So I started another group on Facebook and the love and goodwill started anew.
There was one member in particular, however, who raised the hairs on the back of my neck the same way the other woman (who I’d recently friend-divorced) did.
She was so sweet and seemed so fragile. I’d never met her, in real life, but she seemed to really see something in me that she needed. She called me her “machete mama,” a reference to when I wrote about how single parents are like castaways on a deserted island hacking their way through the jungle. Someone’s up front, with a machete, cutting down brush and clearing a path. I guess, in her mind, that was me. And while that title felt burdensome, I didn’t mind being someone’s champion.
I never mind.
Which makes me the perfect magnet for personality disorders.
But despite this sweet, idyllic long-distance friendship there were things that, for lack of a better term, skeeved me out.
She told me she loved me often, which was creepy. Despite having the group to share in, she would always text me directly with her problems, which felt like an invasion into my life and space. She planned a trip to stay at my home despite us having never met. We did video chat once, which was nice, but she was oddly familiar with me during our chat. At one point she panned the computer and was not wearing pants. She responded with a casual “whoops.”
She wanted to video chat because she needed advice on whether or not to involve herself in the criminal prosecution of her former rapist. She also shared with me the details of said rape, which was possibly the second most horrifying rape story I’ve ever heard, with a kind of detached casualness that I found odd.
But, I’ve never been raped so I thought maybe it was some sort of normal dissociation that happened with rape victims.
Anyway, a few days before Christmas I received a text that she’d been raped again by the same guy. Her story was that he’d found out she’d been involved in this whole legal rape case and singled her out and punished her by raping her again. She sent me a picture of the choke marks and bruises around her neck.
Naturally, I was in a panic.
But I was very confused as to why she just told me.
I thought, if she is in real pain or danger why wouldn’t she call on the emotional support of the entire fifty-woman group?
But, because of the severity of the situation and the picture of the bruises any small, itchy doubts were quickly pushed aside.
One of my friends was hurting. One of my friends was in danger. One of my friends was in a hospital – alone.
All I could think was “How can I make it better?”
I urged her to share with the group. She did, even posting the picture of her bruises with the headline “Trigger Warning”. And the group, as I expected, showered her with emotional support immediately.
How could this happen?
Where are the police?
Why is it taking so long to get a rape kit done?
Where is your family?
We were all consumed.
Completely consumed with this woman, her rape and her pain.
However, the next day I received a shocking email from one of the ladies in my group. She was trying to find a way to send money and this woman was not answering any texts or phone calls. She decided to look the woman up online to see if she could find any leads that would help her contact her.
And that’s when all hell broke loose.
This woman, as it turned out, was a world-renowned internet hoax artist.
Just typing her name in a search engine led to about a dozen websites dedicated to warning people and exposing her lies.
This woman faked a rape, faked HIV, faked cancer.
She went so far as to shave her head and order hospital gowns to solidify her story.
She accepted thousands of dollars from people concerned with this young woman and her harrowing story of survival. And she was about to do it again.
It wasn’t just my group, but there was another group – centered mostly on Attachment Parenting single moms – that was also in the process of setting up a foundation or donation site for her.
Confusion. Hurt. Rage.
All of these things invaded the minds and hearts of the women in my group.
I was mostly wildly shocked and entertained.
The whole hullabaloo was like a reality-show train wreck.
I asked the group how the situation should be handled and the general consensus was that, whether the current rape was real or not, the group no longer felt like a safe space and she should leave.
I eliminated her from the group. When she confronted me I told her exactly why.
“Someone in the group Googled you so we could find a way to contact you and we found all your hoax stuff. The trust is broken. I wish you well but you have to go.”
The source of the drama was gone. I dusted my virtual hands and believed we were done with it. But we weren’t even close to done with it.
The source of the pain was gone but something insidious took root.
The infiltration and antics of the notorious lying woman caught everyone off guard.
Once I removed her from the group, I assumed it was back to business as usual.
I assumed wrong.
That same day I got three messages from women in the group:
“_______ raises my red flags.”
“How well do you know _______?”
“I think you should get rid of everyone you don’t know personally.”
“Maybe we should run everyone through Google, just to be safe.”
And just like that, where one seat sat empty Suspicion was more than happy to settle in and get comfortable.
Literally weeks after we were all high on camaraderie, sending each other Christmas gifts on what is usually the most sickeningly lonely time of the year for single moms, we’d grown cynical and mistrustful.
My sole opportunity for social interaction was crumbling before my eyes, dying of infection.
But when I stepped outside myself to find out why this was happening, the gravity and the cruelty of what this woman does became clear.
Again, aside from the occasional unwanted grope from my nightclubbing days I have never been sexually assaulted. But many, many women in my group have.
