Bio - 42 in My Bio

I’ve often been told I’m very smart. Yet even the smartest people can make poor decisions at times, and so I responded to Tammy’s brief Facebook message in early 2009 saying that she hoped I was doing well. I saw no harm in sharing why I felt I could never forgive her, leaving a link to my journal in my reply so she could read my feelings in more detail. God knows I’d discussed them enough there, after all.

However, instead of apologizing for her irrational behavior in defending her abusive ex and her role in my arrest, she denied any wrongdoing, insisting she never knew where I’d moved to and that it was Bill who’d called the police, not her.

I thought about it and realized that yes, Bill might have been the one to call the cops, but he couldn’t have known where to send them if he or Tammy didn’t have some clue as to my location. My guess? Tammy had probably called people in the Phoenix area with our last name until she found someone in Tom’s family willing to share our address. I’m sure they believed her intentions were good, but I still felt betrayed.

Tammy might not have known about the default warrant any more than we did, yet she still called and sent letters to Tom, bashing me and defending Bill. By then, she was married to her third husband, so I had no reason to think she still had feelings for Bill—especially after his abuse of both her and Lisa. Over the years, I’d read about how domestic violence can severely impact a person’s psyche. I felt for the women who stood up to their abusers, ending the cycle, but I struggled to empathize with those who not only didn’t fight back but seemed to seek out abusive relationships and attack those who spoke out against their abusers. I don’t think Tammy enjoyed the abuse itself; rather, I think she enjoyed the sympathy she’d receive when discussing it with others. But only Tammy could truly know, and I wasn’t about to try to dissect her mind. She was an adult, free to make her choices, however harmful they might be. All I knew was that I felt shocked, angry, and disgusted with her behavior, convinced more than ever that she wasn’t someone I should be associating with, sister or not.

Yet Tammy piqued my curiosity—was it really that easy to find someone online?

I typed in my nieces’ names.

It was.

I found myself staring at a profile photo of my youngest niece and noticed her rather vulgar screen name. Her profile, like her sisters’, was private, so I couldn’t see much else.

Stupid mistake number two: I messaged her, mentioning her screen name and casually saying hello. I added that she didn’t have to reply, and while I was sure most of what she’d heard about me was exaggerated, it was best for us to continue on our separate ways. Then I wished her luck and signed off.

If I’m honest, the message was less about reconnecting and more about curiosity. So yes, I admit it. I didn’t care about saying hi or wishing her a happy birthday. I got a kick out of the thought of her reading my journal and sharing it with her sisters if she followed the link on my profile. I knew Tammy wouldn’t be pleased.

She wasn’t.

My inbox was flooded the next day with messages from both Tammy and Sarah on MySpace and the journal site. I hadn’t expected to hear from Sarah, so her rude response caught me off guard. But really, why should I have been surprised? Didn’t the apple usually fall close to the tree?

Her message said she was standing by her mother, unsurprisingly, given she was just 18 at the time. She mentioned there was still some “damage” there and hinted at remembering past letters I’d sent her parents.

Then the cyberbullying began. I was stalked from site to site and threatened. Eventually, Tammy admitted she’d called the cops a decade ago, intending to get me in jail, and could do it again. She didn’t say it outright, but “I did it once; I can do it again” was enough for me.

She threatened to show up at our “dingy trailer” in California and take legal action against me for harassment and slander, even though they had sought out my journal on their own, and I was simply sharing my opinions and thoughts, not for any profit and not providing any identifying info. She demanded I never contact anyone in her family again, mocked my photos, called my husband “queer,” and wished us ill. She even made fun of our financial struggles.

When I’m angry, I try to keep things fair, and I wasn’t about to say she was a bad cook, for example, just because I was mad at her. The truth is, no matter my feelings toward her, she was a good cook.

Tammy was just the opposite. Suddenly, I wasn’t good at the things she once said I excelled in when she wasn’t angry at me. She mocked the things she’d empathize with if we were on good terms. She’d also invent events that never happened. If she was mad at me for something I actually said or did, she’d not only be quick to mention it but would also add in anything else she could make up on the spot.

