasionally vented in my statuses vague sentences about the crap I’d been put through and that I’d witnessed.

We weren’t close to begin with, didn’t run in the same real-life circles, and even saw each other on the Net only occasionally in places where Richard and Tracy no longer went.  So I never tried to tell them the whole story or identify the “ex-friend” or “my bully.”

But if they did figure it out and ask for proof, I would show them, in hopes that they would not only believe me, but try to get Richard or Tracy to stop abusing and bullying.

[Update 9/27/14: At least one more mutual friend does know now, possibly two, because in 2011, Todd brought the story to the Forum where we all used to congregate.  And that one believes me, as well. 

I also no longer have qualms about using real names on my Facebook, part of my growing courage to tell the truth. 

Of course, I dropped several of those mutual friends after Richard and Tracy’s threatening e-mail, because I did not know whom to trust.  But then one of them found Todd’s posts on the Forum, and then another re-friended me recently.]

I had just read through this blog shortly before reading Richard and Tracy’s e-mail to me.  So this must be what they meant, what they’re so afraid of, me showing the priest the conviction records (to establish my credibility and Richard’s violent tendencies) and asking for a contract to protect me from my bully Tracy.

So–Why are you more worried about whether people at church find out what you did, than turning away from this horrible deed and bettering yourself?  And why are you so concerned about me telling the priest?  Shouldn’t you be telling him yourself, asking for his help and absolution?  (This goes for both Richard and Tracy.)

So–Not only do they deny what they’ve done, to my (virtual) face, but they accuse me of and rail at me for wild threats which I never made, and accuse me of threatening them and rail at me for telling them to either apologize or stay the f*** away from me? 

I saw they were reading through my blogs pretty fast; I see their reading comprehension suffered quite a bit.

In another blog post, I say that I wish they would move away so I wouldn’t have to deal with running into them anymore.  I also spoke here of how the Bible itself says to deal with people like this in the church, how church discipline is supposed to be administered.

Though I only quoted it to provide examples that Christians are not supposed to fellowship with unrepentant abusers and criminals, that we are indeed supposed to watch out for such people, even though so many people think you’re supposed to “not judge” them and “forgive” no matter what they do and keep fellowshipping with them.

I had no intentions of trying to get Richard and Tracy out of the faith entirely; I just wanted them to be kept away from me, to keep going to their own church, which they decided 4 years ago was far better than mine because they hated my church.

I wrote that for me to keep in the faith, I’d have to disconnect it from Richard, and that would require him staying away from me.

You can see all this for yourself at those links, how I really meant and worded it, and that it did not even imply that I would try to push them out of the church or community, but only that I wished they would move away so I wouldn’t have to see them around anymore.  This is a perfectly natural desire felt by everyone who has been mistreated.

I also had no idea they’d ever find and read that; I thought they cared so little about me or what I thought, that they’d never read any of my websites again.  I also wrote:

It is a huge relief to be among family, friends and church members who do not judge me for being quiet, who do not tell their husbands that I hate her and can’t be trusted with him because I blend into the furniture, who may make a little joke once in a while about my quietness but nothing nasty.

To be among friends who freely do the things that Tracy once wanted to kill me for. To not get snarked at or criticized for every little thing I do or say, not just by Tracy but by Richard.

To be myself, without being accused again and again of disrespecting her or snubbing her. To relax and not worry about two people–one my best friend–ganging up on me because of my selective mutism/NVLD/Asperger’s/extreme introversion/whatever it is.

I can’t help the way my brain works, and I don’t want to; I just want to be accepted as I am, same as anybody else.

To have these two people just waltz back into my church and then back out again as if they’ve done nothing wrong and I deserve nothing but to be ignored–disrupts my life, disrupts the gradual loosening of tension that I’ve been feeling by being around decent people again.

I go to coffee hour to relax with my church family and work on understanding Greek, but if I see Richard and/or Tracy I feel tense, nervous, shaky.

These are honest and natural thoughts and reflections, not me telling them to leave their religion or their community, but you see here that they twisted them and turned them into “threats” somehow.

They lack empathy for their victim, not only laughing at her pain but proclaiming that they will do what they can to make her pain even worse, by showing up at church where they know she does not want to see them–out of some weak, pathetic claim of worshipping God, while their very own words accuse them of doing it out of spite and malice.

They show absolutely no understanding that their behavior was bullying and abuse, no understanding that victims need to go through a long, hard, painful process–which can take years–to recover from abuse.

They accuse her of threatening them because she told them, If you bully me again, I will tell [about the bullying] again.  They get upset because she told them to stay away from her, because she feels their presence is meant as intimidation, especially since they freeze her out and do not speak to her even in greeting–and she tells them to stay away, because their presence hinders her healing process.

They then proceed to try to cut off the victim from her support systems, by threatening her with a defamation suit if she goes to her priest for help!  (It’s not defamation if it’s true, and this court conviction and Tracy’s abuses are for real.)

