Let me preface this by saying that I hoped this could be avoided, I hoped that everything would just go away and that I would not have to deal with it. But, it’s clear that the only way this is going to go away is if I face it head on and quit trying to quietly absorb everything coming at me instead of telling everyone what has, is and continues to happen.
Who are the people I mention in the title of this note? One of them has been bullying and harassing me for months, the other I had not heard of until February. I ask that you read this note to understand why I am doing this before passing judgement. I am not doing this to be malicious. I am doing it so that others know who these people truly are and what they have done to me and others. Whether you decide to keep them as friends after you read this is entirely up to you. I am NOT asking anyone to chain these people in Castle Age nor am I asking you to remove them as friends. I am merely empowering you to make an informed decision that I wish I had when our paths initially crossed.
I will try to make this as brief as possible, but there are many details that need to be shared in order to convey the entire situation accurately and this has also taken place over several months, so brief likely won’t happen.
So now let’s start from the beginning.
TMI-11 is a small team of 20 people within a much larger group called Grey’s Riders, who all play the game Castle Age on Facebook. I had been a member of TMI-11 since its inception in March 2010, until I left the team last week. Erin joined the group and team within the last 6 months or so, maybe slightly longer I’m not really sure, and was welcomed with open arms. She also joined the Grey’s Riders guild, which I was also a member at the time. The two of us developed a friendship over the months and ended up confiding in each other. I had personally confided in her about my marriage, my husband’s death, insecurities about being a single mother, romantic relationships from my past as well as those since my husband’s death, and other insecurities that I try to conquer in life. She also confided things to me about her personal life, but I will not reveal that even if she doesn’t hold to the promise she gave me about doing the same.
Over the months that we were friends, several things became quite apparent. Erin needs to be the center of attention. If she isn’t, she usually does something to get the focus back on herself. She was, and quite possibly still is, quite jealous of me. Why I don’t know, but no matter what I did in Castle Age or in real life, she always had to one up me or at least try. She sees what she wants to see in a situation, no matter what is presented to her. It almost seems as if she makes up stuff in her head and she is utterly convinced that it is real, even when what she has in front of her is completely different. She is always the victim and never does anything wrong. It is always others that have it out for her and she never does anything to deserve the way that she is treated. There were also times where it was made apparent that unless you agreed with something she said or the way she felt, she would become pissed off. This happened on several occasions in general conversation, but also when she felt her contributions to the Grey’s Riders guild was not being acknowledged or her ideas were not being listened to. Over time I became much more aware of whom Erin really was, instead of the façade that she quite convincingly presents to everyone, and started to distance myself from her. I was fast growing tired of walking around on eggshells around her trying not to set her off yet again.
So how did things go so wrong? Erin came to me with a private matter that involved several other people and asked for help trying to figure out what to do. It was something that I had been through in my own life but I had been on the opposite side of where she was. This made it impossible for me to give any kind of constructive advice because the situation was still fresh in my mind and the pain from it was still present. I tried explaining this to her and telling her that I was not going to be able to help her and give her the advice that she was seeking because I could not see past what I had been through. I was not condescending. I was just being honest and telling her that she needed to talk to someone else who could see both sides of the situation and give meaningful, constructive advice. All I could see was the pain I had gone through. She couldn’t understand this and took this as me judging her. I wasn’t judging her; I just couldn’t look at the situation with an open mind to see both sides. For me to give any kind of advice would have been wrong.
Shortly after this, she used information that I had confided in her about a relationship that I had with someone with the sole intention of hurting me as much as she possibly could. And it worked. This happened the night before I left to go to New York for New Year’s Eve. When I returned home, I confronted her. Words were exchanged in both directions and I made it clear that I had no intention of remaining her friend. We were still in TMI-11 together and I had no intention of treating her any different. But I did create a separate friend group in Facebook that would allow her to remain a friend, but prevent her from accessing any of my information including wall posts. She decided to just delete me as a friend.
Everything was going smoothly. I was not ignoring her in the team but I was also not interacting with her outside of the group in any way. She did not act the same way, ignoring me and getting her little jabs in trying to provoke me whenever she had the chance, but for all intents and purposes, to everyone else it would have seemed as though everything was status quo. I just let things slide and decided that if that was how she wanted to act then so be it. That is until the incident on Skype happened.
