Haters Gonna Hate

It seems that I have my very own cyberstalker.  The odd thing is, it's not someone I was expecting, but it is someone I knew in the past.  Someone with whom I was friendly in junior high, who changed schools or moved and reconnected on Facebook. Even back then she could run hot and cold, one day being friendly and the next being snotty.  After the initial FB 'Hi How Are Yous', we really didn't talk much anymore.  She never commented on anything I did or posted and didn't appear to be on FB much at all, till last summer when she was campaigning for a candidate in our state.  Her tactics were abusive and invasive, even calling some of our classmates at home at dinner to try and solicit money.  She was very belligerent in some of her comments when our more conservative classmates disagreed with her. A few people privately told me that they had half a mind to complain to the candidate's campaign manager about her over the top rantings and bullying people to get donations.  At some point last summer I unfriended her because I was cleaning house of people I didn't talk to at all.  It was nothing personal, and she certainly wasn't the only former classmate or coworker that got cut.

Earlier this year she was angrily commenting on someone else's thread...I happened to put my two cents in on that same thread.  She sent me a message demanding to know why we weren't FB friends anymore.  She was clearly very angry.  I told her it was nothing personal....I had removed people that didn't use their profiles much and/or didn't interact with me.  I got back a super vitriolic message screaming at me and sarcastically saying that she was sorry she didn't live up to my expectations as a FB friend.  She unloaded to me about all of her health problems and abuse issues from when she was a kid.  I was already in a bad mood at the time, it was January which had started out really crappy for me, so I tersely messaged back that, for one thing, I'd unfriended her last summer and it took 6 months for her to even notice, I was sorry she was sick and that I had also grown weary of her incessant postings about the candidate which bordered on abusive.  Well that did it.  She went off on me big time.  Big time.  It was so bad that I had to block her because I just didn't feel like keeping up the messages and I had other things to worry about.

Next thing I know, I got a FB message from someone I didn't know.  But I had a hunch it was her.  She went off about how ugly I am, how much I've let myself go, how blind Russell must be to be with me.  Five minutes of quick internet research revealed that the person's name on the message was her dead mother's name.  Plus she used a pic of her candidate as the picture for that profile!!  My god did she think I fell off the turnip truck and didn't know it was her?  I messaged back that I was sorry she felt that way, sorry that she was jealous of my happiness.  I told her all that anger and hate was bad for her health, that I was beautiful inside and Russell loved me the way I was.  I then reported her to FB and blocked that name as well.

A few days after that, one of my old friends sent me a message, asking me who she was.  I messaged back, 'why? did she go off about what a horrible person I am in a status?'  She said yes, and that she wasn't about to take it without sticking up for me.  I didn't ask her to do it, and I told her to let it go....that my friends would never believe anything that person said anyway, and my detractors would (And yes, I do have detractors out there).  Whatever, right?  So my friend said there was no way she was letting it slide and she apparently told off my stalker.  My friend found herself also unfriended by that person, right after that.  

I pretty much thought it was over till a couple of months ago, I got an email from Pinterest saying that she was now following one of my pinboards called 'I love my man' which has lovey-dovey quotes on it.  I immediately blocked her on Pinterest.

The other day I checked my Google+ account for the first time in ages.  During Blogging A-Z, some of the blogs I visited had a comment feature that posted to Google+.  I didn't realize comments would end up on MY account; I thought they went on the blogger's profile.  I was stunned to see a vitriolic, hate filled comment from her at the end of May, telling me what a pathetic, fat, ugly loser I am and what a loser Russell is.  How immature I am for posting stuff on Pinterest that say 'I love my boyfriend'.  I only skimmed it...I was just so shocked that she was continuing to harass me all these months later.  I started to leave a 'fuck off and die' comment but I didn't want it to escalate, so I deleted everything I could off my Google+ account.  I've also disabled the ability to email me on my blog.  I have stopped short of taking this blog private like I had to do 2 years ago, but if she starts to harass me here I will have to turn on comment moderation (but never CAPTCHA because that won't stop her).