It’s also stalking, because I clearly wrote that I did not want a dialogue with them, did not want to hear anything at all from them–no justifying, no minimizing what they did to me–except for an apology.

Then on Sunday afternoon, I came home from church to find “Tracy Richard Doe” (as this e-mail was signed) as a new follower on my blog.

It’s just the same as when Tracy told me on 7/1/10, “Don’t go crying to Jeff, because we don’t need the headache.”  As I wrote before, this is just the same as any bully on the playground telling you not to go telling the teacher, or a molester warning you not to tell anyone about your little “secret,” or a domestic abuser threatening to kill your family if you tell anyone what he’s done.

It’s just the same as what they did to Todd.  In reviewing the printouts of their online argument, I discovered how Tracy made everyone think he was the crazy one for defending himself and telling what really happened, even though her initial rage episode was over something he did to help her, but she decided to accuse him of hurting her.  And that she called him a “baby” for getting upset about her rage episode.

Jeff says Richard is afraid of me because I know about this and so many other things he’s said and done, and that he wants to keep me under his thumb.

I need no more proof than this that I have them pegged correctly as a combination of malignant narcissism/narcissistic borderline personality disorder.  Every word they wrote, every action they take, oozes narcissism.

I have clear proof that they are abusers because of Richard’s criminal conviction, the contempt in his mug shots, and the lack in this e-mail of any sign of remorse for what he did to his daughter.  I can move on–stop wishing he would come to us and apologize–because I know him to be dangerous.  They both are violent.

See this post for how abusers minimize, justify and try to excuse their abuse when you confront them with it.  They complain about me painting Tracy as “deranged” and try to call me the crazy one, which is what abusers do all the time to their victims.

[Update 9/27/14: I removed that term, but by “deranged” I meant crazy, volatile, violent–all words I still use and believe when referring to Tracy.  And all three words are perfectly legal to use.]

But stalking with malicious intent is not the behavior of a sane person, and neither is hanging out the window of a moving minivan or going off in a rage at someone for writing “I’ll miss you; have fun on your trip!” 

I’m not sure if they’re sociopaths or psychopaths, but at least one of the two -pathies seems to be in here as well.

This makes it crystal clear to me that when I lost Richard’s friendship, I lost nothing of value, just the friendship of an abuser and narcissist who does not care about anybody except himself.

And if they send me just one more e-mail, try once more to contact me, I will file charges.

It’s amazing and astounding: Even though I told them they do not have the moral high ground, even though Richard choked his kid and they know I know about it, they’re still trying to claim the moral high ground! 

They’re still saying they did nothing wrong to me, still showing no remorse here in their e-mail about what Richard did to his kid.  These people are unbelievable!

If you had any doubts at all about my claims that they are both Cluster B, look at their e-mail and banish your doubts.  Their e-mail is here in its entirety, and unedited: I just clipped and pasted it.  Yes, they even used the fake names “Nyssa,” “Richard” and “Tracy,” which is bizarre, considering we all know and use each others’ real names in real life.

I think Tracy actually wrote it, since it has her markings all over it.  And because, despite the many complaints I had made about Richard’s behavior, narcissism, political extremism, betrayal, coming on too strong, threatening Jeff, threatening the apartment manager, violent past, and criminal conviction of choking his kid–this e-mail focused mostly on what was said about Tracy.

Venting about being further abused by my abusers when I stuck up for myself

We put ourselves out trying to help these people over the years.  I listened to all the horrible things Richard told me were happening.  I was there for him through everything.

We gave them food, baby items, money, gifts, rides, babysitting, various other things they needed.  We put ourselves out in a way which is normally done only for family.  We took them in, showed them help and love.

And…THIS is our reward.  Not kindness, not understanding, not a willingness to work with us.  No, just scorn, ridicule, verbal abuse, years of Tracy’s bullying, and now stalking me and threatening me for speaking up about what they’ve done.

We feel used, manipulated, lied to.  We feel like these people are con artists.  Take care who you meet on the Internet, and who you let into your life.

If these people do try to sue me for telling the truth, then I will counter-sue them for stalking/harassment and for defaming me with these false accusations that I’m lying.

I have documents to prove my claims, and a character witness, Todd–and “defamation” does not apply to telling about a court case/conviction which is both true and published to the public, or to telling the truth that someone has abused you.

Trying to threaten and intimidate me into silence is precisely how bullies and abusers operate: They are violating my rights to tell my story of abuse.  If you take away the right to speak up about bullying and abuse, then you take away the right of victims to break free and turn the tables on their abusers.

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.

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. 

This post from the Whispers of God blog goes into the issue of how to tell when someone is falsely accused of abuse.  In her context, she’s talking about child abuse/molestation.

But I can imagine this applies to those accused of bullying as well, such as the psychological and verbal abuse I was put through by Richard and Tracy.