The night of the Skype incident, she appeared to be having a philosophical discussion with another individual from TMI-11, at least that is how it would appear to everyone else who was not privy to the words that had been exchanged between the two of us when our friendship ended. Erin will never admit to this, but one of the comments that she made in that philosophical discussion was another one of her underhanded attempts at getting a reaction out of me. And this time it worked. There was a heated exchange between the two of us in the Skype room, which resulted in BOTH of us being asked to stop by the other people who were in the room at the time. I stopped my part of the public fight on at least two occasions but she continued to push the issue. One instance I had stopped responding for over 5 minutes and watched her post several more comments. I responded to what she wrote and said “I’m done” and proceeded to go invisible on Skype preparing to log off. She then kicked me out of the Skype room, which only the creator of the room and some other individuals who are specifically given this ability are able to do. At that point, Erin was the only person from the team who had any abilities in the Skype room created for the team. Because of everything that had occurred between Erin and me, I not only blocked her on Skype at that point, but I also blocked her in Facebook. I did not want her contacting me privately in any way. I was pissed off by the whole thing because I ended up looking like the idiot because of my behaviour and because I reacted. I posted a status message that conveyed exactly how I felt about the situation, about how I had fallen for a trap and calling her a b*tch. The incident in Skype and my status update later that night were not my finest moments. But I also had just as much right as she did to be in the Skype room that was created for the team. And when I was not being added back, I mentioned having another room created in Skype where the whole team could feel welcomed. At this point the Skype incident was brought up to our team leader and we were both banned from communicating with the team until we could both do so civilly or face being removed from the team.
Now we’re into the mediation that resulted from the Skype incident. We either worked out our issues or were both being kicked off of the team. As I’ve said, what happened in Skype and the status message that I posted were not my finest moments. I should have also gone directly to our team leader to have a new room created, but I didn’t and I also regret that. During the mediation, I acknowledged my part of what happened and apologized for reacting the way I did to Erin, even if what she wrote was a personal jab at me I still had no right to act that way. She apologized for me taking the personal jab as a personal jab. Aside from that, she didn’t and I’m sure still doesn’t see anything else that she did that night as wrong. An interesting note is that she used a part of one of the personal messages that I had sent her ending our friendship the week prior to justify her kicking me out of the room. When I wrote that, it had nothing to do with what came to happen in Skype, but this is just another example of Erin seeing what Erin wants to see. What other parts of that private conversation she has shared with others I don’t know, but I will stick by my word and keep what she shared in confidence. So in the end, we agreed to be civil to each other and were told that another incident would mean an automatic two week communication ban and possible expulsion from the team. A new Skype room was created, but only after Erin was allowed to say a little spiel in the old room and create a transition to the new room. In her eyes, this would make it appear to everyone that she did nothing wrong. Whether people saw it as this I don’t know, but I still don’t agree with it being allowed but it wasn’t discussed with me so I wasn’t able to share why I didn’t think it was appropriate. I was told to remove any blocks that I had in place with her at that point. So, she was not in my contact list on Skype, nor were we friends in Facebook, but she was now once again able to send me private messages in Facebook should she choose.
Before I continue on to what happened next, allow me to give you some insight into why I let what she did next to happen and did not say anything to anyone right away.
TMI-11 is a great bunch of people and I have developed several very close relationships and bonds to the people in that group. When the whole Skype incident happened, it almost seemed as though Erin was going to make it so that the issue would never get resolved just so that we would both be removed from the team. She knew how very dear to my heart the team was and how attached I was to the people. The thought of being without the team and not being able to interact with all of them on a daily basis was tearing me up inside. I know Castle Age is just a game, but the friendships that I have because of that game are not any less significant just because I happen to have come across these people on the internet. These people are very dear to me and it’s almost like a family of some sort. It’s hard to explain and I know that some of you reading this won’t understand that bond, but it is there. So the reason why I never said anything about what happens next to anyone until after Valentine’s Day is because I was scared that it would be seen as us not getting along again and I would be removed from the team that I loved because of her actions, even if I never responded to or reacted to her in any way. So instead of saying something, I suffered in silence trying to deal with all the hurtful, hateful and just plain wrong stuff she was sending to me.
So once again, to everyone but me and Erin, everything seemed status quo. But it wasn’t. Since the mediation event happened, Erin continued to do little things to try and provoke me once again. She at one point even resorted to liking my Happy Valentine’s day posts that I had posted on our mutual friend’s walls only to shortly after she liked all of mine go back and post her own. Crazy stuff like that was happening all the time. But it didn’t stop at the crazy, childish little things; she also contacted me by sending me private messages in Facebook. As I mentioned earlier, I shared personal stuff with her and now she was once again taking the things I had shared with her in confidence to hurt me.
