It wasn’t long before things took a turn for the worse. Little did I know the second I stepped into the picture and every moment from that day after, all of my energy would be spent defending myself from this woman and everything she’d told other people about me. I can only imagine the way she told stories to those around her. I’m sure I was the villain in every account. But if you really paid close attention to the things she said and were someone who paid close attention to detail you would see she had a tendency to contradict herself a lot. Not good when dealing with someone like me. I remember EVERYTHING! She also had a habit of telling stories while leaving MANY details out. She’d never tell you what led up to a particular incident or what she did to provoke someone’s action. She’d only tell you about the action itself. Never what she did wrong only what was done wrong to her. She loved to make it look like she was being retaliated against for absolutely no reason at all. Victim mentality.

Anyway as previously mentioned, exchanges consisted of 21 questions with me as the topic and not for the sake of their son. I suspected it was an attempt to see what attracted her ex husband to me. That was my thought at least seeing as she had asked him that exact question before. At this point I don’t think she’d had conversation with him that didn’t involve me in some way. What would creep me out to the core is when I would discover in future scenarios that it appeared she was emulating my mannerisms, my speech and how I dressed. I couldn’t be certain but I will tell you the story and let you be the judge.

Before she met me the kinds of questions she would ask her son went a little something like this. 

Her: “What does she look like?”

“Is she light or does she have dark skin like mommy?”

“Is she tall?”

“Is she short?”

“Does she have long hair?”

“Does her hair look like mommy’s?”

After she met me her questions became weirder. More like...

Her: “Does she kiss Daddy?”

“Does she hug him?”

“How many times does she come over?”

“Does she sleep in Daddy’s room?” 

“Where do you sleep?”

“Where does her daughter sleep?”

“Where does her son sleep?”

“Do you sleep with them?”

“Does she hug you?”

“Does she kiss you?”

Etc…. You get the picture. The amount of questions asked to that poor little 6/7 year old baby were relentless. As much as I would like to say they would eventually stop, I can’t. This would continue for the next 9 years! At that age a child only has so much understanding of what’s going on so the answers to her questions would only lead to more assumptions. Which as I’ve said, assuming was and would continue to be her biggest downfall. I’m a mother too. So as a mother all of these questions would be understandable asked in the right context and worded differently. However, she asked questions to satisfy her sick curiosity and gain some type of leverage. She didn’t ask them to make sure her son was being taken care of and treated properly. It wasn’t like he was confused or having a hard time when he was with us. Given the circumstances he was an extremely happy child. He wasn’t just my boyfriend’s son. I loved him. I went above, beyond and endured a lot (from her) to make sure he was treated fairly. I was very involved with him. I went to his school activities, met his teachers, helped him with homework. I even taught him to tie his shoes. I taught him on this book I’d bought for my daughter. I also pulled his first tooth because he was scared to have his Dad do it. Something which he would lie to his mother about later that night. At this point her behavior had taught him well. Even he knew to tell her what she wanted to hear. Saying anything about me would set her off and he was trying to protect her. Protect her emotions. He didn’t want to see her sad or upset. What a heavy burden for a child to bare.

She was an emotional terrorist. I’m sure she loved her son deeply. I’m sure... But at that time I just couldn't understand why she’d want to inflict such a high level of distress, anxiety or discomfort on him. As a parent it’s our job to protect our children from the world for as long as we can. It’s our job to keep them safe and manage their emotions until they become mature enough and educated enough to do so themselves. Maturity and education that has to come from us and by example. It should NEVER have been the job of a 7 year old little boy to manage his mother’s emotions. He should have never had that burden and felt the need to lie in order to do so. Regardless of her own discomfort, protecting his emotions should have been her first priority. Instead she chose to drag him down into the darkness with her for company. If you saw life through her illogical tainted lenses then everything I did would be taken by her as a personal attack. No matter how irrational and ridiculous this seemed to be her stance on pretty much everything. One thing she would often say to others is that I used their son’s sweet loving nature as a weapon against her. Like WOW… What sane logical person comes to that conclusion based on showing a child affection? I also remember around this same time her telling my husband that he was setting a bad example for their son. Why you might ask? Well, because he was over here dating some light skin, long haired chick like his mother was trash. Her words. He told me when they were together she always had a complex with women who were lighter. When she would go out with her best friend she would always comment that guys only wanted to talk to her because she was light skin. He said she always seemed jealous of her so that comment didn’t come as a surprise to him. These are just some of the instances that made clear to me she would always see me as her enemy. She didn’t want to see me any other way. Sadly, all of this from someone who claimed and wore Christianity as a badge of honor. This is a prime example on why it’s important your belief system doesn’t hinge on the actions of someone else.