Richard would be the one who claimed to love me like a sister, that I was “very dear” to him, but I have accused him of being a party to the bullying, of even threatening Jeff in June/July 2010, of manipulating and using me in 2007 and then betraying me in 2010, letting Tracy believe I was guilty when he knew I was innocent.

Also, Tracy claimed to Jeff on 7/1/10 that they “valued” our friendship.  As WOG says, if someone you loved accused you of abusing her, and you knew you were innocent, you would be desperate to talk to her and sort things out, would be visibly shaken.

Yet I have received absolutely no such communication from Richard, only an e-mail from him and/or Tracy accusing me of defamation, ridiculing my pain, expressing no remorse whatsoever, and even showing no remorse over Richard’s criminal conviction.

WOG, too, is being threatened with a libel suit for speaking out about how she’s been abused, and you can read about this in her various posts.

For Richard and Tracy to just supposedly “forget” about these events and expect me to, for them to just go on and do absolutely nothing to try to repair our friendship, for them to act like their own actions were somehow perfectly fine and okay–shows the true nature of their black souls, and the true nature and worth of their friendship.

And it is worthless.  No true friends would treat you the way Richard and Tracy have both treated me.  Beware such false friends.

I Tell the Forum and Friends

[Update 9/30/14: Immediately after I received this threatening e-mail, I posted on Facebook all about it and how Richard and Tracy were stalking me.  I was not going to keep this a secret, despite all their threats: I was going to tell all to everyone.

Anyone else who may doubt that these people are abusive bullies, and how they treated me, I can simply show them this e-mail as proof.

Of course, I had already posted on Facebook and written e-mails to my friends and family, describing what I went through and the abuses I witnessed from these two.

I had posted about Richard choking one of his kids, many months beforehand.  I had also told my priest about it.

This was so I could get their support as I struggled to process, grieve and deal with the emotionally and spiritually traumatic fallout of Richard and Tracy’s abuses. 

Now I merely needed to update everyone with the latest crazy, manipulative and abusive actions of these two against me. 

And I was flooded with support and outrage over what these two were doing.

People kept questioning what the policeman said, thinking there must be some way to get these people into jail immediately for stalking.  But with the state’s weak laws, my hands were tied without more evidence. 

Even my spiritual friend from church, wanted Richard in jail.

A couple of friends at church had known for several months about how Richard and Tracy had bullied me and that they were also violent.  I had needed spiritual support from them, as I tried to process all the pain and anger, while struggling with the Church’s words on forgiveness.  So sometime during winter 2011/2012, I told them all about it.

Now these church friends read my posts on Facebook, and also my private messages about it, so they could be there for me as Richard and Tracy stalked me at church. 

I told Todd.  I told all my friends, local and far-off, and my family.  I had reconnected with some old Fond du Lac friends through Facebook, so they read about it as well.

Richard and Tracy tried to poison the well by complaining to my priest about me.  But I had my husband there with me as I told the priest the truth, backing me up and giving his own account of things that happened.  So I was not alone, and my priest showed no signs of believing them. 

In fact, one day, when Richard and Tracy were there–

–and after I told my priest how they were continuing to stalk me online and frighten me, and told him about their history of abuse and showed him Richard’s criminal record–

–he gave an unusually harsh sermon about how we (i.e., everyone in the congregation) should “stop poking each other.”  Richard and Tracy never showed up at my church again after that.

The support of my friends and family through all this was immeasurable.  And I wanted to warn my local friends in case they encountered Richard or Tracy.

Months earlier, in September 2011, I posted on Facebook about Richard choking his child, expressing all my fury and disgust to my friends, and calling him a liar. 

Todd told the web Forum where we all used to congregate, that their old Forum-ite Richard was a f**king scumbag. 

In a private section of the Forum, visible only to members and not to the public, Todd posted links to information which had been posted online by the newspaper and the state, describing the case.

When I re-joined the Forum after a long absence, shortly after he started this thread, I discovered it, and confirmed Todd’s story.  I also described the many abuses I had suffered from Richard and Tracy, along with Tracy’s abuses of Richard and the children.

Todd confirmed that Tracy showed all the signs of borderline personality disorder, and he told me that she and her mother both have it–and multiple personality disorder was in the mix as well, at least for her mother, possibly for both.

And that proved to me that her rages and criticisms of me were the product of mental illness, and had NOTHING whatsoever to do with me.  I posted on Facebook on September 24, 2011:

For the first time in nearly four years, I’m finally free: I was dealing with someone who really got into my head and twisted it around.

For nearly four years, I was made to feel like everything wrong was my fault.  I was wrong, I had to change, or I’d be punished.  Even if you resist, they can still get to you.

But now I discover that what I suspected and have been researching for the past year was probably true: a personality disorder.  Meaning, it’s nothing I did; it’s all in her head.

So I’m ejecting her from my head and no longer care what she thinks of me.

[Note: I think I actually wrote “mental illness” instead of “personality disorder.”  I may have edited the post later on.]