The first message she sent me on Facebook was to let me know that she would do whatever she had to do to make sure that I was removed from TMI-11. The next was about my fear of being a failure in life. She mentioned how just like my marriage and other romantic relationships had failed, my life in general would be a failure as well. The next message had to do with how I was going to be a horrible mother. Basically I would screw my daughter up so much as she grew up and/or she would grow up to hate me. The next message was sent to me on Valentine’s Day. To this day I can’t believe that someone would actually go there. It mentioned how my husband’s suicide was his way of getting away from me because he couldn’t stand me anymore. It also mentioned how someone thousands of miles away couldn’t stand me either and left me all alone. She also said something along the lines of hoping that I eventually find someone to put up with me. Do I have proof of any of these messages? No I don’t. Had I not been on the new messaging system in Facebook, I would not have even read the messages she sent to me before deleting them, but you can’t do that now. So I went in and of course saw her hateful words and then deleted them.
It wasn’t until after the last message about my husband’s suicide that I finally told a few people about what she sent to me. I was 31 weeks pregnant at the time and to say that I was stressed over this whole Erin situation is putting it mildly. I was crying several times a day at that point and I wasn’t participating in Facebook or in conversations with anyone much at all since the mediation. The more that I participated or was active in things, the more Erin went after me. It was getting to the point where I just couldn’t handle it anymore, so I backed away from what I used to enjoy. But just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, they did.
Erin had left the Grey’s Riders guild at some point and joined the Angels and Demons guild. She did this because she felt like she wasn’t appreciated in GR. Shortly after Valentine’s Day, Angels and Demons was matched up in a guild war with Grey’s Riders. So this put us on opposing teams, as I was still with GR at the time. During the battle, one of the members of Angels and Demons attacked me outside of the guild battle 12-14 times (I can’t remember the exact number anymore). Because of a previous issue that GR had with members of the guild getting chained outside of a guild battle, and because I was an officer of the guild at that point, I followed what we were supposed to do and mentioned the incident in our guild group and asked if anyone else was getting hit like this. I also stated that I was prepared to deal with it on my own. Things then got heated between GR guild and Angels and Demons in the chat of the guild battle. Erin messed up and posted “I hate that f*cking b*tch” as well as some other stuff concerning the hits I received from her guild mate, in the group thread in Facebook for TMI-11 instead of wherever she had intended to post that remark about me. So now not only was her hate just being directed at me, she messed up and let everyone in the team know that she was also sharing her hate about me with others. I never responded or reacted to what she said. So with that incident, she was forced into a two week communication ban with the team. Apparently it also resulted in her either getting kicked out of the Angels and Demons guild or leaving.
Now the team was once again aware of the ongoing feud that Erin had with me. And I say that Erin had with me because I had done nothing since the mediation after the Skype incident. Now because of what she had said about me in the team thread, Erin needed to find another way to get me removed from the team because she was now in danger of having to leave and me being able to remain. So what better way to get at me than to go after the people that I care about and that is exactly what she proceeded to do and this is when Charlie Vogel gets involved. At some point Erin convinced Charlie to get involved and seek revenge because once again Erin is the victim, she did nothing wrong. Her posting what she did in the wrong thread and holding on to the hate she has for me is apparently all my fault, everything that has happened is all my fault in her eyes. So Charlie and his mini start appearing in my battle log, but it’s not just me he’s attacking, he’s also attacking a friend who is also a member of TMI-11 and who acknowledged the emails that Erin sent to me. But she’s not just getting hit a bit, she’s getting chained. Charlie is a level 1000+ in Castle Age, the girl in question is a level 400+ with a low battle rank that wouldn’t even allow Charlie or any other royalty ranked players to get battle points from her in the game. But now because of what was happening, I was allowed to block Erin in Facebook and Skype once again. At that point I also blocked her alternate account, Charlie and any of his alternate accounts that I was able to find. But it doesn’t end there, that is just the beginning. The threats from those two are just getting started.
Not only are we now getting hit by Charlie, but it’s pretty obvious that our keep links have been passed around at this point. The other girl from TMI-11 is getting chained by other high level and high battle rank players who are getting no battle points from her. I am seeing more action in my battle log than I have in all the previous months since I hit High King. Previously I had gone days without being hit to at that point having been killed or hit to below 10 health anytime I loaded the game in a day. So it wasn’t just a coincidence that all this started happening after Charlie started hitting us. Erin or her mini account never actually hit either one of us.
