Click on the cover and find the article.
The cover will stay on the top of my posts until I get sick of it, which will probably be never.
Blogdom’s own Dead guy who lives, a very good friend, a very talented cartoonist, and yes he won First Place in Humor in the BOB’s had an interview at his local UPN station. Here’s the link
This is a second draft. I’m working on something lighter now
My cable kept going out last night; and I was upset.. I have just edited this. Do have a question. If I have never spoken about a person, answered his comments, or sent him an emails, how could he say that he Googled himself and found references that I had made? I am a therapist, and that’s delusional thinking. While bloggers get used to horrible comments and emails, this has been going on for seventeen months. I have never been afraid to say what I feel in my blog and am not going to begin now
I wrote this post for my personal site. I realized this morning that I react badly to having my character judged because I have been judged enough. Not that anybody should have to put up with being judged. I’m not a pedophile, pervert, amoral, immoral, and will never believe that terminating a pregnancy turned me into a murderer. I do however look over my shoulder just a bit too often.
I Feel slight tremors, squalls, and waves breaking just a bit too fast. I’m tired of being the patron never saint of causes on the Internet. Probably one of the few people who hate to Google my name or Courting, not because I won’t find enough, but because there will be many references to “rape survivor” and the like.
I wasn’t at all ready to tell the story of my abortion because it is so complex, and I had no compelling need to talk about it. I had an abortion, and have never looked back. The South Dakota ruling forced me to talk about it, because it could help begin a dialogue. I don’t regret it.
But the stalking that came after I kicked Zachary out…I don’t want to go there. This isn’t cathartic. Being able to talk about my mom’s death, yes that was cathartic. People die, sooner or later, everybody does. It was the timing and how she died that made it less than normative.
Nobody expects to be stalked. Though I could see some fetishist wanting it, or young teenage girls romanticising it. The fetishist, I have nothing to say to, They’re adult; it’s their right to play sick games if each party consents.
Teenage girls have to learn that there is nothing romantic about a boy or man who never wants to be away from you. If somebody says he/she can’t live without you being there all the time, run. If that person calls, emails or IM’s, every seven minutes, stop it immediately. That’s not love; that’s control.
Love is being able to say I’m going out with my friends every once in awhile. Love is being able to call your parents whenever you want. Love is being able to coexist, and to have space. Love is a hell of a lot of things, but love isn’t somebody watching your every move. No matter how great looking and wonderful that person thinks you are.
It’s not fun looking around all the time, wondering if it’s safe to go home. It is neither an easy nor enjoyable subject for me to write about, at least not tonight.
I read books and see movie about stalkers. I can totally disconnect; I have written about it dispassionately.
I can trust people because I have always had an incurably optimistic side, but I remain wary far too long. I have never fell so carelessly and fully in love again.
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Long after he was gone I worried about him coming after me again. Until I found out ten years after his death, there always was a bit of uncertainty.
Had Zachary merely been bipolar, I would have gone with him for help. However he refused help, and I could clearly see that he was steps away from physically abusing me.
Any man who breaks your windows, knocks the plants you have been growing off a table then pounds the table, and has once before hit you isn’t worth keeping. There was a lot more of course, this was the almost final incident.
I had kicked him out, or more truthfully found a sublet and paid the first and last months rent on it, a few months before. I didn’t have much money then. It was so worth getting him out of my apartment. It took me years to learn how to sleep in the middle of the bed, and not be cowering in a corner.
Everybody loved Zachary, it was me who was the bitch, until I wasn’t.
This is a week of renewal for both Christians and Jews, and in that spirit I would like to stop talking about this now.
Sure that last line will get me in trouble with somebody. My religious lines tend to get me into great trouble in the blogospheres. I even met the last remaining Deists, unless they were anti-Deists. It was confusing.
That paragraph was a bridge to blogs and comments. Yes, a public blog is by definition public. However the blog owner retains control of the contents. A post could be deleted; as can a comment. A comment that promotes dialogue is very welcomed; a comment that disparages my character and morals will be immediately deleted.
I’m not being defensive, nor do I want to go into the story that precipitated this. For seventeen months he was the exception to the return all comment rule, on personal blogs. Just couldn’t.
Trust your instincts. Most bloggers are great; but some, I just knew from that first comment or the first email exchange, would be trouble.
Again it’s just like real life. Most sane people don’t hitchhike unless absolutely necessary. Life’s all about common sense.
Something I usually have and had in abundance.
Zachary was good, he made such an appealing package. We have all learned that some of the best looking packages might have ticking time bombs in them
I have been talking around my feelings. I am sorry.
Sometimes, though much more rarely now I get a flashback. I thought that blogging had toughened me so much as I have received so many comments about my morals, I even have one in a page.