Richard and Tracy had made enemies on the Forum, especially after they found out Richard was the one who hacked the Forum in 2008, turned it into a Hello Kitty theme, and locked out Todd. 

The Forum is small, but has a loyal core who were rather upset about this.  Despite re-friending Todd and going back on the Forum in 2010 for a bit, Richard never owned up to this.

Neither Richard nor Tracy had been on the Forum for maybe a couple of years.

As one of the Forum-ites told Todd when he first told them in September 2011 about the choking incident and the hacking, “Richard always was an a**hole, but you were his friend and didn’t notice.”  They agreed that Richard seemed to be a narcissist.

In May 2012, I wrote on the Forum that Richard and Tracy were stalking me.  In July, I also posted there the e-mail which Richard and Tracy sent me.

The whole Forum rallied around me.  But I wanted their help and validation, not vengeance.

One of our mutual friends, after a long absence from the Forum, saw the thread, asked for proof of the choking incident, and got it.  He was convinced.

The belief, validation and support of my fellow Forum-ites–even mutual friends–was a huge part of my healing.  It helped that they had also seen signs of narcissistic, crazy behavior from Richard and/or Tracy.

It helped immensely that Todd had been through the same thing I had, different circumstances, but same people and same behaviors. 

He, too, had been raged at by Tracy over a misunderstanding, then smeared by Tracy, which separated him from his BFF Richard, who then turned against him. 

In reviewing what happened to Todd, I identified all sorts of things which Tracy also did to me.

This proved to me that I was not crazy or imagining it, despite what Richard and/or Tracy wrote in the e-mail.

THIS SHOWS THAT YOU SHOULD NOT GIVE IN WHEN YOUR ABUSER TELLS YOU NOT TO TELL ABOUT THE ABUSE!  You need the support of your friends and family!

The following section was clipped and pasted from what I wrote on the Forum in July 2012 after posting and re-reading the e-mail, which I had not read since the first time in May: ]

When I first clipped and pasted that e-mail [onto the Forum thread], I couldn’t actually read it again, and was going by memory of what they said.  It was hard going over that e-mail again.

I hadn’t looked at it since I first saw it, because it was too painful.  But today I felt I had to, to make sure I’m not going totally off what they actually said.

I see it’s even more ludicrous than I remembered:

Their accusations of me are based on nothing.

These supposed “threats” that I’m trying to push them out of the faith and community–false!

Talking about conceding to demands etc.–HUH?  What, it’s somehow a threat for me to keep up blogs which do not give real names?

What “threats to expose” them if they don’t “concede” to my “demands”?  Where the heck did they even get that from? 

The only “demand” I made was to stay away from me unless they were to apologize! 

Apparently their quick reads through my posts (as shown by Google Analytics), affected their reading comprehension.

The lack of concern for the fact that when I see them I feel upset and nervous and shaky, and deliberately planning to come more often than they already intended, because they know this–cruel and narcissistic.

The use of words like “our Lord” and “mysteries” in the midst of a vicious, sadistic attack–hypocritical.

[9/30/14: I now LOL at how understated the word “hypocritical” is.  Some stronger words would be “sanctimonious,” “Pharisee,” “whited sepulchre,” “deceiver,” “imposter.”  “Our Lord”?  What do THEY have to do with him?  Or were they referring to Satan?]

And they’ve been going to the other church 40 minutes away for the past four years, including the two years we were friends, and have only come to mine a handful of times–

–despite being poor, despite work schedules, despite an unreliable junkheap of a car, despite long periods of unemployment and even more expensive gas, despite church schedules, despite the fact that for half that time we were friends and I would have welcomed them.

They came to my church three times after the breakup, which is far more often than they came before the breakup.

Obviously, those three times they were not respecting my pain, so how can I believe they were respecting my pain at all, especially when this e-mail is the response I got to expressing my pain?

But now that I say I don’t want to see them there at all, not even rarely, they decide they’re going to come all the time?

Hubby and I both call BS on their claims that they planned this before reading my blog, or that they were respecting my feelings at all before.

My supposed threats of “going public” to the church and community–excuse me, WHAT?  I’ve gone through the posts I made directly to them, and just scratch my head at where they got this.

The only thing I can think of is, as I quoted elsewhere, I wrote in one of my old blog posts that if our churches merged I was going to take my concerns, including Richard’s criminal case and Tracy’s abuses of me, to the priest, to get his counsel and help.  I had no intentions–as I also stated elsewhere–to spread it around the church.

And the community?  Where the heck did they get THAT from?  I tell only close friends and family who they are; my public accounts have changed names.  I had zero intentions of spreading it around the [Fond du Lac] community.

And getting down to the real point–They accuse me of accusing an “innocent” person etc. etc.  INNOCENT?  Innocent of WHAT?  There are no lies in my accounts!

It’s just–This is so much proof of what I thought all along, that they are gaslighters, that they’re narcissists and possibly borderline [personality disorder]….

