The Cheese Grates It: It's Not Love

My trophy for the shit I didn't say but really wanted to

I abhor trolls who hide behind anon to say terrible things to people whose opinions they don't agree with, and most of the time I would never even consider going on anon. I'll either say what I have to say, or I'll say nothing.

That being said, I almost went on anon to cuss someone out once. 

My reason for potentially going on anon was the knowledge that the person whom I was considering lambasting had a cult following, and I didn't want to deal with the resulting personal attacks that I knew would come after. I was, however, extremely disgusted by this person's actions and was burning to tell her that she was a horrible human being.

The young woman in question, whom I will refer to as Little Annie Wilkes, had a blog dedicated to her romantic/lustful feelings for David Bowie. Little Annie spoke gushingly about how she had fallen in love with David as a young teenager. Little Annie wasn't like most of the teenagers who become enamored with photos taken 30, 40 and 50 years ago of men now old enough to be their grandfathers. She was articulate and managed to draw a fan base from the aforementioned demographic. I happened upon her blog while looking for pictures of David Bowie to add to my collection.

Initially, I ignored this girl's inappropriate gushing over a talented musician whom I felt deserved better than to be objectified. I told myself that she was a troubled kid. In fact, I thought I could be supportive of her. So I continued following her, every now and then leaving some sort of encouraging comment.

I realize now that what got under my skin was the way this young lady manipulated her followers so that the tragedy of David Bowie's death was now focused on her. In her words, she was so crushed by David's passing that she couldn't go to school or work, and her mother was terribly worried about her. She garnered great sympathy from her followers, encouraging her to keep her head up. Something smelled fishy, but I told myself to be kind. I wrote her a personal email, telling her that she evidently had strong empathic abilities and she should work to hone them. I told her that I felt she had the ability to help a lot of people. I said that David wouldn't want her to break down, that he'd want her to be strong and keep going. I related to her the story of how crushed I felt when I was 15 years old and Bon Scott died four days after my birthday in 1980.

The email I got back from Little Annie made clear to me that I wasn't wrong about the alarm bells and red flags warning me that something wasn't right. Her private persona was very different from the "poor sweet girl" persona she presented online. She was selfish and cold, and her "love" for David Bowie was not the result of being too emotional and becoming attached to someone who seemed kind and expressed himself in ways that touched her heart. 

As it turns out, Little Annie is the sort of person who mimics emotions well but doesn't have any real emotions of her own. I'm not sure why she dropped her guard with me, but arrogance is a reasonable guess. She thanked me for caring about her but said that she was going to be "just fine," she wasn't the sort of "weak" person who would try to commit suicide or such. She said that her "love" for David Bowie had "served her well" and that while she was "sad" he was gone, she was going to be "all right." 

Now that I knew that Little Annie was, in fact, a self-serving chameleon pretending to "love" David Bowie, a real person whom I had cared about and been a fan of since the 1970's, really upset me. Knowing that she was tricking vulnerable and ignorant teenagers into believing that she was some sort of "leader" for them made me angry. 

The icing on the cake came when one of Little Annie's followers wrote her a gushing tribute, saying how her "love" for David was so strong and beautiful and that he would have been "a fool" not to fall in love with her if he had met her. Little Annie published this tribute on her blog.

This really incensed me. Not only was I aware of this young woman's actual personality by this point, but I was disgusted that she continued to objectify a person who had recently died from cancer, a man who was a husband and a father, a man old enough to be her grandfather. I felt that her actions were utterly disrespectful, and I felt that it was disrespectful of her not to keep this conversation between herself and her admirer rather than broadcasting it for all the world to see so she could feed her ego when her followers gushed over how "beautiful" it was. 

Further, I was enraged at the idea that these girls thought it was okay to imply that David would leave the woman to whom he had been married for 24 years to pursue a tryst with a ridiculous child close to 45 years his junior.

It was at this point that I almost went on anon to demand that Little Annie Wilkes explain how she could possibly think it was okay to disrespect not only a man who had recently died from a devastating illness but his widow. I wanted her to know that I found her declarations of "love" for him disgusting, and that I knew she didn't love him at all, or respect him, or care about his music, but only lusted after his image in pictures from thirty and more years ago.

In the end I didn't do this because it would have made the person in question a martyr with her devotees. I would have ended up being painted as the "bitter old bitch" who was jealous of poor Little Annie's popularity. It wouldn't have helped David Bowie in any way and it would have made my life worse. So I kept my mouth shut, even though I was horrified and appalled by this young woman's disrespectful actions.

I'm not a hero for having been "kind." I wasn't kind, I was self-serving. I stopped following Little Annie and any members of her cult because I didn't ever want her blog coming across my path again. I do wish I knew the sources she used to find her pictures, though. She managed to get hold of some amazing rarities.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

Note:

Annie Wilkes is the main antagonist from Stephen King's novel, Misery. She is an obsessed fan who kidnaps and tortures the object of her obsession.

