Was it Colonel Mustard on the kitchen with the rope?

Baby Carrot · 10-30-2006, 06:22 PM

So this a twisted situation that happened to me months ago, and it triggered a terrible period of anxiety and depression I only got over weeks ago. Is pretty confusing, sorry in advance if you dare to read the whole thing, is extra long.

Opinions, comments, questions and feedback on this mess, greatly appreciated.

I was on a relationship 4 year long relationship with Yellow Bastard, drama queen and master of jealousy and insecurity.
On january 06, an unknown guy sees my email on a forum and adds me to his messenger.
Yellow Bastard notices this, and asks me who is it. I argue I have no idea and is probably someone from school. He doesn't seem very pleased.
I start talking with Hartigan online, the unknown guy from the net. Of course, I don't mention this to Yellow Bastard. He's flirty but I always made clear I was already in a relationship and I wasn't a cheater.
Yellow Bastard, a travel junkie, decides he's gonna go to Europe again, and I tell him this time I'm not gonna borrow him any money. He says is OK, that he will finance it. (He owed me already a lot of money from previous trips and debts)
Time passes. I keep talking on and off with Hartigan.
One fine day, Yellow Bastard and I are at my home hanging out. We have a stupid argument over nothing and he goes, just like that.
Later that evening I try to open my e-mail and messinger, it doesn't work. The password is incorrect. I try try try and I get the same error. Then, I request for a new password to be sent to a second account I have. I manage to do this, but instantly, that second account is also hacked. I know this because I try to access and I get the creepy message "Gotcha" as the secret question.
I totally freak out and of course I call Yellow Bastard. So he makes me confess 'what I've been up to on the internet', I tell him I had been talking with Hartigan and he goes like "That's what happens when you let strangers in to your MSN, Hartigan totally hacked you, this is what you get"
I even had to apologize to Yellow Bastard and have like make up sex with him. (Ugh)
So we supposedly made ammends. I stopped talking to Hartigan just like that, thinking he was a hacker. Then I started questioning myself.... "Why would Hartigan hack me for? He had a thousand chances to do it, why now? He didn't seem like a hacker anyways..."
Weeks after, I send Hartigan a private message thru the forum where he saw my e-mail in the beginning, asking him why on earth would he hack me. I know, stupid, but I was freaking out and needed to know desperately. He gets offended and tells me he didn't do it, and he doesn't need to be called a liar and a hacker. I just leave it like that.
Yellow Bastard takes off to Europe for a couple of weeks. He borrows me some DVDs for me to watch while he's gone, and everything is nice and dandy. Two days after his departure, I look for my savings (I had them on cash, in my room) and I find only two empty envelopes. I look everywhere, in case I had misplaced them. Nothing.
I go crazy, send Yellow Bastard e-mails asking if he knows anything or if he took the money. He denies it, he says he has no idea what the heck am I talking about. We talk online and he keeps on denial. By that time I can't sleep, I can't eat, I'm having a breakdown. I feel absolutely alone and confused and empty.
Time keeps passing (he spent 3 weeks in there) and I end up going to therapy. I really didn't even know how to deal with this. After all, he was so exteremely jealous that he managed to become the center of my universe. And I just couldn't cope with the fact the center of my universe was a passive agressive liar and a thief. Seriously, I burnt bridges, had no friends, no family, only him.
I keep going with the shrink, and she tells me that, even though there's really no way of proving it, he did it. He stole the money, and he hacked my email and blamed Hartigan, out of jealousy and out of revenge. He was a liar, the kind of liar that lies to people while you're there present and tells you, "I lie to everyone except to you, we are in the same side"
Why do I assume is Yellow Bastard hacking my e-mail instead of Hartigan? YB didn't know my password but he certainly knew my secret question, it was oh so obvious. It was the same question for both e-mails. It wasn't even hacking, he simply accesed by using the secret question, and then changing the password.
Of course, there's no way of proving anything, is all an assumption. Wish I could hire a professional hacker to trace my old email and let Interpol check for fingerprints in my room, but I can't, how miserable.
So, I break up with Yellow Bastard. He keeps claiming he doesn't understand what is all about. I re-contact Hartigan thru the forum, trying to find something that uncovers Yellow Bastard. Hartigans tells me he got strange messages from my stolen account, like it was me sending them. He showed them to me. At this point, I'm going crazy, and I didn't know who to believe. That's what the title of this post is about.... I was wondering who was the criminal, where and with what... u know.
I was losing it because there will never be a way of proving who did it, only assumptions and suppositions.
So I keep exchanging some messages with Hartigan (I was really lost and it was comforting talking to someone, anyone) while I go thru a terrible break up with Yellow Bastard, who is freaking out and going like thru stages...
Yellow Bastard is first confused, then sad, then depressed, then suicidal, then he even threathens me with making my life a living hell and saying the sick sick lines "If you're not with me, you're not gonna be with anyone..."
I'm still the peak of the depression and anxiety disorder, so I break down and call him. He tells me he could never do me any harm, that he was so lost and sad as well...
By this time I'm back into chatting with Hartigan again, thru messinger. I tell him the whole drama, and of course he's mad because I was blaming him, but overall he's really supportive and patient.
I keep pushing Yellow Bastard away, and he dissapears for a couple of months. Acting according to something he said to me before "If I don't see you as a girlfriend, I will just act like if you were dead, I cannot be your friend, I don't believe in that"
I get really close to Hartigan. We start to have a sort of cyber romance. We talk on the phone for the first time and is amazing. We keep talking on the phone (he calls and pays the long distance). We talk about meeting. And being together.
Yellow Bastard suddendly appears again on my life. He calls me drunk in the morrow, asking me a lot of questions like when we were together. Im very cold and tell him all I care about is the money he owes me. I send him to hell. He dissapears again. But I made the mistake of mentioning I have a job now.
Now, the meeting/relationship thing with Hartigan doesn't happen, but we remain intimate and are fond of each other.
I receive a call to my cellphone from a supposed HR person, wanting me for a job. I believe is legit and give him info about where I work and stuff. I even talk with this bogus on the messinger, and give him more info believing is a legit opportunity. After all is thru internet how I got my current job.
They HR guy online gets personal and mentions some creepy story about a guy that was murdered in this city (with all the features of Yellow Bastard, what a coincidence). I call Yellow Bastard´s cell to find out if he's really dead. The cell rings, noone answers. This is where I begin to smell a scam.
Too much of a coincidence, I send to hell the HR guy on the phone, the last time he calls. And only MINUTS later, Yellow Bastard appears at my door saying "I saw a missing call on my cell..."
I just tell him I needed my money. He starts acting desperatly, wanting me to talk to him and blocking my way in. I manage to get inside the apartment, and he keeps ringing the bell for the next hour and a half, also calling my cell and local number. He finally goes away. But of course, he got all the info he wanted thanks to his fake HR recruiter scam. He even found out I was "seeing" someone (Hartigan, but I wouldn't say any names)
Yellow Bastard dissapears again after that.
I remain close to Hartigan.