And if you are a single mother, mentally ill or not, who thrives on stealing money and attention from large groups of people, what better target than a group of single mothers, a third of whom have been victims of sexual abuse?
This woman sat among us long enough for us to get comfortable enough to share our experiences and our truths and she used them against us. As one of my friends stated, “We had a safe place, we had trust, and she violated that trust and essentially built a stage on our backs so she could act out her shit.”
A Predator.
In the days that followed the ousting, while still fielding emails about who is real and who is fake and who is suspicious, slowly women began to share their feelings on what had happened.
This liar made one critical mistake in her almost flawless performance.
After posting pictures of her “bruises” from the hospital, she sent a second picture of herself “feeling better” with this bizarre watered-down smile on her face. I had no compass as to whether or not this was normal behavior but for all the women in the group who had been raped or sexually assaulted, this was the blaring alarm.
But we didn’t question her in that moment because no one wants to be the person to question the validity of the traumatic event – a traumatic event that was still so real and so raw for so many.
24 hours worth of this woman’s drama undid years and years of emotional safety for my friends. This incident opened wounds, reignited nightmares, revived anxiety and paranoia. It was PTSD for them.
Getting rid of the problem didn’t end the problem at all. What this woman did is more vile and more insidious than I could have imagine
d.
I believed, like so many people do, that the anonymity of the internet provided some sort of buffer to real-life emotional damage and the kids who got caught up in some silly Catfish drama were exactly that – naive kids. She is in her early 20s so, to me, she’s a “naive kid.”
But she was a naive kid who had the power to unsettle the lives and hearts of who knows how many across the country over her years and years as a con artist. And she impacts not just the women she touches directly, but victims of sexual abuse – period.
Women like her only further perpetuate the slut-shaming and victim blaming that keeps 97% of all rapists OUT of JAIL.
The seeds of mistrust and doubt have been planted.
I hurt so deeply for my friends.
I always have words, but for the way I feel about what this snake has done to my friends’ hearts I have none.
I have none.
On how everyone will cope with the frothing of painful memories, the digging up of buried hurt, I can only hope for swift and effective emotional growth and peace. I felt for a while, since the group was mine, that somehow this was my fault. Maybe I didn’t vet people well enough. And this is the second person with a personality disorder that has slithered their way into my inner circle. What’s wrong with me that this keeps happening?
A friend answered that question well:
“You don’t attract crazies. You attract people. People want to be around you and statistically, some of those people are going to be crazy.”
So here’s my ultimate takeaway from all this madness:
Firstly, drawing emotionally vampiric personality disorder people is not an indication that something is wrong with me – or you – or any of us who has dealt with one of a handful of these types.
If anything, it’s an indication that there are some things about you that are really, really right.
It means you are empathetic, helpful, big-hearted and strong. You fight aggressively, teeth bared, for those who are hurting and need a champion. That is not something to be ashamed of and it’s not something to allow a few assholes to take away from you.
Secondly, there is no completely safe place because humans– no forum, no Facebook group, no self-help club – any and all bonding and sharing is at the risk of being hurt. All human closeness involves an element of emotional danger. But that’s the risk we take.
I can hear some of my happily-marrieds disagreeing with me but I also know many, many happily-marrieds who learned the hard and painful way that sometimes even your “safe place” is contaminated without your knowing.
I’ve gotten more good back from my investments in humans than bad. I’m not afraid of a little risk. A couple bad returns aren’t slowing me down.
The best I can do is continue to draw my boundaries with a permanent marker. I used to be terrible at this. I had no boundaries. I used to pride myself on “having never thrown anyone away.” Now, honestly, I am most impressed with my ability to say “no” without feeling the need to explain myself.
Despite all the hurt everyone is coping with, ultimately I am proud of us, some of us having narrowly escaped marriages to poisonous, vampire people for trusting our Spidey senses and being swift and decisive.
Jessica a year ago would have wanted to hear her side and work it out and try to play devil’s advocate. I still have no way of knowing if this rape was a real or fake one.
Jessica now trusts her gut, takes action and lets it go. It doesn’t matter if it is real or fake. There are plenty of resources available for her. She has a family. I don’t have to be the human band-aid.
The group is still fractured now. People still feel unsafe and there’s nothing I can do to change or alleviate that and it’s not my responsibility to. But like all wounds, hopefully, this one will heal and we will all be stronger and smarter from it.
Brick Wall
This is a the writing of a mad black woman.
So, let me start with the bad news.
I was rejected today from a college I applied to.
Now let me explain why this news is pretty close to making me pull a crazy right now.