Now let’s pause right here to consider a few things.

• Everything up to this point might have been enough to make most women walk away and during extremely frustrating situations I often wondered why I didn’t. I’m very stubborn. Intimidation and scare tactics don’t control my actions. Playing a game of chicken with me will most certainly assure your loss. A quality that is not always my exercised best but let me explain… Even if I could avoid conflict by not doing something, I would do it anyway if I felt truly right and/or justified. I don’t believe in doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. I am just and fair to the core. So was my 24/25 year old self. I would fight for what I thought was right and have no chill about it. Honestly. This will make sense later.

• I also felt she’d hoped to make things so frustrating that I might walk away. I mean if you really look at the bigger picture the first thing she did was ask me to walk away. Why then if that didn’t work wouldn’t she try to scare me away next? It makes sense. Maybe she considered this fighting for her family. However, what she was really doing was creating a portion of their son’s life he would forever look back on as difficult. A portion that would affect him for the rest of his life.

• Looking back now, I know for a fact I would have chosen to stay off social media all together. Not forever but for a while at least. Had I done that I would have been able to avoid so many conflicts, assumptions and situations but my 24 year old self just wanted to be normal. I was so happy and in love that I wanted to share it with the world.

Other EXTREMELY weird and unsettling things would pop up later. I didn’t realize how much until I started posting on Facebook. Facebook was gaining popularity at this time so I started posting more frequently. I remember the first time I posted a picture of me and his son. His phone was ringing within 10 minutes. I kid you not. I wish I could say I was exaggerating but I’m not. What was she doing? Just sitting there refreshing the screen waiting for me to post???? It was insane! The picture was innocent enough but she called demanding that I take it down immediately. My first thought was “You have GOT to be kidding me!” This became a pattern. I would post, almost immediately he’d get a call and the harassment would start. Around this time I would discover we had mutual acquaintances. Some of these acquaintances were very messy and as a result would have no problem reaching out to tell me EVERYTHING. Observations, things said, thoughts, and other things that were just plain weird and creepy on an entirely different level.

I’m going to note something here to put some things in perspective.

• At this time I was 24 about to be 25 in a few months.

• Although the occurrences I’m about to tell you would continue over the next several years in different ways, the first instances would happen during this stage in my life.

• That said I wasn’t the most mature. Can we say work in progress? I say this because someone more mature would not have engaged via social media. I had a tendency to post my feelings of annoyance whenever I felt like it and it didn’t help the situation. As I said before, at 24/25 I had no chill. If I felt a way you were getting told.

• I was and still am a very logical and fair person but at this time in my life any sort of injustice just pissed me off. Especially if it didn’t make sense. What would annoy me even more was finding out I was being imitated by someone who despised me.

• Also note his ex wife is 6 years older than me. Knowing her age will make what I’m about to tell you even more bizarre.

The constant calls and demanding the pictures come down? It was annoying. Yes. But it was when she would appear to emulate me that things got really weird. It was now the year 2009/2010. Long before the show “Braxton Family Values” was even a thought, I use to say Bomb.com a lot. I loved to play around with words, punctuation and make up knew sayings to express myself. It was a running inside joke between my friends and I. Case and point.