Once again that’s not where it ends. I was upset more than ever that now not only was Erin going after me, but she was going after my friend and a fellow team mate. It’s one of those things where it’s bad enough when it’s you someone is after, but it really sucks when they start bullying someone else to get at you even more. But going after me and another team mate from TMI-11 wasn’t enough. Charlie then started to threaten war against TMI-11 with a powerful and well known group in Castle Age which he happens to be affiliated with. He also threatened to get another group that he is involved with to initiate war against TMI-11, but I honestly can’t remember which group it was. Would Charlie have been able to convince these groups to wage war on a small 20 member team, I doubt it, but who knows. The night TMI-11 was threatened with war was also the night I went into premature labour with Annick at 32 weeks. Erin and Charlie were doing nothing but harassing, bullying and terrorizing me this whole time and that night was the culmination of their efforts. I was talking on the phone, at different times, to two female members of TMI-11 letting them know what was going on and trying to find a way to avoid an all out war because of the actions of one person who refuses to move on and let things go but decides instead to hold a grudge against me and make my life a living hell. Both of the women I was talking to were trying to calm me down but I was already starting to feel sick and honestly I was way past the point of calming down. I know I should have let things go and walked away, but I would like to see someone who is all loaded up on hormones, who is having their friends threatened and who had been put through what I had been going through for months at this point walk away and remain calm.
I’m not going to blame solely Charlie and Erin for me going into preterm labour and for Annick having to be in NICU for 10 days. Quite frankly, I did have other stressors in my personal life that also played a factor. But that night, both of them did nothing but escalate the current situation and the stress that I was put under because of their actions played a very large part in Annick being born early. What I find quite ironic is Erin wishing my daughter well while she was in the NICU. Had she really cared about my daughter, she would have backed off weeks earlier instead of coming after me behind closed doors. That was just another attempt by her to look like a caring and kind person, which can’t be further from the truth.
In the end war was averted. Another member of TMI-11 and Erin negotiated a truce with Charlie. I suppose it was nice to see that Erin who instigated this whole thing worked at resolving the matter. At that point, it was also made clear to her that she would no longer be welcomed back into TMI-11. So once again, Erin was removed/kicked out of/asked to leave a group that she had joined. This is a habitual problem with Erin. She has been in several groups and has had to leave for a variety of reasons. Although I don’t know the details of why she has been forced to leave so many groups, I do know it is because she has issues with many people in the Castle Age world for various reasons. Yet according to Erin, she is always the victim in these scenarios. Everyone is always after her and she never does anything wrong. Knowing what I know of Erin, this is completely untrue. For those of you who don’t know Erin and who are just reading the information that I have presented here about her, if the same person is leaving multiple groups (it must be at least 5+ by this point), what would be the one common denominator to all those groups?
Of course things didn’t stop after war was averted. I continued to get attacked by people in Castle Age, even some former members of Erin’s Angels and Demons guild, Erin continued to antagonize me by posting stuff in Castle Age where she knew I would be able to see it and then I found out that they were being fed information from someone in my friend list. At that point, I had enough. I realize that Facebook is by no means secure, but when someone blocks a person from seeing their wall and contacting them you would think that people would respect this, but apparently not. At that point I decided that nothing was worth the hell that I was being put through anymore because of these people. I would miss all the great friends that I had made on Facebook and would miss the interactions with people from all over the world as well as a game that I used to really enjoy playing, but what their bullying, threats, harassment and terrorizing was doing to me emotionally and physically was not good for me or my daughter. So I was going to let them force me out of Castle Age and out of Facebook, which is exactly what they wanted as both were apparently quite happy when they found out that I had enough.
Some friends talked me into staying and I ended up instead culling my friend list from 2000+ down to 500+. I also decided to block my wall to everyone but a select few to protect my privacy as well as my daughter’s privacy. When I communicated that I was going to be blocking my wall from people and the reason for why I was going to do this in the TMI-11 group, I was surprised when two people from the group decided to delete me as friends and also proceeded to leave the TMI-11 thread. The apparent reason, because one of them felt like they were being grouped in with all the people that I didn’t trust at the moment and did not appreciate that. Fact of the matter was that the only people who could see my wall at that point were my real life friends. I had not yet setup a trusted friends group. But the reaction that I received from that one person hurt like you wouldn’t believe and at that point I decided to make my wall invisible to everyone but me. The other person who deleted me didn’t even say anything to me. Regardless of the reasons why those two people decided to delete me as friends, I’m sure any parent can sympathize with a parent’s need to protect their child, regardless of age, from people who have already shown how mean and hateful they can be.
At that point I was still on Facebook, but I wasn’t really socializing with anyone. Facebook is about posting stuff and sharing stuff with people, who do you share with when it’s only you who will see it? I’m a very social person and I generally get along with everyone. I wear my heart on my sleeve and I’m not nearly as tough as I come across as. So when people treat me the way Erin and Charlie have treated me, when people who call themselves friends of mine all of a sudden decide to delete me when I’m trying to protect myself and when I’m segregated from everyone because some idiot decides that my privacy and the privacy of my daughter is worth nothing, it hurts.
