SYTB 26: Difficult Characters
Stalkers, repeat offenders, harassment and other problems that won't go away.
Even as a person that deals with very little bullshit, having a pretty singular focus on what I desire and the steps to take to make my picture of the ideal life I’d love to be living into a reality, I still get random pop-ups of problematic people infecting my life. Ah, life on earth with other humans reminds us that we are still mortal from time to time.
One such person I have recently been contending with is a literal con artist. He makes his living standing outside of grocery stores pretending to be an injured veteran collecting donations for a charitable organization for other injured veterans. He hires a few women to legitimize his scam by making the calls to the supermarkets arranging his visit there. He comes to the markets with his official table and banner. People coming out of the store hand him their hard earned cash to support wounded veterans he promises to donate their charitable dollars to. The problem is, he has a hip injury related more to his excessive eating and poor lifestyle choices. That’s his injury. He was ejected from the military before seeing a day in combat. His own daughter told me she doesn’t think he even made it through basic training. That’s his status as a veteran, and he keeps the money he collects all to himself. He rationalizes that he is technically an injured veteran. He’s basically an executive, embellishing, pan handler.
When I met him online, he seemed nice enough. I had no idea what I was dealing with. I noticed he didn’t think much of himself, but I thought his low self-esteem came from his weight or the limp he has from his hip injury. I never gave the guy any money, nor did I take any money from him. Our relationship was never financial in nature. I made contact with him initially because I offered to help friends of mine online with dating advice and possible match making services, after a consultation and interview: free of charge. I thought I could build up a repertoire of testimonials this way. After getting to know him briefly and seeing how he completed a few exercises which I recommended would help him bolster his self-confidence, I introduced him to a girlfriend of mine. I thought they might have something in common.
After a year or so of an online only affair with him, my girlfriend had asked him if she could borrow some money to help her with a move. He called for my advice. I told him not to lend anybody money ever. I stressed this to him over and over. He told me he didn’t feel comfortable giving money to anyone he hadn’t met in person. I validated his fear. I suggested if he wanted to do something for her, he could help her set up a crowd fund to get people to donate to help her move. He did not take my advice. Instead, he loaned her the money anyway. After getting settled in her new home, my girlfriend wanted to start paying him back. She mailed him a cashiers check to a hotel he was staying in to pay him back (the only form of payment he’d accept), and he said he never got it. She had been uncomfortable about paying him this way in the first place and was upset that her money vaporized into the ethers over it. She found the receipt from the cashier’s check to trace it. Upon tracing the receipt, she found evidence he had cashed it and was lying to her about it. So, he tried to con her. That’s when I found out from his daughter that he had been a cunning conman his entire life. She was not surprised that he was trying to con my friend into sending him money and pretending it got lost so she’d have to pay him again. I had already started to distance myself from him over his disturbing lack of respect for the value of my time. I decided to further disengage myself from him once his daughter explained to me who he was and what he was about
Even as I started to avoid calls from his number, I ended up with him calling me every so often from new numbers or friend’s numbers accusing me of being a con artist for setting him up with my friend who “stole” from him. He has been trying to guilt me into paying him whatever money he claims she owes him. In his mind or at least according to his story, I planned this long “tag team con” as he puts it with my friend that took over 3 years of execution of me pretending to be a free matchmaker and listening to his long stories of despair to con him out of $300. That’s how much money he leant my friend after I advised him not to. I had nothing to do with them except to introduce them as friends on Facebook years ago and to tell him not to ever loan anybody any money. I’ve never met him in person in my life. I haven’t seen her since right after high school.
However, I often fear him sharing his very creative story about how I introduced my friend to him under the guise of coaching services and how his ridiculous story might influence how others perceive my work. I continue to block his friend’s numbers and his new accounts, and I even sometimes forget about him for a while. Every so often, though, he pops up in my text messages again or gets a girlfriend to call me on his behalf leaving messages on my phone to help him try to get his money back from me, a person who has no responsibility to him.
I hold a sense of responsibility and remorse in this to my girlfriend whom I should never have introduced to this man. I also feel a responsibility to myself for ever offering him free matchmaking and dating consultation services. He clearly took advantage of my time and energy. He was calling me constantly “for dating advice” all free of course, but it was never that. It was just long winded complaints and victimhood. He wanted my time and attention. I would offer suggestions which he ignored. He also had no respect for my time. I had to literally hang up the phone on him once because he wouldn’t stop talking and ignored me when I said I had to take care of my family.