Pictured above just to give you a visual of how it looked. I’ve always been a creative. I’ve always wanted to dress/do/say things differently than everyone else. The way I wrote was very much my personality. One day I got some random messages from said mutual acquaintance(s) & there were a few saying they were friends with my husbands ex wife on Facebook. They told me they’d never seen an adult woman so jealous of another woman in their entire life and they hadn’t put two and two together until recently that she had been talking about me. They also added that they suspected she could see my Facebook because of the things she’d been saying and posting. I kind of laughed it off but after the picture incidents it made sense. They sent screenshots of everything…

My blood ran cold. Boooooy was I surprised to see my own words staring right back at me. Bomb.com, theshizz.gov (inspired), LoL, Dear (whoever), my tummy says yummy, all of my specialty punctuations, all of my inside jokes, everything about the way I wrote and spoke executed down to the finest detail. Things that were very much ME all right there. They said she’d never talked or written like that before and THAT is exactly what gave her away. Honestly it scared me. Who was I dealing with? Was she actually crazy? I could have chalked all of this up to coincidence and trust me I wanted to. If all of this were true than it was a reality much scarier than I’d initially thought. I couldn’t shake the feeling so I hatched a plan and did what I did best. I made something up. I knew it would have to be a saying completely made up out of thin air BY ME to know for sure it wasn’t a coincidence. It couldn’t be something random that was hard to use in a sentence. It also had to make sense. Hence the term “Crystal Real” was born…. A combination of “that’s real” and “crystal clear”. Easy to use and apply to any sentence authentically. All I had to do next was take my new term for a spin.

I don’t even think it was 2 weeks later before I got the first message. A screenshot. She took the bait and used the word. This was actually happening. I wasn’t reaching. She was really doing it.

She started doing it so often I wondered if she even realized it was me. It was like all of her “ideas” were spawned from an original idea of my own. Her stalking had me so deeply ingrained into her psyche I became her second nature. It was my voice coming out of her mouth. She even did it to my face a few times (more on that later) which is when I realized she didn’t even know she was doing it. She truly thought these ideas were her own… I started wondering if she was dangerous. Should I be worried about my safety around her?

As for the pictures, she even started reprimanding their son for taking pictures with me. This would trickle over into her reprimanding him for hugging me and showing me any type of affection at all. She made it very clear she took his affection and love towards me as a personal attack on her. Her reactions would set the stage for future conflicts as you will see. I don’t know if she realized this or if she even cared but her behavior was having a huge impact on her son. He became increasingly uncomfortable and nervous when we’d all be in the same room which should never have been the case. Unfortunately it was the stage she set. She was bent on making sure her misery had company. The social media harassment would happen countless times over the next several months (& continue on for years) before my husband and I would finally have enough of her. My husband does not handle conflict well. He will tell you whatever you want to hear just to shut you up (he does this to me as well lol). Not his best quality but a defense mechanism nonetheless. At first he would try to reason with her. When that wouldn’t work he would start telling her whatever she wanted to hear just to shut her up. This would be a habit his son learned and pick up as well but at no fault of his own. He was a child trying to survive. Finally when all else failed my husband would start ignoring her all together.

I would start getting fed up as well. I didn’t want to be in a relationship where his ex was trying to dictate what I did or how I it. I was with HIM not her. Though at times admittedly it felt like I was dating her too. I wanted to live without constantly looking over my shoulder. Most importantly I wanted his son to grow up in a fair environment. I didn’t want him thinking I didn’t value him, that I was more proud of my own children or feel that I treated him differently than I did them. Considering his mother’s childhood you would think she would have appreciated that too (more on that later). Growing up in a blended family myself made this very important to me. We would come to agree that I could post whatever I wanted but of course this wouldn’t stop her. She would still call in the future about it but my husband’s level of tolerance would change. This was the tip of the iceberg though. Not only was this woman was stalking me but I would soon find out how far was she willing to go…