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 Raven,
I am so sorry for your daughter’s medical problems….having a sick kid is double pain for a parent. I will keep you and her in my prayers. (((((Hug)))))
I am so glad that you checked back in and gave us a status report about yourself…and that you are doing so well! So many people go away and never “report back in” and I wonder about how they are doing….thanks for your report. I’m sure you have been pretty busy!
“Pretend guy” is really all any of them are—or pretend person as the case may be. God bless!
RavenlessTower, I will pray for you and your daughter too.
Raven:
I’m sorry about your daughter….and I hope she does well.
You sound like your in a good ‘headspace’ and got your priorities right.
I’m pleased to hear….you haven’t let a spath destroy you….your daughter needs mamma….
Your in my thoughts!
Keep your strength!
XXOO
EB
neveragain, Dani S, All
Yes I am also interested to know if different aliases need different computers…or can you set up a whole network of characters from the same computer address but different e-mail addresses? anyone with computer savvy explain how it could be done?
ravenlesstower
That’s a beautiful feisty post! yeah!!
They will take their place in the grand scheme of things…stooopid morons!
morning bp – each email sent has an IP address (an Internet Protocol address). they are found in the ‘header’ of the email. How you find the header depends on what type of email account you have. if you are using yahoo online, finding it is different than if you are using outlook on your desktop. but it is easy to find, except if the person who is sending the email is using gmail, which masks IP addresses; although i am sure there is a way around that too.
IP addresses generally aren’t static. I could send you ten email and the addresses would vary, but only slightly. Countries and Internet service providers are given chunks of numbers that belong to them. check out this link: http://www.hackingspirits.com/cyb_forensic/fsic_articles/loc_place.html, and then a range will be alotted to my home address. if i go to another location with my computer and log into another network, the IP will change.
If I sent you emails form the same location every time, even with the IPs varying, you would be able to use a (free) service online – Whois – plug in my IP and know what city it came from and who my internet service provider is. This last bit is important, as you can call the internet service provider to complain about harassing email from a specific IP address. I didn’t get very far with my complaints to the spaths ip provider. buggers. they took my original complaint (didn’t know who and what she was at that point) and never called back and i have never gotten another person when i have called.)
This is one of the ways i knew ALL of the sock puppets were the same person – even before i had the hard proof – ALL of the email came from the same originating IP – when those people were supposedly spread out all over the world. ( email sent via webmail, like yahoo online, will be routed through many ip addresses and it is only the originating ip that matters)
if you use a proxy server you can mask your IP address. Proxy servers come in a couple of varieties – many are paid services online. You go to their website, and type in the url you want to get to – it’s a bit like treating their webpage as if it was google or any other browser.
if you want multiple email addresses, you can of course have them all come in to your desktop email app (like outlook) or you can just do webmail (online).
this is just very basic info. i learned all of this post spath. hadn’t an idea before hand. unravel, untangle, investigate…all the while everyone telling me not to bother. as if i didn’t matter. as if letting that mess stay in a knot would serve me. i feel some bitterness about this. i know peeps were feeling protective and i seemed nuts – but there was method to the madness and i did the right thing. that’s been hard in all of this – people giving me that kind of advice when i am so messed up i question if I should be doing things that look like compulsion/ may be compulsion. but you know, it’s like growing up – and people trying to get you to be where you aren’t yet – to not go through the stages of growth they themselves went through. makes me quite angry actually. it has felt abusive at times, mind numbing, dismissive at least. now, i think i am well enough to feel more confidence in the face of others saying don’t do this or that. the compulsions we suffer as we are getting out of the FOG ARE heavy, and DO need to be broken. but it’s not a cookie cutter experience, and suggesting that someone (when their life is not immediately in danger) not do this or that can be harmful to process. This is part of my stuckness. No support to go forward, in fact exactly the opposite – people here and offblog telling me not to let the others she has conned (in the community i was in)…and may still be conning, know what and who she is.
i get scared. when i did the spreadsheet of all the characters and whose pics she ripped off i went into a tailspin – that was months ago. and i haven’t been able to proceed since. i need to get some things together for the AG’s office. stalled out on that too. part of that is i don’t have a printer that can handle that stuff – and he doesn’t want me to email him this stuff. one of the other dupes offered to buy me a new printer. but i couldn’t accept it. her trust is really ruptured and the two of us are like fish banging into the tank walls when we try to communicate.
i got scared and the ptsd kicked in and i stopped. i would tell others that the whole story and all they suffered because of it was a lie. i would do it anonymously. there are some complications – liek trying to protect those people whose pictures she ripped off. the moment i direct them to the online info about her (and there is LOTS) they will see some things that might lead then to those people. i haven’t dealt with them. the AG said he would try , but i have to send him the info first. my CD burner doesn’t work or i would send him a CD of everything – there was no money to do any of this before. now i can. so i need to buy a new usb stick and take things out to be printed. and no car….i got overwhelmed with all the little effing steps. would have been so much easier if i could have just emailed the stuff to him. i understand his reasons why he didn’t want me to give him e-files, but i couldn’t cope with it. so the question is, can i cope with it now? my instinct is always to ‘negotiate’ – to call him and negotiate a different scenario.