Guess the main question is... how to get over paranoia? I felt stupid many times for being so in trust with Hartigan. Because guess what, I met Yellow Bastard in the exact same way, and look what happened.

Is the best policy to keep doubting about everyone and being deffensive, seeing everyone as potential liars? Gosh, I don't wanna turn into my dad.

Thanks for reading.

Scotcha · 10-30-2006, 07:05 PM

I think you should go to the courts and get a restraining order. This guy sounds nuts and worries me. (your safety, not his)

**caro33** · 10-30-2006, 07:27 PM

Oh my! Baby Carrot this sounds really awful, what a difficult experience. I would have freaked out completely, this must have been unnerving.

How to get over the paranoia? I guess the difference is determining what is unnecessary paranoia and what is a justifiable concern for your own wellbeing. I agree with Scotcha that legal action would be next, if you are up for it and have ANY ongoing concerns about YB's presence in your life. Change your cell phone and email details if you haven't already, and police very closely who gets that information.

The world of online dating sounds like a challenge. I will hazard a guess that there are perhaps marginally more weirdos there than you would encounter in the real world, just because of the chance for anonymity and perhaps their weirdness has made them less likely to engage with people in the real world. But as time has gone by, there are more and more un-weird people signing up, like you, and the chances of hooking up with a weirdo go down.

Also, the online thing means you're more likely to meet someone who isn't really a match, just because our normal means of assessing someone's 'fit' (eyes and ears, smell etc) have been disabled, and by the time you meet them in person the virtual experience (which may have been a little put on, more so that would be possible in real life) has already biased you.