They can behave in vicious and cruel ways and then say they’ve done nothing wrong and accuse you of lying when you say so.

I remember so many times, first Richard told me all sorts of things Tracy was doing that were verbally and/or physically abusive, while he was staying here by himself.  Then when she moved in, I saw them all for myself, with my own eyes and ears.

Everything I wrote down in my accounts, I witnessed or Richard told me.  But when I told Richard about my concerns, he minimized everything she was doing, talked as if she weren’t doing any of it.  Then later on, he’d tell me (and, sometimes, Jeff) about more abusive things she was doing.  I felt gaslighted even back then.

Then he sent me an e-mail describing things she was doing, and a follow-up phone call with more info, and it was even worse than anything I had seen: She wasn’t just slapping him on the arm like I saw, but punching him.

Richard himself TOLD me this.  He TOLD me so much that apparently they’re denying now.  It’s just so hard to believe that they can pull all this crap and then accuse me of falsely accusing Tracy, and think that I’m somehow going to buy it.

And then–They say they owe me nothing?

What, so they manipulate me, bully me, abuse and take advantage of my hospitality, take my money, eat my food, live in my house at great financial and household strain to me, take all the things I ever gave to them to help them out, verbally tear me to shreds over a misunderstanding, and leave me a quivering, broken mess, and they owe me NOTHING? did NOTHING WRONG?

They treat me like it’s just something I have to get over, accuse me of not being all there?  OH–those b@$*&^%s and @$$#)*$s……

How my emotional trauma proves the abuse–and I realize Richard conned me (update 7/14/12)

I recognize Tracy’s malicious style in that e-mail, from her past messages to Todd and me both, and from posts she’s written to people on forums as well.  But it must have been at least approved by Richard as well.

A certain loathing comes from being betrayed not once, but twice by what you thought was your best friend.

To think of all the times he was so kind and caring to you before, so you thought he was your friend.

But now you discover that it was all an act meant to con you.

Why he would do such an elaborate con, I don’t know.  But I do now see very clearly, from the above e-mail, that he never meant anything he said about “loving” me.

Maybe the act was meant to get various things out of me: concern, a place to stay, food, money, whatever.  Maybe it was meant to get the narcissistic supply he so craves.  But it was all a lie, an act.

How do I know?  After all of Tracy’s unkind words, her snarks, her lies, her power plays, all the behaviors, all Richard’s going along with whatever she did or said about me, without allowing me to defend myself or say I did not deserve this–

Instead of apologizing for his part in things, or getting her to apologize, all I got from them was this b**chy e-mail which

  • twisted my words into all sorts of crazy things which they never did say,
  • denied my right to stand up for myself and go no contact with them,
  • denied that what I actually did say was true,
  • said they did nothing wrong and would not apologize,
  • and said they laughed at my pain.

Obviously they think they’re allowed to throw all sorts of crap at me, but I’m not allowed to stand up for myself.

If he ever actually cared about me at all, then he would have realized just what he had done.

He would have realized that his passivity allowed a Christian sister, and one whom he once claimed to love like a sister (what a lie), to be bullied, hurt, torn apart, and screwed over without remorse.

But no, it was just more minimizing, justifying and defending Tracy’s verbal abuse and constant overt/covert bullying of me.

It is appalling to see behind the mask and discover that you put your love and trust into a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

It is horrifying to realize just how badly you were deceived, just how easily.

A real friend would never stab you in the back and then, when they discover how much it hurt you, twist the knife even further, and then stomp on it until you die.

Beware such friends, and do not grieve when you lose them.  They are not worth it.  Such toxic “friendships” should be grieved just as much as the snake you shot when it tried to bite you, or the mosquito you slapped.

If I’m telling “false facts,” if I’m accusing an “innocent” person, then why have I been suffering for the past two years from the aftereffects of Tracy’s abuse, both witnessing it and being the victim of it–

even going through a period where I must have had Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder because of the constant rumination, fear, hypervigilance, and memories playing back constantly?

Why did I cry so many tears both during and after the “friendship”? 

Why did somebody on a forum say I sounded spiritually traumatized? 

Why did I feel for at least a year like I couldn’t get close to anyone I didn’t already know, for fear they would turn out to be abusers just like Tracy?

Why have I had so many triggers that–just when I think I’ve put an issue to rest–bring it all up again so my mind would have to go through and process it, figure it out, all over again?  (This happened continuously for at least a year.)

And why on earth would I break off a friendship just like that with someone who was sweet and wonderful and innocent of any wrongdoing, especially since I’m so introverted and shy that I can’t just go out and make another friend to replace ones I lose?

You may ask why I didn’t go to therapy.  There were two reasons:

  1. My husband’s job sucked so bad that I had no resources for therapy, no health insurance, no money, and
  2. I was even afraid of trusting therapists!

Since my friends could only handle so much, blogging (since I had to get my message out somehow) and writing down the whole story, was my only outlet.