I began posting their nasty messages in my journal, hoping it would embarrass them enough to back off since the diary site didn’t have a ‘block user’ feature. But they didn’t seem to care about how they were incriminating themselves. I had checked the laws because I learned the hard way that what you didn’t know really could hurt you, and I knew I wasn’t doing anything illegal. Tammy, on the other hand, was.

Eventually, Lisa contacted me, insisting that despite what they’d said, I was still her aunt. She bashed her mother and gave me the impression that they were no longer speaking.

I was hesitant to respond but eventually told her that while I wished her well, I didn’t think it was wise for us to be in touch, knowing her mother would likely pressure her to stop if she found out.

Lisa insisted she had been trying to locate me for years and genuinely wanted a place in my life, so I left it at that. I answered whatever messages she sent without initiating any of my own. I just wanted to be polite, not necessarily friendly.

Not long after, Lisa exposed her true colors. She messaged me in a fury, accusing me of “lying” to her grandfather about when we’d first talked, saying I’d mentioned April when it was actually August. Her message also declared that whatever happened between her and her mother was none of my business (after taking it upon herself to divulge info about it).

I finished reading her message, saddened and embarrassed for her and her mother. The sudden change in her was astonishing. She’d gone from zero to a hundred in seconds. I wasn’t sure if it was drugs or plain instability, but it was sad knowing that some people had nothing better to do than jump to conclusions and then harass others. If she had calmly asked me, I’d have explained that I never mentioned when we began talking to my father. In fact, I hadn’t even mentioned her at all—just that Tammy had reached out, and I wasn’t interested in reconnecting. But, sure enough, they dragged my parents into it, involving them in drama they didn’t need at their age and with their own challenges.

I didn’t bother responding to Lisa’s message. Instead, I added it to my daily entry, knowing she would read it and not be pleased. Maybe this would teach her to ask questions before accusing.

But then I stopped to think. Did my writing about them actually bother them? Hmm… I wasn’t so sure anymore. If it really did, why were they still reading my journal? And why did they keep sending me nasty messages that they knew I’d publish?

Holy crap, I thought as Tammy and Lisa continued their harassment. They’re getting a thrill out of this! They actually want me to write about them. It almost chilled me to think that someone in their fifties could enjoy such childish nonsense. It saddened me too. Had Tammy’s life become that miserable? I also realized that their desire to get me jailed wasn’t because my writing bothered them but because they were simply that vengeful.

I started closing as many access points as I could, now disturbed by the idea of them reading my journal, knowing they were enjoying it. But then I came to not care one way or the other who read it, something I suspect Tammy and her kids eventually tired of. After all, what’s so exciting about someone’s “dingy trailer” life full of “rats, dolls, and a ‘queer’ husband”?

Ah, the sweetness of cyber revenge. It was gratifying for a while, and I even slipped my journal link to a few others whose names I won’t mention.

But I’d had enough of Tammy and her unstable brood and was ready to move on without them. Even if we’d gotten along, I saw no point in buddying up with someone on the other side of the country with whom I shared nothing in common. We had different interests, tastes, and views on life. She was night; I was day. And I certainly didn’t need to associate with a bunch of twenty-somethings either.

Any “get-lost” spells out there? I wondered. God seemed to be ignoring most of my prayers, including the ones asking for Tom to get a job, so I didn’t expect any divine help. Instead, I lay down and entered a meditative state. I visualized their faces, distasteful as it was, and then imagined those images dissolving into nothing. Just nothing. I reminded myself they couldn’t harm me and that I had done nothing wrong. It wasn’t that I was afraid they’d actually harm me or take me to court. I was just tired of their harassment on the one site where I couldn’t block them, and I certainly wasn’t about to inconvenience myself by leaving. So I willed them out of my life as hard as I could.

And then I stopped hearing from them.

But Tammy left me with something: a newfound interest in social sites. I updated and spruced up my profiles. I didn’t care about racking up “friends,” but I was curious to see if I could reconnect with people I’d known.