Eventually as the pregnancy hormones subsided, I was able to get back some of my emotional strength to deal with the crap they continued to put me through. I posted a status that said that I was not going anywhere and that nobody was going to force me out. I protected the information and pictures that I have on my profile about my daughter and I am now more careful about whom I give access.
But just like anything else, I have my good days and bad days when it comes to being able to cope with all this. Erin still had one person that she used to get at me and the only way to resolve that issue would be to remove myself from that situation. Unfortunately I wrongfully thought that I would have their support in trying to remove her ability to hurt me through them. Once again I was surprised by someone who was my friend and said that they cared about me. Either way, she can’t hurt me through them anymore.
Then of course there is the issue of TMI-11. I am no longer in that group. In fact, I have left the Grey’s Riders group completely. Last week I became aware of a situation after running across a monster that one of the people who deleted me as a friend in TMI-11 had summoned. They invited their friends as well as most of the members of TMI-11 except for me and a few others, to the private monster killing. I realize that people are able to invite whomever they want to slay a monster with but it was pretty clear to me that the only reason why all of TMI-11 was not being invited was because of me. Add to that the fact that Erin and Charlie were also invited to join the monster and well that’s pretty much my limit. For someone who isn’t and won’t choose sides in the Erin and Melissa matter, I’d say that is a pretty clear choosing of sides. So in an effort to try and bring some cohesion back to TMI-11 and so that other members of the team are no longer left out I decided to walk away. It kills me to this day to have lost the companionship and camaraderie that I had with the people on the team. It kills me even more to know that in the end, Erin got exactly what she wanted, I’m out of TMI-11. I’m still friends with the people in the group and I still honestly care a great deal about them, but the whole monster incident made things pretty clear to me.
Am I Erin’s only victim? Apparently not. She has also gone after someone in the Dawn of the Dragons game in the guild that she runs. As I said, she’s always the victim. I’m sure if you ask around you will find many people who she has suckered into believing her victim story, but then you will find others who know all about the true person that she is just like I now do.
Has she stopped harassing me? No. Will she stop in the future? I doubt it. That is why I am doing this, why I am sharing all that is/has been/continues to go on. I’m tired of this BS and I’m tired of everyone thinking these two people are Saints. They are hateful, hurtful, vindictive and manipulative people who put up a great façade. So now you know the whole story. I’m not completely innocent, I did react poorly during the initial Skype incident regardless of what was said and who it was directed at, but I am not the one that won’t let this go. I have had many people tell me to move on. If someone can tell me how I can move on from something that keeps getting thrown in my face or someone that continually keeps coming after me however they can, then I will. The only way I can think of getting this to stop is to bring it out in the open instead of treating it like some dirty little secret that I am trying to sweep under the rug. Will things likely get worse for me because of this note, probably, but I’m tired of holding it all in and letting them get away with their treatment of others. If I don’t speak up then nobody will know the truth about what is happening. Hopefully I am strong enough now to deal with whatever they throw at me. As someone told me recently, it’s about time I live up to what I tell other people to do when they are being bullied and harassed. So here I am doing just that and knowing that I have him to turn to when things get tough to handle again.
For those of you reading this who were wondering why I was saying I had enough in my status messages and just wanted it all to end, this is what has been going on. This whole thing is what has been upsetting me to various degrees over the months.
So do with this information what you will. If you do or do not remove these people as friends, if you do or do not decide to continue to associate with them, it is your decision. One word of advice that I would give you though is that if you do decide to keep them around, watch your back, keep them at a distance and when you do something they don’t like, be prepared to suffer the consequences.
I AM NOT ASKING YOU TO CHAIN THESE PEOPLE IN CASTLE AGE.
If you decide to remove me from your friend list because of what I have just shared, then so be it.
Here are the profile links for the accounts that I know of for both of them:
Erin Button: http://www.facebook.com/ironerinbutterfly
Erin MostEvil: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001089393248
Charlie Vogel: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=684688083
Madd Hadder: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1609841636
Matt Hadder: http://www.facebook.com/Madd.Hadder
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These are the comments on Melissa's note on her Facebook page from Melissa herself, some of her friends and some ignorant people on her friend list.
Even in Melissa's death Erin couldn't resist one last torment. She decided to participate in Melissa's memorial fight. When me and Macy spoke up about Erin's backers and Erin herself participating in Mel's memorial we were verbally attacked.
Even in Melissa's death Erin couldn't resist one last torment. She decided to participate in Melissa's memorial fight. When me and Macy spoke up about Erin's backers and Erin herself participating in Mel's memorial we were verbally attacked.
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