A Jewish term “eating your guts,” is what I have been feeling the last week. I refuse to call myself a victim for I am anything but helpless. The words annoyed, angry, and confused better describe my emotions. Dealing with an on-line cyberstalker insulted my reasoning until I realized I was attempting to find logic from the illogical, and possibly mentally ill individual who became obsessed with me after a single conflict in Writers’ Group.
When one assumes they are dealing with a Troll, the best advice is to ignore them. After two weeks, that did not work and escalated the female’s activity. Unlike anyone else who uses Goggle to search my name, she was only able to come up with two posts claiming I made them myself, write no books, sold no books, and could help no one with editing. She posted these blatant lies, and tagged me up to 18 times in a half hour. Her defamation was intentional and it was clear she intended to damage me personally and my business of editing and book sales. Many wondered why I didn’t block her. Blocking gives people free hand to defame you.
Her posts, as many as four and five in a few hours continued to be for the intent of getting me banned from the group for “lying to people” about who I was and what I could do for them. She assured all my potential customers her expert opinion was that I could do nothing to help anyone. When she posted this same diatribe in comments after I offered writing help to someone, I did reply and comment that I had never told anyone “I could take them to bestselling” or “I am a big star.” I asked her to copy and paste any post I made saying either of those things. She was unable to find a single post, but continued to make post and tag me in several posts to others she had written about me.
Facebook gave her a few suspensions, but before the lengthy one, she crossed a line with me, and I contacted an attorney in her city. This may seem over-the-top for a “group troll,” but it went a lot further than trolling to defamation and attacking me on a very personal level. A Google search shows many of her lies about to be lies, and her insisting I know no one outside the group was comical for three reasons. First, many of friends-in-real-life are members of this group. Second, many members have become Facebook friends having access to my wall and photos. My real life is theirs for the reading. Third, she made the same claims to the many who disagreed with her. When she searched my Facebook posts and found one open to friends and friends of friends, sent a friend request to one of my friends, then she attacked on that post on my wall and used a ridiculous ID she created with her name scrambled as her “friend” to tag team me. This is the only post I ever made asking for people to buy my books, and I would autograph and send them personalized. This is what eats my guts about the level she would stoop. MY HUSBAND WAS DIAGNOSED WITH LUNG CANCER, and I offered signed books to raise funds for medication and doctor co-pays – and that sub-human not only responded to my comment on my personal wall, but when her 60 day suspension was over, came to Writers’ Group and falsely accused me of making up my husband’s illness to sell books. How low can a cyberstalker go?
The attorney took a look at the screen-shots, the tags in activity log, and advised me that what she was doing was illegal and my first course of action was to file a police complaint. I don’t care what anyone thinks about me doing just that – I did. Thus, when the sub-human got off suspension, she came right back to the group and demanded that I tell her why. No, the Detective did not find her cyberstalking funny or a waste of time: cyberstalking is a felony and includes social media. The “no-action-yet” is the result of me being unable to make the six hour trip to her town because my husband was very ill while going through cancer treatment, and now has stage four. I really have more important things to deal with then this monster who has done all she could to make my life miserable for months. The line she crossed eats my guts, and I needed to put it on paper. I’m a writer and this is how I release emotions.
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