The Cheese Grates It: Inappropriate Fan Behavior: Dumping Problems On Your Faves

I wanted to talk first about those folks who come to Jared Padalecki and spill their guts to him. Jared is the actor who plays Sam Winchester on Supernatural. He lives with depression, and he created the Always Keep Fighting organization in order to help bring awareness to mental health issues and end the stigma on people who live with them.
 These folks who tell their sad stories to Jared come in two classes. Some of them mean well but are very desperate and don’t have very good social skills. They tell Jared how much the AKF campaign means to them and tell him an awful and depressing story. This is inappropriate on their part, but they aren’t trying to be bad.
It makes me sad when I read things about how “pathetic” these people are, because I used to be one of those people. I still have the tendency when I get really depressed and am having high suicide ideation. I just try to confine it to dark and miserable posts rather than spilling it out on someone like Jared.
I would never go to a convention or meet and greet and try to tell the person or people I was meeting my life story at this juncture. I did send a brief bio to Jared for one of those mass emails for his birthday or such. I kept the gory details about my previous self-harm, which did leave scars, or my fight against my tendency to self-harm out of it. Reading such things would only make him feel sad and helpless. It wouldn’t do any good.
There is another class of people who want to spill their guts to anyone who will listen. These people are walking wounded too, but they aren’t the sort of sad souls I mention above who are simply desperate to be cared about but are severely socially impaired.
This class of people are sociopaths. The focus isn’t on their feelings of connection with someone like Jared. Their focus is literally “look at me!”
I’m not saying these people aren’t damaged. They are. However, they do not feel emotion in the same way a person who is not a sociopath does. A sociopath does not feel empathy. When a sociopath says they love someone, what they mean is that they are obsessed with that person. In truth, the person means no more to them than any other possession.
These people are good at pulling the “poor me” card to get attention. Where the first class of people would be saddened to have hurt Jared, the second class of people wouldn’t care that they did, so long as they get the attention they seek.
I dealt with such a person during the past two years. This person attacked me by going to various Tumblrs and leaving nasty replies to threads I’d commented on regarding things I’d written on my own Tumblr. It took a while to figure out that all the attacks were coming from the same individual using several sock puppet accounts, but when I did, I was not surprised at who was behind the curtain.
The reason for these attacks was because this individual, whom we’ll call Victoria, felt threatened by my expressions of sympathy towards the object of her obsession. We’ll call him Mitch.
When this individual discovered that Mitch was terminally ill, she went on and on about how terribly devastating this was to her. It was so awful that she had to stay home from school and nurse her wounded feels. There was a red flag in all this. Not once did she say anything about how sad this situation was for those people who were actually close to Mitch, such as his children and grandchildren, or his brother Mac, who is not only his business partner but his platonic soul mate.
Victoria had a plan to get backstage when Mitch and Mac’s band came to town so she could give Mac a long letter she’d penned about her miserable existence and how the only thing that saved her was being so deeply in love with Mitch. Her plan, which I seriously hope she was never able to implement, gave no thought to how tremendously uncomfortable such an action would surely make Mac feel.
Victoria was not planning this ill-conceived plot because she is overly emotional and misguided. I have actually had occasion to converse with her online, where of course she pretended to be friendly to me. I can assure you that she is emotionally cold. She does not care about Mitch, she cares about having other people praise her for her devotion to him. She said to me “I haven’t thought about what I’ll do when he dies, but I’m sure I’ll be okay.” That sort of statement is the hallmark of a sociopath.
Let’s look at this from Mac’s point of view. His brother, the other half of his soul, is critically ill and there’s nothing he can do about it. Along comes this young woman, young enough to be his grand niece or even great grand niece, telling him that she is in love with his dying older brother and she wants to give him a letter all about how much Mitch means to her.
Mac is a polite person. He would probably force a smile and thank her for her thoughts, all the while feeling like ice was climbing up his spine. If he read the letter rather than tossing it in the trash the moment she left, it would not make him feel good. It might just make him sick, or it might make him angry that this self-centered person felt the need to dump her problems on him without regard for the fact that he is constantly grieving for the loss of his best friend. He might feel conflicted, telling himself that he shouldn’t be angry at such an obviously sad and pathetic person.
In other words, spilling your guts in this fashion to people who are themselves struggling is an erroneous act at best and a cruel one at worst. Some people who do it are misguided. Others are malevolent.
When I had the opportunity to attend a meet and greet with Chris Isaak, one of my longtime musical heroes, there were so many things I wanted to tell him. However, I knew his time was limited. If I were ever lucky enough to be able to spend any significant amount of time with Chris, I would go into detail about why his music meant so much to me. I confined my revelations to telling him that Blue Hotel was the first of his songs that I heard, and when I introduced my son I said “Ian here was born in 1990, so he’s been listening to your songs since before he was born.”
Chris told me that his father had made the guitar case that he’s carrying in the picture that I had him sign. I said that was wonderful. I knew his father was a very important person in his life. If I’d had time, I would have told him that my father suffered a major stroke too. If there had been time, we probably would have bonded over talking about such things and maybe even developed a real friendship. Unfortunately there wasn’t time, so I respected his time.
Folks, what this boils down to is the fact that these people who mean so much to you have problems of their own. They have limited time and their emotional resources have limits as well. I have no doubt that Jared would love to help each and every one of you personally. I know he feels sad because he can’t.
For the people who actually care about Jared but may have dumped your problems on him, don’t beat yourself up. You will know better in the future.
There’s nothing I can do to change the actions of those who don’t care how their actions affect other people for the simple reason that they don’t care.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