Who knows. This was just one weirdo, and this happens to people unfortunately, both online and outside the web. YB will bounce out of your life. Hartigan may be great, he may be fine, but it sounds like you need some time to chill for your own sake, to get your foundation back.

This is what I would do in an ideal world if I was you, based on what you've said. I would extract myself from the online dating world and spend time with friends and family that I trust. People who have positive stories to take to heart that relationships can work, people can be trusted. Keep clear of the negative people while you're getting your mojo back. Keep up the counselling if that helps. Perhaps keep things cool with Hartigan if that feels like something that would be okay for you. If want to meet people, take up a hobby, meet people face to face, and don't give anyone any of your personal info, including cell nbr and email, unless and until you feel comfortable. I would go to dance lessons with a friend, something like that. Once you feel like you have taken back control, and time has passed, I would hope that your paranoia would reduce significantly.

Don't beat yourself up about this though, and don't assume the worst of people. There are creeps out there, like there always was, but there are great people too. You can patrol your perimeters and keep yourself safe (well as safe as any of us can be sure of) while also watching out for the good ones.

Baby Carrot · 10-31-2006, 11:29 AM

SCOTCHA:

Thanks for your concern, I know, I wish I could get one of those, but as I stated in another post, restraining orders bascially don't exist here (Latin America). I even called the police when he was there at my apartment knocking like crazy, but they never showed up.

Baby Carrot · 10-31-2006, 11:46 AM

CARO:

Thanks a lot for your time and words, this was really difficult to put into words, but now I can say I'm basically over it.

I wish I could say I can use my instinct and my gut and intuition to determine Hartigan is not a weirdo, but by this point, my gut is completely confused and paranoid, That's terrible, is like feeling you cannot trust what your eyes see. Feeling insecure like that is just terrible.

You're right, I need to chill and that's exactly what I'm doing. I already told Hartigan I'm really not ready for a relationship, so we are still in touch but not anymore like a cyber couple if it can be considered it that way...

Thanks again for your advice, and for reading the whole thing. I really really appreciate it.

