Has anyone out there ever been victimized in any way be it in a violent way or by someone who was just plain mean, spiteful, vengeful and vindictive and who may’ve hated you for being who you were, then had a strange sense of curiosity about the person? An odd sort of connection that forever connects the person even though you’ve made up your mind years ago that A, you will never forgive them, probably not even with an apology, and B, they don’t even realize or believe they did anything wrong in the first place and are no doubt hell-bent on forever hating you in return. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

From 1996-2003 I was violated by someone in almost every way but physically and sexually. Then again, they have affected me physically as well for stress does a number on one’s health. They directly or indirectly violated my right to undisturbed peace, my civil right to free speech, my freedom, my bank account, and my emotional state, and then they had someone plant false evidence against me which they later got my prints onto “tie” me to it. Evidence that the person either manufactured on their own or that the perp-played-victim received from someone else they pissed off. Actually, it was a handful of people that screwed me, some of which were authority figures. Yeah, it’s a shame when those we’re supposed to trust and count on to see that justice is done are not only tricked and deceived by the perpetrator into believing they’re the victim but when they don’t want to see the real victim in the first place anyway as some states tend to be automatically biased against certain colors and religions. Sadly, some use their authority as a shield to hide their hatred and a means of lashing out at those they dislike.

As a former victim of reverse discrimination for having the balls to complain about someone with the wrong connections – well, the right connections for them – I swore to myself that I would never again let myself be victimized in a similar way or let the incident scare me from exercising my right to express myself, be myself, and see to it that justice is done. In this case, there will probably never be any real justice. I still believe in karma and that those who aren’t made to answer to a court of law in this life for the perjury and other crimes they’ve committed will be made to answer to a higher court that exists only in the afterlife, but I doubt true justice, in this case, will ever be done. The statute of limitations on most of the offenses has simply expired, much in the favor of my perps.

But sometimes that old don’t-let-‘em-scare-you thing I and others tell myself to live by doesn’t always cut it. Every time I move I still live in the fear that these people will find me and take another shot at making my life hell all over again. I know a hell of a lot more than I did in the year 2000, though, and so it’s not that I fear they would win. Not from a legal standpoint they wouldn’t. But how could I “beat” a bullet if one of them decided to hunt me down and get trigger-happy or something like that? I tell myself I doubt they will since it’s been over a decade now, but how can we really know for sure we’re forever safe from our past tormenters? How?

For a while, I sought a therapist to help me deal with the stress and anxiety I experienced on account of them, but as the therapist herself said, there were no magic words anyone could say to me that would fix or change things nor was there any magic pill I could take.

Others have suggested that forgiveness is the only way to finally put this horrible time behind me, but how do you forgive someone who won’t admit they victimized you? I don’t even know that they know they did what they did. Maybe they truly believe in their minds that they’re the victim. All I do know is that sometimes people take a quick swipe at someone in some way shape or form in the heat of the moment, never thinking of the long-term damage they’re inflicting upon the person. I guess my only hope is in the much-believed theory that in the afterlife a God or something like a God will be the one to “take care of” what they got away with here in this life.

For many years my answer was the same (and not something I’ll share here) when asked how I may react if certain people came to my door. But these days I think I may actually be torn between fearing for my safety (though that was always an issue) and simply shaking my head in pity. Really, one has to feel just as sorry for such degenerates as they do anger. After all, wouldn’t one who practically made a career out of making others suffer have to be suffering really badly themselves?

Back to the whole point of this entry – my curiosity. How can I be curious about this person after all the emotional and financial pain they’ve inflicted upon me? Just what the hell is wrong with me? I’ve heard of Stockholm syndrome where a kidnapping victim sometimes falls for their kidnapper. Ok, so I’m nothing like that. The last thing I would do would be to fall for my main victimizer or those who lent her a helping hand if they suddenly kidnapped me. But I still wonder about this person and why she has done some of the things she’s done. What kind of life has she led? Why is she the way she is? Does she ever remember or think of me? Has she ever – even for a tiny millisecond – felt a shred of guilt or remorse for what she put my husband and I through? Or would she, if someone mentioned my name to her right now, be like Jodi? Jodi who?

The other question I still have to this day is how the hell I could have received a sentence fit for someone that beat the shit out of a dozen people. Even if I’d been 100% guilty of what I was accused of, would the punishment really have fit the crime? Many didn’t think so and many said they felt bad for me along the way. I received many special favors in jail and special privileges and accommodations. And while that was all well and good, these were all people who were as powerless as I was to do anything about it once it was too late for me and I’d been tricked, lied to and manipulated to the point of no return as my naivety at the time was grossly taken advantage of.

I’d love to see the person who lied to the media about me dare to repeat their “stories” under a lie detector test, but I know they would never have the guts to do that. Nor would they admit they threw sexually explicit notes, however poorly spelled and childishly written, into our mailbox slot and committed a federal offense in doing so.