Fallout Fuckery

I'm still dealing with the fallout from having dealt with a sociopath.

I found myself questioning my abilities. If I were a "true psychic," should I not have been able to see that this was a sociopath rather than a troubled empath?

I took action based on an emotional response rather than trusting my intuition.

The Tarot cards revealed that there would be fallout were I to contact this person. I ignored them.

I tend to dwell on my mistakes and I don't forgive myself for mistakes.

Whenever I wake up, I am in an emotional quagmire. I feel that something as flawed as I am should not live. I am contemplating that since my son no longer needs me to drive him to therapy, I am no longer necessary and it would be better if I were to end this joke I call a life.

It is poison for empaths to deal with sociopaths, and I opened myself up to it.

I'm not much of a guide, but I hope that someone will listen when I say that you need to protect yourself. 

I had more to say, but I can't think of what it is right now.

Cie the Worthless Asshole

Suicidal Ideation by Megan Li on Deviantart

Wrung Out

I discovered today that a person who has been causing me trouble, seemingly unwittingly, for the past several months, is, in fact, a psychic vampire. Communicating with her, I felt as if I was looking into a black hole. She is not a misguided and troubled person as I initially convinced myself that she was. I should have gone with my gut, which told me right out of the gate that there was something really amiss with this person. 

Correction: She may be misguided and troubled, but she is also cold and dead inside and doesn't care who she hurts. She is charming outside, and a lot of people fall for her "poor me" act. Dealing with her one on one, it was revealed to me very quickly that she is a sociopath and a psychic vampire.

The sociopath is the polar opposite of the empath. Unfortunately, empaths have a tendency to fall victim to sociopaths. A sociopath can mimic emotions, but they lack empathy. The only emotions they feel are obsession and anger. They do not feel love, although they may use the word a lot and may confuse obsession with love.

Unfortunately, I left myself vulnerable to this person when I attempted to help her. I believed that if I offered her a sympathetic ear, I could redirect her energies from an erroneous pursuit of the love of someone who has no interest in her whatsoever. I thought I could help him and her at the same time.

Quickly, the entire discussion became about her. I felt myself wanting to get away, but for the sake of politeness, I was trapped. After all, how do you say "whoops, you aren't just an unhappy person misdirecting your energies, you're a psychic vampire! I'm gone!"

I discovered that she wasn't trying to catch the object of her obsessions and "make" him fall in love with her. It doesn't matter if he loves her or not. She stated that she "loves" him, but this actually translates to "I'm feeding off his energy and I'm damned if I'm going to stop."

I now need to protect her victim, me, and everyone in both of our spheres of influence. 

I wish I could scream from the rooftops the name of this person and warn everybody away from her. From a psychological standpoint, she is a manipulator and a master gaslighter. 

I can't reveal the entire conversation, but for me, this was the paragraph that screamed to me everything I needed to know about what I was dealing with.

"Although you believe my romantic feelings for "Will" might interfere with the healing energy I'm sending him...you're validating that the love I feel for him is real, and that satisfies me."

 

 This is a paragraph straight from the Sociopath Rule Book. It screams ME, ME, ME.

 

This individual does not actually care about the subject of her "healing support." She is glad that I "validated" the "love" she feels for him. It is all about her. She will keep focusing on him regardless of his desire for her to cease doing so, because she does not care that her energies are detrimental to his well-being.

Sadly, she has several people convinced that her "love" for him is ever so true and pure, and they blindly encourage this "love."

After dealing with this person, I was shaken for most of the day. If I'd had either Valium or alcohol on hand, I would have used them.

I can't believe that I was so gullible as to mistake this walking black hole for a misguided empath.

It can be hard dealing with people who have hot tempers. But I'd rather deal with someone who runs too hot than with someone whose soul is cold and dead any day.

 

~Cie~