Editor’s Note: Lovefraud received the following article from the reader in Australia who posts as “Dani S.”
I recently had the unfortunate experience of coming across another personality disorder, this time on Facebook. I love Facebook, as growing up in a small country town and moving to the city, Facebook has been a great place for me to reconnect with old school friends and to chat with them online.
I have always been very careful never to add friend request unless I know the person personally, so I thought that I was safe! Wrong!
I joined a group called “Dead Beat Dads.” The group had over 300 members, ranging from mothers, stepfathers and children of fathers that have experienced or are experiencing the frustration of fathers abandoning their financial and emotional responsibility to their children.
Antagonist
I initially enjoyed the connection and the chats between members, but it was not long before a guy came into the group who antagonised the members. If a member posted something, he would pounce back. “Well you shouldn’t have deliberately got yourself pregnant. It is your fault and to then ask for him to pay is disgusting.” Frequently he told members they were liars.
He put up post after post, sometimes 20 a day. He loved posting statistics of suicide rates of children who live without a father and made the comment frequently that “False claims of abuse is abuse,”
He completely dominated any comment made by any members, and members found his tone and comments very offensive. He claimed that he had no children and lived with his wife of 10 years who had kids to another man. He said he was happy his wife never asked for money from her ex, and said that the ex saw the kids all the time.
Aliases
I watch his posts for a while and noticed that his story varied, if not changed completely. He said to members that we needed to show him DNA proof before we could call anyone a Dead Beat!
He seemed to spend 24 hours a day watching and posting on this group, and it didn’t take me too long to realise this person had some real issues. When he made a comment, his “men’s group” would quickly jump to his defence.
I did a bit of research on the members of his men’s group and realised that all eight of their Facebook profiles had no information, two had the same picture as one another, and six of them had no friends at all.
I suggested to him that I believed his “men’s group” was a group of made up people with only him as the member. I said, “It is funny, when you post something, minutes later all these men fly to your defence and six of them have not obtained one friend but go straight to the Dead Beat Dads site.”
Stalking
He was furious with my comments, called me a liar and said I should learn to close my legs and I should be responsible for my child on my own, or I should let the father see the child. I told him my child’s father abandoned her and stated he never wanted to see her again. The guy said, “Well if you weren’t such a C#*T, he would have wanted to see the child.”
Then it all started! Some of friends off my Facebook friends list got emails from him saying I was a prostitute and fathers have rights and I should go to jail. He emailed my partner six times from four of his aliases, saying I am a prostitute, he had me last night when I was working down the road, and she said she is leaving you for me because you have a small penis. Another said, “I bet you can taste me in her!” I One that made us laugh said, “She is leaving you for me and taking your Camero and Trans Am.” Being Australian, we don’t even have those cars here. The worst was he emailed my daughter and said your mum is a whore and you need to go to the police to inform them.
I now know that I was not protecting myself well enough on Facebook, as everyone on the outside world could see who I was in a relationship with, and the link to my children. I also had my place of work on there, and when I looked at his profile, he had my place of work listed in his likes and interests.
Even though this person claimed to be in Canada and I am in Australia, I was a little unnerved about the situation. But I was angry that, because he didn’t like my comment, he decided that to silence me, he would, stalk, harass and slander me. He also said on the group that he would copy my picture and start a profile of me and write stupid comments on the group. I said, “Well that will look funny, me arguing with myself, and you have just written what you are going to do.”
Confrontation
I got back onto the Dead Beat Dads site and posted to the guy, “Why do you have my place of work listed on your profile? And why have you stalked me, emailed my friends and family? I believe you have a personality disorder.”
He said I was lying and another member said to the guy, “I have just looked at your profile and her place of work is there, so it is obvious there is only one liar amongst us.”
After that post, four women from the site emailed me, saying the same thing had happened to them. The group’s admin contacted me also. I decided to not fear this person, and to backspath him, as EB would say.