I don’t think he planned all along to con me into giving him money after the situation with my girlfriend. I don’t think he leant my girlfriend money planning to pretend he didn’t get her cashier’s check when she paid him back. Maybe he did. He clearly has it in his mind that people operate that way. I think it more likely, though, that he’s like the scorpion in the story of the scorpion and the frog. I think it’s just in his nature to lie and try to use lies and guilt and intimidation to get people to give him money. I now believe he has very low self-esteem because of his conning people and his refusal to work to change his ghastly habits and lifestyle.
For me, the hardest part is that he’s been in my rearview mirror, and I’m looking straight ahead on my future. Yet, he magically appears in the middle of the road, and I have to swerve quickly to dodge him and keep moving forward. I live with this constant apprehension that he’ll pop up in my life again. I ask myself, is this merely a coincidence or is he still showing up in my life as some part of a greater lesson for me? It’s fascinating that I (like many people) deal with imposter syndrome in my life. Are his random reappearances calling me “a con artist” somehow linked to my own deep-seated feelings that I am fooling everyone with my gifts and talents? Did I manifest a whole, big, fat, scary, stupid, physical man to point fingers and call me names to get me to face my fears and insecurities in the flesh? If I dealt with my own fears about myself once and for all, could I ultimately rid myself of this living, breathing conman in my future experiences. I think it’s worth entertaining the idea.
When I was very young I lived with a guy who was drinking and became physically abusive. Our disagreements were horrible. I would end up with scrapes and welts and bruises all over my body. One time, I got socked and kicked in the ear. I had been knocked to the ground. I was afraid I would go deaf in that ear. I was very lucky to have recovered and escaped that relationship.
Unfortunately, once I walked away, he wanted me back. He started stalking me everywhere I went which was terrifying. I started hanging out in gay bars with lesbian friends, thinking that would be a safe place in which he wouldn’t find me or come in alone. He actually chased me into a bathroom at a gay nightclub once. Thankfully, lesbians can be scary allies, and they convinced him that night in the bathroom to leave me alone.
I know what it feels like to look over your shoulder. I know what it’s like to pray that someone doesn’t get so obsessive they come after you with a gun. I know what it’s like to have trouble that is stubborn and doesn’t seem to let you cruise forward in your life with your guard down. I also know that for the most part, with time and attention focused forward, no contact with the abuser and lots of space for healing, peace can return.
Here’s some suggestions to start that healing process and increase your chances of extended separation.
Write a letter. This is a release exercise for you. It’s to get everything in your heart, in your mind and around your body about yourself or this other person onto a piece of paper you can crumple and throw into a fire to release forever.
Work on the aspects of yourself triggered in you by this person or that this person mirrors for you. Healing these parts of yourself can be a great way to release the energy in you that arises when dealing with this person and ultimately make whatever future dealings you may experience feel less personal.
Obviously, avoid all contact unless through your attorney or other such intimidating figure to pressure this person on your behalf to stay away from you.
Remember, it’s not about you. In fact, according to Don Miguel Ruiz in “The Four Agreements” what other people do is never personal. Even if you may have some karmic lesson you can learn through this experience, other people are still on their own journey. You are only responsible for you. What they do is entirely on them. If anything, be thankful for whatever lessons you can receive, but also be willing to concede that the lesson might be to put other people’s shit back in their yards and hold them accountable for it.
Don’t allow the fear to control you. I said “don’t”. I need to follow it with a “do.” Do allow yourself to keep moving towards your vision. Do take the times when you are confronted as an opportunity to restate your priorities and your boundaries (what you want inside them, what is worth defending) to yourself loudly and proudly. Do remind yourself that as you get closer to your dreams these kinds of situations become less and less apparent and far less prevalent. Do enjoy the life you are building that you love living day after day.
If you need to really release some heavy trauma, find constructive ways of doing so. You might find it valuable to find a space where you are alone and can scream, shout or cry. Maybe in your car in the driveway would have enough buffering. Singing is another option for moving and transmuting stuck, heavy energy. Dancing also works, jumping up and down, and really shaking out the trauma can be an energetic release. Deep breathing with a focus on breathing into the pain centers and stuck energy of the body can also work it out.
My friend, Melanie Moore has excellent resources for EFT or Emotional Freedom Technique, also known as “tapping” on her YouTube Channel. You can subscribe there and join her free Facebook support group for Tapping Into Your Big Vision. I use these tools to release stuff that is really stubborn or stymying. Give tapping a shot and see if it’s right for you!
Here’s a place where you can get professional tips, advice and resources on dealing with stalkers. This is nothing to merely trivialize or toy with. This should not be ignored nor handled personally. I am including this suggestion last as it most imperative, and I hope it sticks with you. Yes, there are plenty of things to do personally, to heal yourself personally after having experienced the trauma of stalking and harassment. However, in an ongoing circumstance, please seek expert advice and help here.