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The Prison of the Victim
At one time in my life, I was what you might call a “true crime” aficionado. I enjoyed horror movies, suspense… Whatever I could find to create a short-lived endorphin rush. That is, until I had the misfortune of experiencing my own real-life horror movie.
Things are always different when it happens to someone else. It’s abstract. People tend to feel a sort of collective empathy, but for the most part, it is not in their own backyard. Which is understandable, and why I didn’t really realize how these things worked until they happened to me.
At one time, I was a moderator at a fairly major conspiracy forum that had tens of thousands of unique visitors daily. It was a hell of a job, especially since my day job at the time doing was data analysis document editing which had me working ten hours a day, four days a week, so I could have three day weekends. Even during my workday though, I was usually also taking care of the forum due to the abundance of trolls and sick things that people would post which had to be removed.
In the summer of 2006, one of the forum members started talking to me via private message. Let’s call him Jimmy. I wasn’t particularly impressed with him, as I received many messages via the site. He started getting my attention, though, because he seemed to be very different, especially spiritually. Not your normal type of man. That’s always attracted me, so I started talking to him outside the forum. We ended up chatting frequently. That was my first mistake.
At the time, I was living in West Virginia and he lived in North Carolina. I am originally from Illinois. And unfortunately, right around that time, my grandmother in Chicago had passed away and there were a lot of things in that regard that needed attending to. Well, Jimmy was not happy about this. Despite my having to deal with a death in the family, he thought I should still be spending time with him. That should have been a red flag. Instead, I saw it as something rather romantic.
After dealing with my grandmother’s death, Jimmy suggested...
Things are always different when it happens to someone else. It’s abstract. People tend to feel a sort of collective empathy, but for the most part, it is not in their own backyard. Which is understandable, and why I didn’t really realize how these things worked until they happened to me.
At one time, I was a moderator at a fairly major conspiracy forum that had tens of thousands of unique visitors daily. It was a hell of a job, especially since my day job at the time doing was data analysis document editing which had me working ten hours a day, four days a week, so I could have three day weekends. Even during my workday though, I was usually also taking care of the forum due to the abundance of trolls and sick things that people would post which had to be removed.
In the summer of 2006, one of the forum members started talking to me via private message. Let’s call him Jimmy. I wasn’t particularly impressed with him, as I received many messages via the site. He started getting my attention, though, because he seemed to be very different, especially spiritually. Not your normal type of man. That’s always attracted me, so I started talking to him outside the forum. We ended up chatting frequently. That was my first mistake.
At the time, I was living in West Virginia and he lived in North Carolina. I am originally from Illinois. And unfortunately, right around that time, my grandmother in Chicago had passed away and there were a lot of things in that regard that needed attending to. Well, Jimmy was not happy about this. Despite my having to deal with a death in the family, he thought I should still be spending time with him. That should have been a red flag. Instead, I saw it as something rather romantic.
After dealing with my grandmother’s death, Jimmy suggested...