I posted next, “It does not take a psychology degree to realise this guy has a serious personality disorder. His obsession with this site is beyond normal, and stalking members is just plain psychopathic! I believe you have lost your children due to abuse, as you keep quoting, ”˜False claims of abuse is abuse.’
“You get angry at women that move interstate, and you claim to know family and criminal law. I believe what you know about family law is what you have learnt trying to see your kids. If you had studied law for 15 years as you claim, you would have a career in law, not as a self-employed MC. You talk to us women on here like you are talking to your ex, and I believe you stalk members because in your mind, you are stalking your ex, as you have lost control of your children and your ex, and they probably have to move interstate all the time to be safe from you! You say you know about criminal law and stalking laws. Is that because you have been in so much trouble for your behaviour?
Another member jumped in, saying she believed he was an absolute Spath when he said that (we) need to show (you) DNA testing and that is very egocentric and grandiose! The group member thanked me for standing up for myself and the other members as he had been a disturbing menace for a couple of months.
Lock down
Then the next day when I went on to look at the group it was gone! He said it was his and his men’s group job to shut down every Dead Beat Dads group on the Internet.
Strangely now, I saw him, I heard him and I knew him. I knew the language, I knew the threats and I knew the bullying! I saw the red flag almost immediately. But this time I didn’t cower. I may have been wrong making such a big statement to him, but I will never be controlled by anyone ever again, or have anyone try to put fear into me again. I just hope I have heard the last of him.
I have now locked down my Facebook profile so no information is visible for the world to see. I also now will not up my photo on my profile, as he made me realise how easy it is to steal identities. I maybe still a little naïve, but I am getting there!
The group leader’s Facebook profile is no longer available and the group is gone. I just pray she didn’t also fall victim to this harassment and cyberbullying as well. He laughed that he was untouchable.
Dani S
Dear Dani,
Yea, had thought about moving to Oz until I found out they had disarmed everyone but the OUTLAWS. All the honest people gave up their guns but of course the outlaws and crooks kept theirs.
Fortunately, I think it will still be a long time before they take the honest folks’ weapons here—tooo many would rebel. Actually, crime is going down in the US by large percentages since we have done longer sentences for some things and have enough of the Ps locked up it has actually put the crime stats on the downward spiral. Which is a good thing.
Out here in the country (vs city) we have very little break ins I think because most country homes are well armed. More and more people are getting concealed carry permits which allow you, after a back ground check by FBI and classes, to carry a concealed fire arm just about anywhere except a gov’t building or a school.
On your own property you can carry openly, which is what I do here out on the farm, but if someone drives up to the house, I open the door with my hand behind it with a pistol in it where someone can’t see I have it in my hand. With the natural gas drilling going on we have a lot of the “oil field trash” roughnecks here so I’m not about to let anyone get too close I don’t know. I usually get dog warning before they even get out of their car and I sort of stop them before they get too close to the porch even….just being cautious and SAFE with strangers.
Oxy you make me think of a Janet Evanovich novel LOL
My brother lived in Canada and the States for years and he said there is less violence on the whole per capita as people are armed. Don’t know if this is correct or not but my Dad was a licensed arms dealer in the 70’s and growing up on a farm guns were second nature to us but when the gun amity came about in the late 90’s our family (the honest ones) handed them all in! Dad being a dealer years earlier our family thought we would be one of the first families to be look at in the area.
You are allowed to have a licence if you own a farm or belong to a gun club. I remember as a kid having about 10 rifle and pistols adoring our wall in the lounge room.Now you would never see that in Australia.
Wini- I dont answer the door to anyone at all & my kids know not to as well as my ex spath knew hit men that would pay visits. That fear crippled me for a very long time but now we are ok we just know to never answer the door unless we know the person 🙂
Oxy, you country folks aren’t the only ones that arm yourselves (SMILE). We city folks do too.