Nearly 4000 days later, and even though I was exonerated in the end (vindicated is another term you could use for it) and my record was stripped of the ordeal, I still gotta look up at the heavens above from time to time and ask – WTF???

Later…

It was another hot, dry day out there today. My dear hubby has continued to be a loving, helpful support that words could never express my appreciation for. Not even mine and I’m supposed to be good with words. But I feel bad for him because I’ve been such a bitch on account of my having such a hard time lately. Last night – or morning – was horrible. I had a huge setback and woke up in pain at 11:30 AM after being unable to fall asleep until 7:30. Why is it that disaster always strikes after 4 hours of sleep? Another reason to hate that number!

Where I was falling asleep earlier and sleeping longer, now I’m having trouble falling asleep to begin with. I was up 21 hours before I finally crashed. Then I ended up falling back asleep after waking up in quite a bit of agony, though I killed it pretty fast, and slept 3 hours longer than I did yesterday. This means I slept most of the day away and didn’t get up till 3:30. When I did I found I was in a lot less pain than I had been in a while. But I’m not stupid. I know it will be back to haunt me soon enough, and I’m going to be left with no choice but to return to the dentist to find out why a whole two weeks after the fact my gums are still hurting. This just doesn’t seem right at all.

I only ran for 10 minutes at 3.4 MPH and burned 51 calories but something is better than nothing. Any little bit we do helps and I’m sure I’ll hit down at 138 pounds within a few days. I still can’t lose 1-2 pounds a week like most people. For me, it’s about a pound every 10 days. I still don’t know how low I’ll go, but I know I want to at least get down to 120.

The ab workouts with the big exercise ball are really helping my arms, shoulders and chest while I’m at it since you’re in a sort of a handstand when you crunch inward. I’m also doing my arms with the resistance bands and my inner thighs with the ball by squeezing the ball with my thighs. I don’t get a wide range of motion that way because the ball’s so big and not that flexible, but I can still feel the muscles working.

Got a reply from Shelley. I told her of a memory I had of us walking along the beach in the early evening. I was around 10 at the time and she was around 18. The beach was relatively deserted. A girl about Shelley’s age came screaming at us about God knows what. Shelley pushed her backward and she fell into the water (we were walking along the shore at the time). I don’t remember a word the crazy woman said; just Shelley later telling someone, “I thought she was yelling at poor Jodi at first.” I asked her if she remembered what it was about, but she didn’t. If that’s really true, I’m kind of surprised. If I remember this incident at 10, wouldn’t she remember it at 18? Or maybe she meant she doesn’t remember what the chick said.

Charlotte’s been diagnosed with early Alzheimer’s, I learned from Andy. How totally sad. :(

I wish to hell they’d come out with tougher stalking laws that they’d actually enforce, too. They need to make it a law that if you’ve told someone not to contact you 2 or 3 times but they continue to do so, then they get a warning. If they do it again, they get fined. Yet again, they get jailed, etc.

I wedged a blanket under the mattress under my ass to level it out and it really helps straighten my spine and keep the backaches away.

Gonna let the rat out for his exercise now and then get some work done around here and just enjoy the moments that I’m not in such pain to the point that I’m almost tempted to do something stupid.

Later…

The troll took a day off from my blog today. But she’s been harassing the hell out of Kim on WordPress. I still think part of that is Kim’s fault and I wonder if she actually likes getting her riled up. She’s got a public blog in which she has a story with a character named “Belle” who is clearly based on Molly. So between Aly’s letter and Kim’s story, the troll is really spazzed out, promising to continue to “spy” on us and comment, contact, and “like” things all she wants.

I have tried to tell Kim that the more she mentions her in her journal or bases a character on her in her story, the more attention she’ll get from the troll. The sicko feeds off of negative attention, for God’s sake, but she can’t seem to see this. I realize she sometimes contacts people even if they haven’t mentioned her for a while, but eventually, she does go back to mentioning her and that refuels her fire. She still “spies” on me, but she hasn’t attempted to contact me in any way and I really think that’s because I refuse to give her the negative attention she craves. What also makes it different for me than for Kim and Aly, thank God, is that they were once friends. But we weren’t.

Tom and I were talking about the laws and why it’s presently so hard to combat online bullies. For one, Molly never threatens. She’s mean, she’s annoying, she’s a liar, but she never makes threats. She’s also dumb enough but smart enough to always use her real name. It’s technically against cyber laws to open an account under a bogus name, though rarely enforced.

Unless it’s bulk spam, threats, phishers or scams, one who complained to the authorities about unwanted email or blog comments from an individual would simply be told – if you don’t want their emails, mark them as spam. If you don’t want blog comments, disable that feature or stop posting things in public where anybody can see/comment. Too bad they couldn’t have told the sickos down south – if you don’t like what you receive in the mail, throw it out and don’t read it. But the concept, as twisted as it may be, is based upon the fact that most people get postal mail but not email.