This decision not to accept me is based on my transcripts from the last time I was in college which was over thirteen years ago. Thirteen years ago, I didn't want to be in college so I screwed around and flunked a lot. I faked wanting to go back a couple of times only to withdraw. Then I met my ex and had a bunch of kids and a crappy marriage.
Now, I'm a grown ass woman. I've got three kids and no education. Now I know exactly what I want to do. I want to teach abroad. I want to travel and, most of all, I want to show my kids that I can do this.
Nothing, on Earth, is more important to me than my kids seeing me, as an individual. achieve at least one fucking goal.
My oldest daughter is almost eleven. I am past the halfway mark. I need to be in and out of school ASAP because I NEED to feel like I contributed to her financial security at some point before she leaves my house.
The whole time I was married we bounced from home to home, following the lead of "the man of the house" who barely managed to keep a roof over us but always managed to have cigarettes or alcohol at his disposal.
So I left.
And despite being intellectually impressive and effervescent, I worked mid-range hospitality or office jobs with hourly pay. I never made enough to cover after school care or a baby sitter so that I could work full time or get health insurance and somehow, even with an ex-husband with no schedule in the same city, I didn't have his support to watch his own children so I could work.
So I ran away home and things have been better. We have food and shelter. And that's great. But, my mom and sister are doing the bulk of the financial supporting. My ex does none. My contribution to our well-being, as agreed upon by my mom and I, was going to college and getting my degree so that I can get out of this tar pit and stay out.
I don't want to be on welfare. I don't want to rely on family.
I need to move forward.
I just recently identified that my complete apathy and disconnection from myself was depression.
I'm a little depressed. I've gone numb. This waiting period was killing me. But what kept me from letting it consume me was the hope that I was going back to school, again, in the Spring. I knew that the interim was temporary, so I could trudge forward.
I had a plan.
I just had to wait for my "yes."
And today, completely by surprise, in the mail with Christmas cards and my water bill was a big, fat No.
No.
It doesn't matter how hungry, how competent, how focused, how determined you are.
You are just the academic footprint you made when you were eighteen and stupid and directionless.
Rejection.
And I cried today...
Which would be the first time since May when my ex-husband failed to call his child on her birthday.
I felt like I'd been shot. Or hit by a train. The carrot was yanked away. I sobbed in the bathroom. Then my best friend called and I sobbed again. Then I read an encouraging text from another friend and sobbed some more.
I'm crestfallen.
There is no other word.
So now the money I was going to spend on Christmas presents is just going to college applications and transcripts.
The kids' gifts are covered by my family and they already knew mommy couldn't get them anything and assumed Daddy wouldn't.
The reason I'd only applied to one school was because I could only afford to apply to one. When you have no income, no alimony and no child support - $50 is a lot of money.
I have an ice pick in my chest - the stress has a distinct feeling.
I am in a panic.
I just really don't have the time to wait another semester to start school.
Like I said, I'm already more than halfway done with the child raising.
So I finally get my shit together when
she's an adult? What good is that?
I need this piece of paper YESTERDAY.
I know I screwed up.
I should never have moved to Tampa. I sure as shit should have never spoken to him.
I picked a terrible husband. I shoulda just stayed in school. I know I know I know...
But I didn't.
And I feel like I'm cleaning up my act.
I have completely devoted myself to my children. I'm not one of those moms still chasin' fairies in the field.
Party time is over... has been over...
I dove right in to parenthood and never looked back.
When I got divorced I didn't wipe my tears with someone's penis.
My one and only goal is being a contributing member of society for my children.
Dating and sex really don't factor in to that plan and, therefore, are a waste of my time.
I cannot possibly be more focused on bettering myself.
SO...
WHAT IS THIS SHIT, UNIVERSE!?!?!??!
Do NOT do this to me right now.
Do. Fucking. NOT.
Universe, if you were a person I would grab you by your throat and snarl right in your face and tell you straight up:
"I am NOT the one to mess with right now. You get back in line and you do what I need you to do. Period."
But the Universe is not a person so the rage coursing through my veins has nothing to do but make my chest hurt and make my throat close and give me a headache.
I have two kids to look after tonight so I can't go on a bender. I don't do drugs. I am sick to death of eating my feelings. So I just have to sit here and BE angry and heartbroken.
I find this to be an inconvenience.
I know I'll get through this because, let me tell you, I am fueled by pure rage now.
RAGE.
How DARE the Universe slow me down? I don't know who the Universe thinks he is.
I need a bat.
I need a bat and a room full of fine china.
I want to TEAR something APART right now.
And I want to rage cry.
Actually, I know exactly what I want to do. I want to take a bat to my CAR which is leaking transmission fluid all over Mobile, Alabama every time I leave my house...
Pancakes Taste Like Poverty: And Other Post-Divorce Revelations Page 20