I don't know why she is so obsessed with me and trying to tear me down.  Clearly I'm living rent free in her head.  She's got it in for me and is trying to engage me in a free for all message/comment war, but I'm not going to bite.  As the quote says, "Someone who hates you normally hates you for three reasons:  Either they see you as a threat, they hate themselves or they want to be you."  Well, I'm not a threat.  Based upon her angry comments on other people's FB threads, an angry tirade against her sister that I saw a year or so ago, and some stuff she said in messages to me, she's angry at the world and hates herself.  Does she want to be me?  I have no idea.

To be honest, I pity her. I've been in that angry place and it's no fun (although I never tried to tear someone else down in the process).  Friends who know about the situation think she's a complete whack job but I told them to feel sorry for her.  She's obviously in a lot of pain and miserable.  She's railing at the world and I've become an easy target for her to bully because she's jealous that I've found happiness and true love with a man who is crazy about me & loves my body the way it is.  Women/girls can be so mean and they like to go for the jugular when insulting other women by using the ultimate self esteem destroying 'you're fat and ugly' comment.  Personally I don't care and I've never cared what people think about me.  Love me as I am or walk away.  I'm so done with diets and my man makes me feel beautiful & sexy, and that's all that matters to me.  I haven't seen a picture of this person, but I can only imagine that her nearly 50 year old self probably isn't the youthful person she was at one time either.  She's jealous that I have friends who love me and stick up for me, and that I've lived a very interesting life full of awesome experiences.

I'm not sure what to do at this point.  If I run into her somewhere & she gets in my face, or she purposely shows up at a craft show or a wake/funeral just to fuck with me, I will have no choice but to take out a Restraining Order on her.  I am hoping that my ignoring her vitriol will make her go away.  I've done this blog post in the off chance that she'll see it and realize that I'm not going to engage her in a war of words.  Maybe people will think I'm being weak by walking away instead of standing up for myself but I just don't have the time or energy for this at all. I hate conflict and I'm not going to play her game.  I have my own life to live.  I know the psychology behind her attacks and I truly feel sorry for her because she's in a lot of pain, mentally, physically and emotionally.  I only hope that she can find peace.....or at least someone else to direct her anger at.

Bottom line is that haters are gonna hate, and there's nothing I can do about it at all.

Beautiful Tuesday

One of my friends from high school, Laurel Gage, comes from a very, very musical family.  It being a small town, her dad, Bobby Gage, went to school with my cousin Dickie, in the 1950's.  Bobby is very well known in the area for his country western music and he owned a club called For the Good Times, 'back in the day'.  So it came as no surprise that Laurel's son, Matty, has picked up the musical torch with his band, Beautiful Tuesday.  Their popularity is beginning to snowball around here, as they are very tight and very good.  They just got back from making their official video for "(I'll Prove You) Something More", a great tune with a strong anti-bullying message. Matty is the cutie on guitar.  You can also check out their blog HERE.  Their mission is to bring the topic of bullying to the forefront and help those kids who feel hopeless to realize that they are  'something more'.

 I hope you take the time to give it a listen; you won't be sorry.  

Shared Memories: The Bad Kind

All these years, I thought it was just me.  36? 37 years now?  Convinced it was just me.

I had a 5th grade teacher who was.....odd.  It's nothing that I can pinpoint, but it's just a feeling I had.  I didn't like being alone in the class with him, if I was staying after for extra help, or had gotten to school early, before most of the school buses arrived.  He made me uncomfortable.  He never touched me, or did anything overtly inappropriate, but it was just a feeling I had.  He kind of...leered.  He sometimes made strange comments which were subtly inappropriate.  I just wrote it off as me just not clicking with him.  I liked a lot of my elementary school teachers, but not all of them, and he was one that I disliked.  

I will, however, share a story with you about that year, to give you an idea of what he could be like.  It's something that has stayed with me my entire life because I was so scared, and he seemed so wickedly amused by what he had asked me to do.  A bit too amused.  I had been having trouble with a bully that year.  She was in the 6th grade.  She never actually hit me, except sometimes punching me in the arm or shoulder, or shoving me.  Mostly she terrorized me with words and threats, extorting my lunch money or making me sneak candy to school to give to her, or else, and she seemed to take great pleasure in the fact that I was scared of her.    Back then the elementary school classrooms were divided into "Clusters", separated by 'walls' of bookcases.  That year my Cluster included my 5th grade class, the bully's 6th grade class and 2 4th grade classes.  We had the same teacher for all subjects from the second we arrived in the morning till the second we left in the afternoon, except for gym, art and music.  So this girl and her 2 toadies, also girls, got great pleasure in tormenting me at recess.  They were tough girls, the kind you knew would end up as the hardcore partiers once they hit their teens.  