10-30-2006, 06:22 PM	#1
Baby Carrot Offline Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Lilliput and Blefuscu Posts: 669	Was it Colonel Mustard on the kitchen with the rope? So this a twisted situation that happened to me months ago, and it triggered a terrible period of anxiety and depression I only got over weeks ago. Is pretty confusing, sorry in advance if you dare to read the whole thing, is extra long. Opinions, comments, questions and feedback on this mess, greatly appreciated. I was on a relationship 4 year long relationship with Yellow Bastard, drama queen and master of jealousy and insecurity. On january 06, an unknown guy sees my email on a forum and adds me to his messenger. Yellow Bastard notices this, and asks me who is it. I argue I have no idea and is probably someone from school. He doesn't seem very pleased. I start talking with Hartigan online, the unknown guy from the net. Of course, I don't mention this to Yellow Bastard. He's flirty but I always made clear I was already in a relationship and I wasn't a cheater. Yellow Bastard, a travel junkie, decides he's gonna go to Europe again, and I tell him this time I'm not gonna borrow him any money. He says is OK, that he will finance it. (He owed me already a lot of money from previous trips and debts) Time passes. I keep talking on and off with Hartigan. One fine day, Yellow Bastard and I are at my home hanging out. We have a stupid argument over nothing and he goes, just like that. Later that evening I try to open my e-mail and messinger, it doesn't work. The password is incorrect. I try try try and I get the same error. Then, I request for a new password to be sent to a second account I have. I manage to do this, but instantly, that second account is also hacked. I know this because I try to access and I get the creepy message "Gotcha" as the secret question. I totally freak out and of course I call Yellow Bastard. So he makes me confess 'what I've been up to on the internet', I tell him I had been talking with Hartigan and he goes like "That's what happens when you let strangers in to your MSN, Hartigan totally hacked you, this is what you get" I even had to apologize to Yellow Bastard and have like make up sex with him. (Ugh) So we supposedly made ammends. I stopped talking to Hartigan just like that, thinking he was a hacker. Then I started questioning myself.... "Why would Hartigan hack me for? He had a thousand chances to do it, why now? He didn't seem like a hacker anyways..." Weeks after, I send Hartigan a private message thru the forum where he saw my e-mail in the beginning, asking him why on earth would he hack me. I know, stupid, but I was freaking out and needed to know desperately. He gets offended and tells me he didn't do it, and he doesn't need to be called a liar and a hacker. I just leave it like that. Yellow Bastard takes off to Europe for a couple of weeks. He borrows me some DVDs for me to watch while he's gone, and everything is nice and dandy. Two days after his departure, I look for my savings (I had them on cash, in my room) and I find only two empty envelopes. I look everywhere, in case I had misplaced them. Nothing. I go crazy, send Yellow Bastard e-mails asking if he knows anything or if he took the money. He denies it, he says he has no idea what the heck am I talking about. We talk online and he keeps on denial. By that time I can't sleep, I can't eat, I'm having a breakdown. I feel absolutely alone and confused and empty. Time keeps passing (he spent 3 weeks in there) and I end up going to therapy. I really didn't even know how to deal with this. After all, he was so exteremely jealous that he managed to become the center of my universe. And I just couldn't cope with the fact the center of my universe was a passive agressive liar and a thief. Seriously, I burnt bridges, had no friends, no family, only him. I keep going with the shrink, and she tells me that, even though there's really no way of proving it, he did it. He stole the money, and he hacked my email and blamed Hartigan, out of jealousy and out of revenge. He was a liar, the kind of liar that lies to people while you're there present and tells you, "I lie to everyone except to you, we are in the same side" Why do I assume is Yellow Bastard hacking my e-mail instead of Hartigan? YB didn't know my password but he certainly knew my secret question, it was oh so obvious. It was the same question for both e-mails. It wasn't even hacking, he simply accesed by using the secret question, and then changing the password. Of course, there's no way of proving anything, is all an assumption. Wish I could hire a professional hacker to trace my old email and let Interpol check for fingerprints in my room, but I can't, how miserable. So, I break up with Yellow Bastard. He keeps claiming he doesn't understand what is all about. I re-contact Hartigan thru the forum, trying to find something that uncovers Yellow Bastard. Hartigans tells me he got strange messages from my stolen account, like it was me sending them. He showed them to me. At this point, I'm going crazy, and I didn't know who to believe. That's what the title of this post is about.... I was wondering who was the criminal, where and with what... u know. I was losing it because there will never be a way of proving who did it, only assumptions and suppositions. So I keep exchanging some messages with Hartigan (I was really lost and it was comforting talking to someone, anyone) while I go thru a terrible break up with Yellow Bastard, who is freaking out and going like thru stages... Yellow Bastard is first confused, then sad, then depressed, then suicidal, then he even threathens me with making my life a living hell and saying the sick sick lines "If you're not with me, you're not gonna be with anyone..." I'm still the peak of the depression and anxiety disorder, so I break down and call him. He tells me he could never do me any harm, that he was so lost and sad as well... By this time I'm back into chatting with Hartigan again, thru messinger. I tell him the whole drama, and of course he's mad because I was blaming him, but overall he's really supportive and patient. I keep pushing Yellow Bastard away, and he dissapears for a couple of months. Acting according to something he said to me before "If I don't see you as a girlfriend, I will just act like if you were dead, I cannot be your friend, I don't believe in that" I get really close to Hartigan. We start to have a sort of cyber romance. We talk on the phone for the first time and is amazing. We keep talking on the phone (he calls and pays the long distance). We talk about meeting. And being together. Yellow Bastard suddendly appears again on my life. He calls me drunk in the morrow, asking me a lot of questions like when we were together. Im very cold and tell him all I care about is the money he owes me. I send him to hell. He dissapears again. But I made the mistake of mentioning I have a job now. Now, the meeting/relationship thing with Hartigan doesn't happen, but we remain intimate and are fond of each other. I receive a call to my cellphone from a supposed HR person, wanting me for a job. I believe is legit and give him info about where I work and stuff. I even talk with this bogus on the messinger, and give him more info believing is a legit opportunity. After all is thru internet how I got my current job. They HR guy online gets personal and mentions some creepy story about a guy that was murdered in this city (with all the features of Yellow Bastard, what a coincidence). I call Yellow Bastard´s cell to find out if he's really dead. The cell rings, noone answers. This is where I begin to smell a scam. Too much of a coincidence, I send to hell the HR guy on the phone, the last time he calls. And only MINUTS later, Yellow Bastard appears at my door saying "I saw a missing call on my cell..." I just tell him I needed my money. He starts acting desperatly, wanting me to talk to him and blocking my way in. I manage to get inside the apartment, and he keeps ringing the bell for the next hour and a half, also calling my cell and local number. He finally goes away. But of course, he got all the info he wanted thanks to his fake HR recruiter scam. He even found out I was "seeing" someone (Hartigan, but I wouldn't say any names) Yellow Bastard dissapears again after that. I remain close to Hartigan. Guess the main question is... how to get over paranoia? I felt stupid many times for being so in trust with Hartigan. Because guess what, I met Yellow Bastard in the exact same way, and look what happened. Is the best policy to keep doubting about everyone and being deffensive, seeing everyone as potential liars? Gosh, I don't wanna turn into my dad. Thanks for reading. Last edited by Baby Carrot; 10-31-2006 at 11:09 AM.