Dani,
I can “pass” for a city person if I must, and I put on my “city clothes” and went to work every day and “passed for” civilized folks, but I much prefer it out here in the boonies where I can just “let my hair down” and there’s no pretense—-I can be as “red-necked” as I want to be, and ride my jack asses, wear my feathered hat and chew tobacco if I want to (I don’t want to! LOL)
My grandmother who was a Tennessee Lady secretly dipped snuff, and there’s an old saying “you might be a redneck if your mom (or granny) put a spit cup on the ironing board!” LOL She would have DIED dead before she let anyone she knew know she did it. LOL I tried it once when I was a kid and turned green. I did smoke though, but finally quit that.
She was “scandalized” that I grew up a “tom boy” on the farm, helping deliver calves, or even knowing in my later teen-aged years about breeding horses. My grandmother wouldn’t say the world BULL, (too sexual) she said “Male cow” DUH! But I did learn enough from her that I can do tatting, knitting, fine embroidery and pass for a “lady” if I so desire to pass, but I also can ride and rope and shoot and cuss if there’s a need to, so I guess you could say I’m a generalist instead of a specialist. LOL
The other things the family taught me, like “never air your dirty laundry in public” and “what would the neighbors think?” and “let’s pretend none of this happened” and “forgiveness means letting them have another shot at you” and best of all “If you don’t do what I tell you is God’s will, you are going to hell and burn forever.”
So I think the first couple of sets are better than the third set, so I’ve kept the passing for a lady part, and even the riding, roping and shooting part, but the other part—I’m letting that go. Actually, it’s the hardest one to get rid of because it is all inside the emotional sphere. But First I change the behavior and the feelings will follow. Its a process.
wini: good girl.
Oxy I loved that little post and I am right with you in every paragraph. I have been tossing up for the past 18 months weather to go back to the country!
My kids are very settled here that has been the only thing that has stopped me. I crave for a more peaceful life and having the connection again to the country, but scared as it would be such a big undertaking, moving.New schools, job, friends etc.
My brother after living in the city for 15 years and travelling the world for 10 years has moved to the country with his family and he is as happy as a pig in sh*t, literally LOL 🙂
Well, it depends on lots of things. Lots of folks who have never lived in the country, like my neighbor crazy Bob, move out here and think that all they have to do to fit in is just call the neighbors and say “come to my house for a barn raising”— not going to happen! Not unless your daddy lived here and his daddy before him, and so on.
People in the country generally have jobs in town anyway, so it’s not like every one meets at the grist mill to grind their corn every saturday and talks. LOL
If you want to live privately though, you can do that, but even though you may not know them, they will know everything about you before the moving truck pulls off. Just the way it is. LOL But if you don’t want to be neighborly or visit, they’ll let you do that, or will be friendly either way. Being accepted by the locals just means that you have to be a nice person. My husband wasn’t “from here” but by 2-3 months he knew everyone in the county and they all gravitated toward him. At his memorial service in the middle of the week, 400 people came, mostly locals and he had only been here 12 years.
When I had to pull out and hide out for a while, I thought about buying or renting a piece of ground to park my RV trailer on way in the sticks, but then realized that everyone would know who I was in 15 minutes and what I was doing there. BUT if I hid out in PLAIN SIGHT in an RV park at the lake on a friend’s lots, no one would know or care who I was. Worked great!
Down the road a few miles is Bubba’s Bar and Grill. Tomorrow nite they are having a ‘facebook’ reunion with live music and free beer. OK so what am I missing? I dont have a facebook account or profile..Maybe I should join facebook and go get me some beer and bar-b-Q and kick up my heels with the local’s – I mite even try some carryokie…yup I live in a shell.
hens – how are your wasp stings?
Good Evening One Step – The swelling is going down, I went to the Doc this morning and got a cortizone shot, have been druggy all day with the benadryl, I think by tomorrow I will be fine..thanks for asking and how are you ticking this evening?
One:
Ya heading of to become a country bumpkin this weekend still?
I hope so……it’ll be a great refresher for you!
Go sit in a field and just ponder how beautiful it is!!!