Wanna hear something crazy?

Thanks for all your notes and comments about Stalker Girl. But you wanna hear something crazy? I'm not crazy!

Well, let me rephrase that. I had a completely normal, not-at-all extreme reaction to her latest missive. I didn't act crazy. I didn't respond by spiraling into a greater-than-my-usual degree of craziness in this particular situation.

I'm not going to spend too much time clapping myself on the back over this, of course. After all, it's not that hard to stay sane when your husband's stalker starts stalking other people, when she turns her attention more or less away from your immediate family and onto other people. My fears have always been centered on her coming after my kids...I've worried about Baroy, and I've worried about myself, and hell, I worry about my BIL, but what I've always been SCARED of--what I get out-of-control TERRIFIED of--is something happening to my children. It's that primal thing that I haven't been able to tame. And this? Well, even I couldn't turn this into a potential attack on my children. Or at least not to any significant extent.

And so I've been slightly jumpy these past few days. That's normal in this situation: Baroy's jumpy, BIL is jumpy, BIL's wife is jumpy. But it's not a 24-7 thought. I'm not panicked. It hasn't taken over my life. I'm even able to talk about it--to discuss with BIL the ways he can handle it, and what I have and/or would do in his place.

In the not-so-distant past, that would have been impossible. Just TALKING about her--just hearing her name, just having her referred to obliquely, even jokingly--would send me into an immediate, full-out, no-returning-from-without-pharmaceutical-help panic attack. But some combination of therapy, time, and meds have helped. I have absolutely no expectation that I would hold up this well if she once again were to come at us--at Baroy and myself--full on. Still, baby steps. Going in the right direction, and all that. I can't help but being a little bit pleased.

Stalked

Hey! Guess who showed up in my brother-in-law's colleague's emails today! If you said Stalker Girl, you guessed right! And yes, the overuse of exclamation points is a result of my pretending I'm excited about this, and not really freaking out! So, I apologize in advance, but I can't stop!

Because one never knows where Stalker Girl is, and because one never wants to know, one doesn't write details about her in a public venue--or about one's brother-in-law, who has to deal with this, too. But lemme give you the highlights of the email she sent to someone my bil has worked with and respects greatly.

According to Stalker Girl:

1. My BIL (who is a writer for a well-known periodical) is personally responsible for a recent widely covered news event in which a public figure publicly lost his mind and did some really stupid things. BIL arranged for this to happen, she says, so that he could write about said mind losing.

2. This is par for the course, since said BIL's brother (that's Baroy, making his de rigeur appearance in each one of her ramblings) has a history of drugging, raping, videotaping and blackmailing women.

3. It's also par for the course because said BIL's OTHER brother rigged an election on behalf of [insert name of lady running for the presidency].

4. BIL has to be stopped. His colleague--the one to whom the email was addressed--needs to stop him.

I should mention, I suppose, that this colleague is a very well known person, someone whose name probably three-quarters of you would know immediately, and the other quarter would need only a very slight bit of info to have it click into place. So not only is there the whole stress-spiking issue of her turning up again, a good year and a half after the last salvo, but there is also the sheer embarrassment of having this psychotic rambling directed at people whom we (i.e., BIL, Baroy, and the rest of the family) respect and to whom we really would rather not have had to explain why this person is doing and saying the things she does and says.

Not that the line about Lady Candidate is explainable, mind you. Because...what? Huh? It sort of defines the term non-sequiteur.

But, whatever. We do what we have to do. It's just disappointing, is all. Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water...

It never. fucking. ends.

Anonymity/Pseudonymity

Rich asked, in response to my two-days-ago post about N's self-grooming attempts, "You don't really consider your blog anonymous, do you?"

Funny he should ask that. A good number of weeks ago, I'd started to write the following entry after several of you noted that I'd posted the first-ever photos of myself on this blog:

I started this blog in complete anonymity, and for more than a year, I kept it there, sometimes by sheer force of will. Blogging is such a personal act for me, and it seems wrong, somehow, to stay hidden behind a pseudonym, to remain unseen. Plus, to be blunt, I’ve never been one to shun attention, and yet there I was, trying to balance my need to be read, to be heard, and my need to keep myself and, more importantly, my family, out of sight.

All of this, of course, was because of her. Stalker Girl. It’s hard to visualize the border between realistic caution and true paranoia when there really is someone out to get you or those you love. I’d witnessed Stalker Girl not only track me down via my maiden name, but also track down one of my sisters-in-law. I’d experienced the terror of knowing there was a paid investigator out there, somewhere, watching me, Baroy, and the kids. I’d tried to live with the uncertainty of what else, who else, she might pay for, and what task she might set for them.

I got interrupted or distracted or something right at that point, so never finished the post. But what I'd wanted to say, what I would have probably said better when the thought was fresh in my mind, was that I knew and had always known that I am not Stalker Girl's target. It has taken me this long to take that to its logical conclusion; to ralize that photos of me on this blog are neither part of the problem nor part of its solution. What I'm trying to do is to keep Stalker Girl from finding and reading this blog, simply because I don't want her knowing anything about me and my family or gathering information she can use to hurt us. And so I won't ever trumpet my full name from these pages, because I see no reason for her to be here unless she's led there by a link like that. But a photo of me? What the fuck. I'm gonna live dangerously.

I've even gone so far as to post photos of the kids. But, you'll notice, not photos that would let you really know what they look like. Photos where they're in costume, or wearing hats, or where their faces are obscured. Photos that tell you about their personalities, but not photos that would let you recognize them if, say, you saw them on the street; if, say, you were planning to take them, or hurt them. Not that I think about that much, of course. Only all the time.

And so it's a dance. It's not only my dance; it's the dance of every blogger out there. Some of us use our full names; others use our first names; some use pseudonyms. Some of us go to great lengths to hide even the state we live in; others practically give out our phone numbers and addresses. We do these things for various reasons; we get slammed for those reasons, all the time. But we do what we need to do, to find the balance that lets us do what we love to do--to write, to reach out, to meet new people, to talk things out--without sacrificing the people we love.

Or at least that's what I'm trying to do. I know I'm not anonymous here. I know I'm barely pseudonymous any more, what with that permanent link to my book over there. But I'm still not ready or willing to stand here with a big flashing arrow above my head, screaming, "Hey Stalker Girl! It's me, Real Name; wife of Guy You Stalk! Over here! Come and get me, beeyotch! I dare you!"

As Baroy often says, I may be crazy, but I ain't stupid. I'm just trying to do the best I can. And not give up the things that make me happy, and keep me sane.