I never understood why this one girl chose to despise me, b/c I actually was close friends with her sister and brother who were in my class, and they were constantly telling her to leave me alone, but she wouldn't.  One day the 3 of them hadn't come back to their class after recess.  My 5th grade teacher told me to go check the Girl's Room for them.  Why me?  Why a 5th grader?  These girls are in the 6th grade! Why the same 5th grader who is being actively bullied by these girls?  I didn't want to go.  I remember my eyes widening at the request, but I was mute, unable to speak.  I got up from my desk and stood there, all eyes on me, my face getting hotter and redder.  He came over, smiling in that creepy 'sweet' way.  He told me it would be alright, and gave me a shove towards the door to our Cluster.  I went out and went into the bathroom.  There they were, and I was trapped.  They came at me slowly, the ringleader in the front.  She put both hands on the door on either side of my head and got up in my face.  She hissed through gritted teeth that if I told that they were in there, I was dead.  I don't know if I nodded or spoke or what.  She left me go without the pounding I was fully expecting.  I went back to the class room, sick, stressed, pale, shaking. I sat down without making eye contact with anyone, hoping that I was invisible. Wanting to be invisible.  My teacher asked me if they were in there.  I whispered, "no", and stuck my nose in my book, my face burning, heart racing, sweating like a pig.  He knew damn fucking well what he was sending me into.  He knew they were in there.  He knew they were bullying me on the playground.  Just a wee bit sadistic, don't you think?  The girls were busted and somehow, miraculously I was left alone and didn't face sure death at the next recess like I thought.  I often wonder if they were told to stay away from me.  I don't know.  But it wasn't my 5th grade teacher who stuck up for me.  

One of my dearest friends, who was also my babysitter in the 70's when I was in elementary school and she was in junior high (we're only 4 years apart and we rode the same school bus) has been posting photos of her old yearbooks from Sandwich from the mid 60's through the mid 70's.  It was a small town then, so we all knew the teachers and staff, as class after class would make their way through the same teachers on their way up.  It's been so cool to see the pictures of everyone the way I last remember them.  Names long dormant in the deepest parts of my mind are coming back as easily as if it were yesterday.

My friend made a comment about the 5th grade teacher that I also had, 4 years after her.  She was afraid of him and he'd been pretty abusive.  That opened up a dialogue between several fellow female students who also had him for their teacher too.  As it turns out, we all had the same experiences with this man.  He was 'off'.  He terrified.  He was abusive.  He threw one kid up against a cement wall.  Passive-Aggressive. He really did say the strange, veiled inappropriate things I also experienced.  None of us complained to anyone.  We were all too scared.  We didn't want to make waves.  We thought it was 'just me'.   

Can you imagine the sense of relief I have right now?  All these years I thought it was 'just me'?  But it wasn't.  These are other women who were in various graduating years, not just mine.  We all drew the short straw when we were assigned to his 5th grade class.  I don't know what happened to him after I finished the year.  We 6th graders moved into a different part of the school the following year, then it was off to the 'new' high school after that.  I didn't think about him unless I saw my 5th grade class photo, which was fairly often because I've always had easy access to all my class photos.  Those feelings would come back and I'd just dismiss it as me misinterpreting things he was saying.  I assumed that I was the only person who thought they'd heard what they'd heard, and that no one else felt that way.  That I was the only one. 

The thought that, deep into the 20th Century, into the mid 1970's, abusive teachers were allowed to keep their jobs shocks me.  Kids weren't encouraged to rock the boat.  I never told my parents about the things he said because they wouldn't have done anything.  Even at age 10, I knew it would do no good. It would have been a scandal.  I would have been told to suck it up and the school year would be over soon.

I'm glad that times have changed.