Sometimes the tremors, squalls and waves all come tumbling in at once, and it takes just a bit less time than the last one that really hurt to get it out of your system
I used to take the fault for Zachary and my relationship becoming so awful. It wasn’t. I can have a temper.
I’m not blameless; many cases of abuse have some mutuality in them. But I didn’t hit, break things, or stalk.
That is a big difference. Nor did I try to get him to do everything for me against his will. I worked, I paid the bills; he was the overlooked genius who needed me to do everything.
He did a lot for me in the beginning. I was the princess. That’s not a fun role nor one that I have ever been comfortable with
Later when the Hedda Nussbaum/Joel Steinberg horror happened I honestly wondered how she could let it go like that.
While I still accepted much fault I had begun to appreciate my own strength. I stopped the problem before I became too entrenched.
I still look over my shoulder.
crossposted at BIO
Think every blogger should read this post. Have heard so many bloggers tell stories of how a reader has gone too far or gotten weird.
Especially liked the part about how you knew from the first comment. And the hitchhike line.
I hate to think of you ever having had heartache… I know we all do but…
Many great points I would not even know where to begin!
I am glad you are in a good place now and there are so many amazing things awaiting you Pia! The age of Pia has dawned! Revel in it!
I would gladly be your assistant for the most minimum, of minimum wages – but it seems like it would be a difficult project given our respective locations.
I’m an EXCELLANT über-assistant, ask any of my former bosses…the only problem being, I also want to be certain I’m giving my “boss” exactly what they want, so I need to have constant access for check-ins. Oy vey! 
Though thankfully I’ve never had a first hand experience with the situation, I remember the Hedda Nesbaum/Joel Steinberg horror like it was yesterday. That was a horrific tragedy. Remember they did a “ripped from the headlines” episode mimicking it on Law & Order? There are some very disturbed people out there. Glad you came out stronger for your experience, Pia.
So far I have been fortunate too; no wackos. Have enough of them to deal with in real life, let alone in the blogosphere.
I loved the hitchhike line too.
People reach out to each other for so many different things.
Some reach out for love.
Some reach out for control.
Unfortunately the ones who need control are sometimes pretty good at counterfeiting love.
I served on a jury once. Murder case. Co-habitation, history of domestic abuse. To kill her, he must have first managed to convince her he loved her. Otherwise, he would not have had any power over her.
Maybe he even thought he did. Some people are twisted up that way. Didn’t make her any less dead, though.
Janet had it right yesterday. Only the people in a relationship have the whole picture. Onlookers should be careful in making judgements.
And people reading blogs should be especially aware that the blogger gets to set their own limits & make their own decisions about what they share & what they keep to themselves.
Pia, I hope you wrote this because you wanted to. But if you wrote it to slam the door (after first flinging it open to show just how ugly and dangerous it really was for you) once and for all on people making presumptuous assumptions about the whole Zachary situation – I truly & sincerely hope it works.
Pia, Pia, Pia…!
I never have been seriously stalked, nor hit by a guy nor had any such thing happen to me. In that regard I hardly know what youa re talking about. But, as you know, I recently came out of a relationship, and the guy was very posessive as well. Not a guy anme could be named, he expected me to sit a watch him watching somethign else. He just wanted me by his side, but not be by mine. Even worse, he used to blame our problems on my childhood history and still worse…I believed him for a very long time. I blamed myself for being so scared, that I over-compensated by trying to love him even more…all the while scaring myself deeper.
I don´t know if this means anything to you, but I just felt like writing it.
Now that I cut the strings I have been more alive, vibrant and happy than in the last three years. More importantly, less scared.
One shoudl never be with one who pours salt into ones wounds.
First and foremost – the owner of a blog page is not the president of a democratic society that has a bill of rights inviting free speech to all. It is a benevolent dictatorship – and it is your right to choose who can comment and who cannot – this one might get deleted as well and I’d simply have to live with it. If your gut is telling you that certain persons send out alarm bells that something is rotten in Denmark and it is best not to invite that into your world – that’s soooo your call.
Pia, some of the bloggers I have “met” on BIO have scared the crap out of me. but so far, so lucky, none on my home blog.
When the scary ones come in… we should be able to get rid of them.. I know BIO has blocked some of the stranger ones..that is something I am hoping I learn how to do.
You are one of the good people and I am hoping that you don’t stop writing and helping us all.
Nice post weaving the story into into the wariness that we all should have.
I was stalked once just online due to my original journal it was a long weird story and i wasn’t the only one beibg harrassed. I was also stalked my first semester at nyu. I never knoew id it was someone who read my journals but he knew where I lived and what I wroe on certain days etc.
Becareful on the internet as in life. Both can be dangerous espeically for people who put themselves out there.
I have a friend who was stalked. Its so awful what it can do to someone’s life. Doesn’t this seem to be becoming a worse problem?