I have proof, and did what I said I would, but nothing happened (update late summer/fall 2012)

I have done everything I said I was going to do:

  • I’ve told my priest what happened and gotten his counsel (and will continue to do so if they keep showing up, but they’ve only appeared a few times).
  • I’ve kept the blog up.
  • I’ve posted here and told my family and friends what Richard and Tracy have been doing to harass and cyberstalk me.

Yet Richard and Tracy have not done what they threatened to do if I did so.  They don’t have a leg to stand on legally:

  • This is the truth, there are absolutely no lies, no intentional falsehoods,
  • it has done absolutely nothing to harm their reputation in the community,
  • it has not hurt their jobs if they have any, does not even show up if somebody Googles their names, because the names are changed.

Without intentional falsehoods and real names, there can be no libel.  They are all fang but no bite.

I have:

  1. In my possession an e-mail and record of a phone conversation which prove I’m telling the truth.  (I held onto them just in case Richard would need an ally in court.)
  2. My husband and Todd as witnesses/character witnesses.
  3. The printouts of Tracy on a game forum doing the same things to Todd that she did to me.
  4. Several of her abusive e-mails to me.
  5. The abusive posts she made to Todd on that game forum.
  6. Printouts of IRC conversations in which Richard claimed to have hypnotized me and been a thug for the Mafia.
  7. Posts by Todd confirming the Mafia story.
  8. E-mails from Todd describing the things he himself witnessed.
  9. A public blog post by Richard from 2007, which expressed uncertainty about his marriage.

–All confirming my story as true and not the ravings of someone who is “not all there,” as Tracy called me.

I have copies of e-mails I sent to friends and family describing the situation from 2007-2010, and would swear in a court of law that I have posted the truth.

Results of a Social Services investigation (from my report and the choking incident) may also support my claims, depending on how thorough and truthful everyone was.

I have a file, started in mid-2010, in which I described everything I had witnessed while I could still remember it well, just in case I would be needed as a character witness for Richard.

I am witness of and privy to some things which I did not post online because of their sensitive nature, but which I would use as evidence for the court.

I would also gladly take my blogs, website, e-mails, and own private written accounts, print them, sign them in front of a taker of oaths, and use them as an affidavit, sworn to on penalty of perjury, as described by Wikipedia:

 An affidavit is a type of verified statement or showing, or in other words, it contains a verification, meaning it is under oath or penalty of perjury, and this serves as evidence to its veracity and is required for court proceedings.

  • To obtain a declaration on a legal document, such as an application for voter registration, that the information provided by the applicant is truthful to the best of the applicant’s knowledge. If, after signing such a declaration, the information is found to be deliberately untrue with the intent to deceive, the applicant may face perjury charges.

Some piece of Richard and Tracy must recognize in my story that they were indeed abusive, that what they did was indeed wrong.  If they truly did not recognize this at all, then why not just say, “Well, anybody can see how ridiculous she’s being, so we’ll just ignore it and let the whole world see it and laugh at her.”

But no, instead they’re trying to intimidate me into silence, taking offense at the story, threatening to sue me for telling my story, trying to gaslight me into thinking that it did not happen the way I said it happened.

They’ve traumatized me severely, so severely I had to take to blogging to deal with it, and are now re-traumatizing me, on purpose!

Their threat is extortion (update 10/28/12)

Just think: Not only did they demonstrate the same utter lack of regard for the feelings and points of view of Hubby and me that they had shown during the “Incident” and that Tracy showed for me the entire time I knew her…

…Not only did they demonstrate a feeling of entitlement to call all the shots and smack us down when we got uppity and asserted our rights to decent treatment…

…Not only did they say they “owe” me nothing—

But a lawsuit would be an attempt to get money out of us.

Didn’t we give them quite enough money over the years?

Considering the extreme lengths we took over the years to help them out, far beyond what most people would do, and the fact that we’re not even remotely related to them,

I think we are at least owed kindness, consideration, a restraint from verbal abuse and bullying, and apologies for outbursts.

But to not even get that from them, and have them come out and say in this e-mail that they owed us nothing, demonstrates a sense of entitlement on their part–and gives me, Hubby, and our parents a distinct impression that Hubby and I were played for suckers.

Post by Prozac Blogger: Major Breakthrough: Exposing the Truth

I will NOT be silent.

Quotes and blogs that speak to this situation–and yours as well

I heard so many things against speaking about the past.  Questions which are actually statements and judgements more than they are actual questions such as “why do you want to talk about your problems in public” or “why do you want to air your dirty laundry in front of the whole world?”

These judgements always concluded with some version of “you are only making yourself look like a fool.”

Statements like that carried with them the all too familiar indication that the speakers (the judges) were concerned for ME; that they truly cared about what was “best for me”.