i need to write it all down again. i need to get in touch with the other dupe again. big part of the difficulty for me was that i got so badly triggered when i tried to do things. but ya know this shit is never going to go away on it s own. i know i could work at it and over time it would fade, but i don’t feel that is what i need to do. she smears people and i have to be careful to remain hidden.
so, yes it scares me and i am afraid of being triggered and going into a tailspin – but it doesn’t mean that i will. i just want it to be over. and i don’t know that i will ever be ‘ready’. i think it is one of those feel the fear and do it anyway situaitons. i was constantly getting advice here to not do it. there was no engaged discussion. no support through it. between the fear, the fear of fear and the lack of support i am stalled.
i think i need a whole new perspective on this. i feel that since i can’t articulate why i need to do this that i don’t get to (odd but true) – like, if i can’t come up with a good enough reason then it’s just vengeance (like that isn’t a good enough reason!). i don’t even know who this is about – her, me the others who don’t know who she is and may still be being fucked over. when the fake dead fake boy fake resurrected my first impulse was to tell them – within a few hours she had 2 of the sock puppets threatening me. to do me harm (at that point i didn’t know who, how many or where they were) and threatening to harm me by calling my employers and spewing some shit. i was sick, broke, traumatized, struggling so – it scared me. her threats worked. I have been smeared before. someon iwent out with when i was 20 turned my life upside down – stalked me, smeared me, tried to get me fired, tired really hard to isolate me. I fought back with the law, and when i had had enough of being stalked, i ran after his van one night, telling him to ‘bring it on’. fortunately that person did something really stupid and the arson squad got involved, and THOSE BOYS went to bat for me. big time. they really ‘got’ the whole d.v. paradigm. i wonder what that person was…a spath? i remember how afraid i was of him. but mostly i remember that i rose up and i didn’t take his shit. i fought back.
when i was even younger i knew a criminal spath – who at 67 (now) is still going strong. he sooo wanted this piece of young flesh to play with. I was too young to go to the police – somehow didn’t realize i could get help there (possibly because he had some police in his pocket and i had ample evidence of that) but i knew enough to hide from him. and i did. and after awhile he got bored because i wouldn’t paly and he couldn’t find me to force me to, and he moved on. so it’s not like i don’t know when to protect and hide. with the present spath this online world does provide some anonymity and i have learned A LOT about maintaining some.
doing what needs to be done about her weighs on my mind. daily. i have to peal back the shell that surrounds it and get to where i am NOW, not where i have been for the last few months.
and this post is a baby step to getting there.
one step
one_step_at_a_time
Unravel, untangle, investigate….step by step…now I get it.
It is actually, and I can really feel it now after you have so painstakingly described and because of that I was able to stand in your shoes for 5 minutes and I got a fright….it is mentally overwhelming…the spreadsheet…the characters…the photos she has ripped off from others…the smear threats…this is unnerving ,yes…yet the adrenalin that must be dumped into your system from the shock needs to be paced, integrated, understood. The fact that you have been on your own with all of this is a testament to your strength. The fact you are brave enough to see it for what it is is a testament to your intelligence…and the wisdom to go slowly..brilliant.
The answers are inside you…I would not listen to anyone who has not ACTUALLY experienced this first hand. Anyway it’s clear to me you are going the correct way about things. The ptsd counsellor, the feedback, will really help because it’s like you are exhausted, injured, barely breathing waving a small hand at peeps saying ” help me” and what you are getting in response is…now take your time, do not do anything hasty, do not upset yourself any more than you have been upset, don’t take it upon yourself to be the one to break the bad news to other dupes….but of course you will have to move towards it all and see this through to the bitter end…on your own, in your own way…but it would be important you could experience some support from people here and I am positive with this in depth description…they will be there with you, for you…no doubt in my mind.
I can understand you wanting it to be over, I was like that…I got so annoyed with myself that the P had me in the tailspin…I resent him doing that…I chose to stop the unravelling and investigating because it does tend to get uglier and uglier…but I admire people who can see it through and expose the evil for what it is..especially if other people are going to be damaged
the amazing thing about this whole scam is that it is on computer….there is evidence if you can just get it all out..but you need to buy your own printer and you will…in time, this will all take a maddening amount of time!!! you have a job, you have great presence of mind and you are on your way, mind yourself and have compassion for the shock you have suffered on every level.
Every experience you have had now leads to here…will need everything you have ever learned to go the next layer….perhaps the triggers will be less as you go forward…it’s nerve shredding so I wouldnt expect you will be able to do it without alot of stress management, compassion for yourself and the permission to make mistakes, tremble , stammer, sweat, feel emotional because it’s a new experience and you have never done this before…one step forward maybe two steps back..keep talking…and building your strength mind, body and the soul is right there egging you on..I can hear that…stay safex
bp – i feel heard, acknowledged and supported by what you said. it is a complex situation; i do need to both move toward it and manage the stress of it.
i don’t need to, nor want to know anything more about her. it’s all quite enough. I have watched her response to being caught out in another scam this year – well, she got caught out 2 times actually – one after the fact and one just as she got going, before she really harmed anyone. this is quite enough for me to know. she is a bag of doo. and doo will do what doo does; that’s why it’s called ‘doo doo’.
Yes…and the amount of doo that she does would do your head in..
BP, fantastic post to one_step. You’ve said what I would’ve liked to.
Ravenlesstower that I am sorry your daughter is ill and I wish you both all the very best. My thoughts are also with you.