Yeah, you read that right. I'm gone.
I won't leave without explanation though. It's long, so there will be a tldr at the bottom. And before I begin, let it be clear that this is not an attempt to play the victim or whatever shit I get accused for posting this. This is just an explanation to my followers who have no idea what’s going on because I’ve been fairly vague about a lot of this in an effort to protect both me and Amélie from further harassment. I’m sorry if someone reads it as me trying to pull a victim card. It’s not my intention.
So back in February, I had a falling out with my best friend/ex-girlfriend. I respected xyr decision to burn the bridge, no matter how much it hurt me. I unfollowed xyr on all social media I could find. (If I'm missing something, I'm sorry.) I even blocked xyr on a few that xe missed so I wouldn't show up in xyr recommended to follow section because of mutuals. I also stopped calling xyr Lapis because xe had once posted that that name was for close friends only, and clearly that wasn’t me anymore. I switched to Amélie.
A few days later, xe started posting on xyr accounts that I'm abusive. I won't comment on that much. There's no way to win. If xe feels that way, that's how xe feels. Xe is valid to feel how xe feels. But if I say I was, it's a confession. If I say I wasn't, I'm lying. If I say anything bad about xyr, I’m covering my tracks and playing victim. No matter what I say, I'm manipulative and guilt trippy and lying. I’m forced to be the bigger person because if I’m anything but that, it reinforces the accusations. There is a lot I could say on the matter. So much I want to say. But there truly is no way to address it without being the evil villain. So I'll just state the fact that xe believes I was abusive.
Anyway, I found out pretty quickly. My ask box suddenly flooded with attacks on me. Lots of them. There were standard things, suicide baiting, murder threats, quotes from xyr posts where xe called me things like a leech, "Why did you abuse Lapis?", "What's wrong with you?" There were more nerve wrecking things like graphic images of self-harm and rape threats. Then truly terrifying things like this one ask threatening to doxx me and using my full legal name, things like very specific triggers of mine that I don't tell many people about. When I turned off anon, they made fake accounts to attack me. When I turned off ask and submit entirely, it moved to DMing me on Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram. I'm not saying xe was behind it, but it was certainly getting out of hand.
So I told Nick to tell Amélie to ask xyr friends and/or followers to stop. I didn't know what else to do. It had been happening all day. I couldn't breathe. I was teetering on the edge of relapse because I couldn't go five minutes without a new picture of a slit wrist. I simply wasn't okay.
Nick says xe told people to stop. I don't know for a fact if xe did, but I believe Nick. I’m sure xe told xyr I lied though. I told him it stopped, and it didn't. I just didn't want him to feel bad. I didn't want xyr to blame xyrself. I certainly didn't want anyone to misconstrue this as an attempt to get xyr back in my life. (Believe me, that's the last thing I want.) After all, xe believes I'm manipulative, and that's something a manipulative person would do.
Eventually, it slowed down. Then I saw a post from Nick, whom I still followed at the time, on my dash. He and Amélie began dating again. I messaged him about it and told him that I was happy for them, but I was voluntarily stepping away as his friend. I loved him dearly - still do - but I felt like it was disrespectful to xyr for us to remain friends since xe had been publicly calling me abusive. I know that I would be very uncomfortable dating someone who is close to my abuser. The platonic breakup was very calm. We wished each other the best of luck and said goodbye. Then we parted ways. It still hurt though. He was a good friend of mine. It hurt to have to say goodbye.
Well, I told a friend about it. I won't name names, but it was a giant mistake. I said I was happy for them, but my friend blew up. They recalled a post that xe had made when Amélie and I were still close. When I changed my pronouns to he/him, xe posted shortly after that xe felt invalidated as a lesbian because xe had dated yet another masculine person. My friend recalled that the post had made me cry, strip "he/him" off all my newly updated bios, and have to have a ten minute long conversation to keep me from saying "lol nvm you can call me whatever." (To clarify, xyr feelings of invalidation were likely my fault. I had made a joke about it to xyr. I hadn't realized my jokes hurt xyr so much, and if I had known, I never would have made them. However, the fact it was posted rather publicly instead of coming to me really hurt at the time. In retrospect though, xe has always preferred airing out dirty laundry in public as opposed to talking out problems in private, so I shouldn't have been surprised by the post either. Al in all, I blame myself.) My friend was furious that Milo and I, two transmasculine exes of xyrs, invalidated xyr lesbianism, but Nick was perfectly fine. I said it wasn't a big deal. I just wanted xyr to be happy and move on from me.
At this point, attacks had slowed down. Aside from them finding my Snapchat, I was getting fewer and fewer attacks a day. Then my friend was an asshole and sent xyr an anon calling xyr a bitch, and I was accused of doing it. I chewed my friend out. The attacks flooded back stronger than before. Some people even had the guts to do it on their real accounts. It was really bad.
Upon discovering I was blamed, my friend went off anon and apologized, took full blame, explained why, and also asked Amélie to clarify it wasn't me because the attackers had returned. It didn't quite happen like that though. Xe still thinks I may have had something to do with it. According to a mutual of ours who left xyr side soon after this, xe continued to post that it was me "and/or" my friend, as well as "have a temper tantrum" where xe insisted xe was being made into the bad guy, accused me of giving out xyr personal information, etc.
Meanwhile attacks on me were getting really bad. Someone got my personal emails. Another person found my cellphone number. I had to be convinced by three people that my mailbox being knocked down was not Amélie related because I hit such an intense level of fear that I couldn’t believe it was anything but an attack on me.
At first I thought maybe it would stop if I moved. I would change URLs. But then I realized something. When Amélie fell out with Noni and Isbel, xe put "Do not follow if you interact with @[their url]" in xyr before you follow page. It's reasonable to assume that xe would do that here too. Why wouldn't xe? It's probably how they keep finding me. If xe knew the URL change, xe would change xyr byf. And if I move without telling xyr the new URL to block, xe would assume I moved just to stalk xyr. (Again, I don't blame xyr. I'm sure xe didn't think people would use it as a direct link to send me fucked up shit like rape threats, dead cats, and bloody razors, even though xe knew about the attacks.) So I decided to suck it up and deal with it. It was awful and causing a lot of mental issues, but I didn't want to leave the blue hell site, and there is no escape.
And then the attacks on my friends and friends who were mutuals of Amélie and myself began. First it was a mutual on my side, saying they're as bad as I am. Then an IRL friend got a murder threat on Instagram. Then another mutual got told to kill himself because of me. All three mentioned me directly. One of my Internet friends got a message that just said "die" five minutes after posting an appreciation post about myself and some other friends of theirs, which was less direct, but certainly implied. I have good reason to think that one of my friends was attacked and just won’t tell me. My friends are being attacked because of my existence now.
So here I am. I'm leaving. Because I'll be real with you. I'm scared. No matter what I've done, you've all found ways to attack me. And I don't want you people doing to my friends what you've done to me. I can't fucking handle it anymore. The constant paranoia, the panic attacks, the flashbacks, the nightmares, the comparing myself to my rapist because we're both abusers now, the suicidal thoughts. I was doing well mentally, recovering, moving on, and now I'm scared to pick up my phone when I get a new notification. I don't wish that on my friends...
Congratulations. You win.
TLDR: After uncountable attacks on me and my friends to the point my mental stability is nonexistent, I am leaving Tumblr. The attackers win, and I'm leaving for the sake of my health/safety as well my friends'.