When I faced the cold hard truth, I began to comprehend the actuality reality; I realized that their concern was never for me. I didn’t need to make myself look like a fool, they did that for me all of my life. I think of the times they delighted in finding ways to embarrass me or humiliate me in front of others.

In fact I think that some of their motives were based on discrediting me in case I ever revealed the truth.  They were not concerned about MY dirty laundry. They were only concerned about what I was exposing about THEM. They didn’t want me to expose THEIR dirty laundry.

And I think this would be a good time to add that if they didn’t KNOW what they were doing was wrong, if they didn’t “know any better” then WHY did they know that they needed to keep me quiet about it?

But an even bigger eye opener was when I realized the lengths that so many people went to, to make sure I kept quiet.  Like I said, if they did not know their behaviour was wrong, they would not have spent so much energy making sure it didn’t come out in the open.

I wish I had found a website or like this when I was searching for answers all those years. Nobody was talking about holding family accountable for abuse or about exposing abusers… everyone seemed to be talking about forgiveness or letting go of the past.

“Live for today” and “acceptance is the answer” but nobody wanted to talk about WHAT we were supposed to accept!

Were they really telling me to accept that people messed with my head, discounted and devalued me, took advantage of me, taught me that something was “wrong with me”, abused, mistreated and objectified me, and telling me that I should just “get over it”?

In that dysfunctional recovery system, everyone endorsed “keeping the silence” and no one wanted to talk about spending some time actually validating the dysfunction first.

I was never able to put the past behind me until I actually validated the damage that was done. There are even therapists out there that will refuse to work with you if you want to talk about the past!…

I spent only 2 years facing and validate it and all the results that I ever could have hoped for were achieved. So what is so wrong with my way? At least I am living proof that it worked!

I speak and I write EFB because it is my story and MINE to tell. I celebrate the permission I give myself to tell my story after years of being silenced.

It is validating for me and for others to hear the benefits of living in truth. Finding, facing and embracing the truth is what set me free from oppression, depression and the low self esteem that hindered me all of my life before I faced the lies so I could embrace this truth. –Darlene Ouimet, Being Told to Leave the Past in the Past

This post is about discussing the issues of forgiveness within the context of abuse. There is no need to define the type of abuse because all forms of abuse cause the same issues and damage.

It also discusses forgiveness within the contexts of no confession; no repentance; no admission of fault; betrayal; defiance; lies; denials and injustice….

As a victim of crime and a survivor of the most appalling sexual, physical, emotional, psychological, spiritual and religious abuse I find myself grappling with issues to do with deliberate cruelty, betrayal, lies, denial, play-acting, justice, injustice, defiance and forgiveness.

Forgiveness is hard at the best of times, but is certainly easier if the person admits their fault, confesses and repents, maybe even apologises.

Forgiveness becomes virtually impossible when the guilty are faced with the truth, faced with the legal consequences, but do not respond with humility but with defiance, denials, play-acting and lies.

By doing so they evaded justice. By doing so they evaded exposure of their crimes. By doing so they stuck 2-fingers in front of my face and in front of the face of God. By doing so they showed no comprehension of the way their actions, lies and denials when confronted with the truth tore my life apart.

I’m left wondering how on earth can I forgive when my abusers deny any wrongdoing, carry on their lives hard faced, glorying in their win, going about as if cruelty is normal and as if it is normal to have nothing to do with your daughter?

I’m left wondering how God who hates injustice can allow such injustice to happen on top of all the injustices of all the other abuses. I’m left feeling that my life is just injustice piled on injustice until there is nothing left but injustice and devastation….

Speaking the truth of what they did helps to put the blame and guilt where it lies and that is on the shoulders of the person who did the wrong not on the person who is struggling to forgive and honestly grappling with the hurt and lack of closure. …

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. –Princess Fi, BETRAYAL, DEFIANCE, LIES, DENIAL, INJUSTICE, FORGIVENESS ISSUES

 

Why is it that so many Christians don’t get that you can be a Christian and be in such a mess. Why is that?

Instead of coming alongside me, giving me space to tell my story and helping, it was oh just forgive, forget, move on, it happened so long ago, stop harping on about it, stop dragging it up from the past. WHY IS THAT?

How can I ever forget 20 years of abuse and torture? It may have happened a long time ago, but I live with it every minute I’m awake and then in my nightmares when I do sleep. For me it’s not in the past but very much in the present.

How can I forgive when my abusers deny anything ever happened? How can I forgive when my abusers say anything bad that ‘might’ have happened was because I such a bad person, they did nothing wrong?

Why are churches and so many Christians so closed minded about the realities of living with past sexual abuse? Why are churches and so many Christians so closed minded about the realities of the deep damage of childhood abuse and the complexities of the healing processes?

Why do so many churches have systems in place to prevent abuse happening, but provide little or no support to REALLY help victims heal? Why is it that so many Christians tell you that as you are a Christian, you are a new person so your past is gone, so all the stuff from your past abuse should be gone too?

