If there ever was just an emotional ramble of words, this would be it. I am going to first apologize for that. There may be some good lessons here, and there may not be. You may know what I am talking about, or I may be too vague, trying to keep as much drama out of this as I can but not really succeeding.
Having said that, here we go.
In my last dynamic, I kept pretty quiet when my then-daddy was called out for very bad behavior. I thought that our dynamic was over at that point. There was some gaslighting that happened. I was told it was my fault that I looked for drama when there wasn’t any. But there was. A whole lot of it. I tried my best not to be in the middle of it online in a public forum. I kept my thoughts in my journal. I told him I believed everything they said about him, and we continued for a while as if nothing had happened. I told him to block me, and he did. At that point, he was ignoring all my content anyway and on purpose to manipulate me into gaining more followers and being the type of content creator he could use for his business. I had learned a few tricks that upped my follower count, but the brat in me wanted to not gain too many followers. After a time, I stopped caring one way or another and began posting things for myself and doing things for me, not to gain his favor or in defiance of him. During the time he was called out, I saw so many of his subs and ex-subs come out telling their story. He was mad at me for trying to dig that information out, but honestly, there were so many it was hard not to run into them left and right. I had debated about writing about my experience as well, and honestly, this is more than I wanted to write about him here. I did write something but decided not to publish it. I was afraid my motives for publishing it were not good. I did not want to do it just to get attention. So, I hid it in my second book of musings. No one reads those anyway.
But I was hit by drama again recently with my new online partner. It was one of those weird coincidences. I happened to follow one of his exes and had been for years, but I had no idea they were connected. Sometimes, things just hit you in the face. I was reminded a lot about the previous experience and got ready to be gaslighted and have this new dynamic end.
This time around, I tried to just block out the drama as best I could and have kept that space pretty calm. I have not shared any details there about what happened and did my best not to get pulled into it. I made sure not to feed into the drama. I made sure to block accounts and even reported one. I began by muting first so I could leave a space open to be contacted with legitimate information and concern for my safety. Unfortunately, no one contacted me with any real concerns or details. He was the only one that did that. He showed concern that I would be pulled in. He over-explained, gave proof, and shared screenshots of messages happening in real-time. I only saw performative bullshit outside of that, so I blocked. None of us started this, though (at least, I am assuming that). But what I found more interesting was the way each of us reacted to the drama. Again, this is where I want to end this set of drama and try to keep it vague so I can get to my point of safety. But I will say that my husband dated an Amber Heard type, and this looked very familiar to his breakup, and it disappointed me a great deal. I was not shown respect or compassion. I was shown I was a downgrade and not worthy of helping, only using me and my situation as a way to prolong the drama and pretend to everyone else what type of person they were. That is not helpful at all if there is a legitimate concern. That is a wasted opportunity, but I understand that when we are hurt and asked to relive something hard, we do not always react in the best ways.
I did not share anything about this openly on that other site, just as I only shared things about my ex here and there. We all have ways we deal with drama. This is more detail than I thought I wanted to share, but again, I am rambling to help myself wrap around everything that happened, and who knows what will come out. One of the reasons I thought of writing something to begin with instead of just having random conversations with people in my head is to talk about safety.
I almost felt bad not warning people that there are bad people out there when my ex was called out. If my partner’s ex had simply done that, her message would have been stronger and more clear. She may be right. The simplest explanation is my partner is married and lying. He will never meet me in person. It will only be what it is today, a fantasy and role-playing. That is the safest thing, anyway. Stay in your imaginary world, lie about your life, and do not give details that can get you caught up in something truly sinister.
Part of the drama recently was someone else randomly sending us anonymous posts, which is even more unhelpful without details. You can tell me someone is a liar, but I want proof. What is he lying about, and how do you know. I love puzzles, and with my experience, overthinking mind, and hypervigilance, I am already looking for those types of things with anyone I talk to. There is nothing wrong with doing that. Do not agree to meet someone unless you can be sure they are who they say they are. Life is full of risks. This person used words that they may not have understood completely. I do not understand them completely myself. We do live in a world of BDSM that attracts narcissists and psychopaths more than any other community, but actually running into someone who meets the definition of those is rare. We are more likely to find people who may just demonstrate some of those behaviors.
I am more concerned about running into those garden-variety manipulators who have time to develop their skills. The ones who go through your content piece by piece and create a persona of someone you can easily fall in love with. They say all the right things for you because they have studied you. They know how to show that they are not perfect, but they are perfect for you. They do have emotions and baggage and complicated lives and crazy exes. They react to drama in the perfect way because they know your previous partner and know that you are used to being gaslit. They easily find ways to build a connection with you over shared experiences because they have read and analyzed all the experiences you shared. These are who you need to watch out for.
How enticing is it when they show you you are worth that effort? You are special. You have been chosen and are worthy of this.
It is so hard to decipher whether you are seeing someone real as a manipulator because you do not feel worthy of the real thing or seeing someone as real and feeling deserving of that, but they are really manipulators.
You have to decide what types of risks you are willing to take.
Lisa Gray 