10-30-2006, 07:05 PM	#2
Scotcha Offline Silver Member Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: New York Gender: Female Age: 27 Posts: 802	I think you should go to the courts and get a restraining order. This guy sounds nuts and worries me. (your safety, not his)

10-30-2006, 07:27 PM	#3
caro33 Online Super Moderator Join Date: Jun 2006 Posts: 2,569	Oh my! Baby Carrot this sounds really awful, what a difficult experience. I would have freaked out completely, this must have been unnerving. How to get over the paranoia? I guess the difference is determining what is unnecessary paranoia and what is a justifiable concern for your own wellbeing. I agree with Scotcha that legal action would be next, if you are up for it and have ANY ongoing concerns about YB's presence in your life. Change your cell phone and email details if you haven't already, and police very closely who gets that information. The world of online dating sounds like a challenge. I will hazard a guess that there are perhaps marginally more weirdos there than you would encounter in the real world, just because of the chance for anonymity and perhaps their weirdness has made them less likely to engage with people in the real world. But as time has gone by, there are more and more un-weird people signing up, like you, and the chances of hooking up with a weirdo go down. Also, the online thing means you're more likely to meet someone who isn't really a match, just because our normal means of assessing someone's 'fit' (eyes and ears, smell etc) have been disabled, and by the time you meet them in person the virtual experience (which may have been a little put on, more so that would be possible in real life) has already biased you. Who knows. This was just one weirdo, and this happens to people unfortunately, both online and outside the web. YB will bounce out of your life. Hartigan may be great, he may be fine, but it sounds like you need some time to chill for your own sake, to get your foundation back. This is what I would do in an ideal world if I was you, based on what you've said. I would extract myself from the online dating world and spend time with friends and family that I trust. People who have positive stories to take to heart that relationships can work, people can be trusted. Keep clear of the negative people while you're getting your mojo back. Keep up the counselling if that helps. Perhaps keep things cool with Hartigan if that feels like something that would be okay for you. If want to meet people, take up a hobby, meet people face to face, and don't give anyone any of your personal info, including cell nbr and email, unless and until you feel comfortable. I would go to dance lessons with a friend, something like that. Once you feel like you have taken back control, and time has passed, I would hope that your paranoia would reduce significantly. Don't beat yourself up about this though, and don't assume the worst of people. There are creeps out there, like there always was, but there are great people too. You can patrol your perimeters and keep yourself safe (well as safe as any of us can be sure of) while also watching out for the good ones.

10-31-2006, 11:29 AM	#4
Baby Carrot Offline Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Lilliput and Blefuscu Posts: 669	SCOTCHA: Thanks for your concern, I know, I wish I could get one of those, but as I stated in another post, restraining orders bascially don't exist here (Latin America). I even called the police when he was there at my apartment knocking like crazy, but they never showed up.

10-31-2006, 11:46 AM	#5
Baby Carrot Offline Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Lilliput and Blefuscu Posts: 669	CARO: Thanks a lot for your time and words, this was really difficult to put into words, but now I can say I'm basically over it. I wish I could say I can use my instinct and my gut and intuition to determine Hartigan is not a weirdo, but by this point, my gut is completely confused and paranoid, That's terrible, is like feeling you cannot trust what your eyes see. Feeling insecure like that is just terrible. You're right, I need to chill and that's exactly what I'm doing. I already told Hartigan I'm really not ready for a relationship, so we are still in touch but not anymore like a cyber couple if it can be considered it that way... Thanks again for your advice, and for reading the whole thing. I really really appreciate it.