Why is it that so many Christians tell you that you are doing something wrong if you aren’t healing from the damage of the abuse or if you don’t have joy etc?

Why do so many Christians tell you that if you read your bible enough and pray enough you should be fine? Thereby implying that you cannot be reading your bible or praying enough because you are a screwed up mess!

Why is it that so many Christians think you don’t need counselling or anything; you just need to get over it, forgive your abusers and forget it? WHY IS THAT? –Princess Fi, Spiritual + Religious Abuse

 

As for your partner’s assertion, yes – you may have sent angry emails or yelled or slammed doors or called names. So your abuser claims YOU were abusing him/her.

But it’s more likely you were REACTING to being abused by your partner. What can make it even more difficult for you to see and understand at this point is that some of their abuse may be subtle and covert rather than obvious and overt.

This causes further difficulty for you in identifying the abuse – and makes it easier for your abuser to convince you that it’s all your fault, or the problem is really with YOU – that you’re “crazy”, or “imagining things”.

They’ll abuse you, and when you react to that abuse, they accuse YOU of abusing THEM and they play the victim role. They don’t call it “crazymaking” for nothing!

This is the stage at which an abused partner often describes as being in the “fog” of abuse. Their abusive partner has guilted them in to accepting ALL blame for the issues in the relationship, and caused them to doubt their own perceptions of the mistreatment they’re receiving.  —Let’s Talk About Reactive Abuse

The narcissist’s sense of self, which has not progressed past that of a very young child, they cannot deal with the reality of a mirror being held up before them.

Unlike the alcoholic who may in due course “see the light”, a narcissist simply does not have the emotional skills to step outside of themselves and glimpse the truth in the mirror.

The essence of NPD is that the sufferer lives in a bubble that can only accommodate themselves. Self-reflection is definitely not in the narcissist’s bag of skills and expecting them to be capable of doing so can court disaster.

Be prepared for rage and aggression to be aimed at you. Be prepared to not be heard.. Be prepared to have everything that you claim about them, to be reassigned to you.

When and if you are strong enough to cope with this treatment, then you may decide to go ahead. If you are hoping for recognition and a change for the better, more pain is in store. –Beth McHugh, Should You Confront a Narcissist About Their Narcissism?

 

Have you ever marveled at how your abusive wife, girlfriend or ex is able to do and say the most hurtful, underhanded and contemptible things and then portray herself as the innocent victim?

Have you ever wondered how she is able to convincingly accuse others, usually her victims, of the abusive behaviors and attitudes of which she is actually guilty?

Wonder no more, the answer may be DARVO. –Dr. Tara J. Palmatier, Presto, Change-o, DARVO: Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender

 

DARVO refers to a reaction that perpetrators of wrong doing, particularly sexual offenders, may display in response to being held accountable for their behavior.

The perpetrator or offender may Deny the behavior, Attack the individual doing the confronting, and Reverse the roles of Victim and Offender such that the perpetrator assumes the victim role and turns the true victim into an alleged offender.

This occurs, for instance, when an actually guilty perpetrator assumes the role of “falsely accused” and attacks the accuser’s credibility or even blames the accuser of being the perpetrator of a false accusation. –Jennifer J. Freyd, What is DARVO?

But here, more than anywhere else, find my advocate:

Of course, not everyone who denies wrong doing is engaging in DARVO.  Many partners and exes of abusive women are accused of things they didn’t do or of things that never happened. Naturally, when this happens, you deny the accusation and perhaps feel a little (or a lot) bewildered.

How do you know if an individual’s denial is the truth or an instance of DARVO? Freyd (1997, pp. 23-24) proposes:

“It is important to distinguish types of denial, for an innocent person will probably deny a false accusation. Thus denial is not evidence of guilt.

However, I propose that a certain kind of indignant self-righteousness, and overly stated denial, may in fact relate to guilt.

“I hypothesize that if an accusation is true, and the accused person is abusive, the denial is more indignant, self-righteous and manipulative, as compared with denial in other cases.

“Similarly, I have observed that actual abusers threaten, bully and make a nightmare for anyone who holds them accountable or asks them to change their abusive behavior.

This attack, intended to chill and terrify, typically includes threats of lawsuits, overt and covert attacks, on the whistle-blower’s credibility and so on.

“The attack will often take the form of focusing on ridiculing the person who attempts to hold the offender accountable. The attack will also likely focus on ad hominem instead of intellectual/evidential issues.

“Finally, I propose that the offender rapidly creates the impression that the abuser is the wronged one, while the victim or concerned observer is the offender. Figure and ground are completely reversed.

“The more the offender is held accountable, the more wronged the offender claims to be.” –Dr. Tara J. Palmatier, Darvo

 

The thing that you personally have long ago forgotten, or can easily forget, is happening to me now, and will happen to me again to-morrow.  Remember this, and you will be able to understand a little of why I am writing to you, and in this manner writing.  —Oscar Wilde, De Profundis

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.

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