I’ll start with Perlan/Svarta/Ladyfenrir and me!
I don't even remember when it was, but we met through mutuals on either FA or DA. Could have been back in 2012, 2010...? I'm terrible at remembering stuff like this.Â
She always gave me this friendly, big sibling/mentor vibe and seemed to be loved by a lot of people so I assumed she was just that lovely.And sure, she's very loving and supportive when either:
A: She knows she's being watched/is feeling jealous. It could be real quiet for a long, long time and then if I'd be talking to mutual friends and she wanted to show off how great buddies we were, the <3's and "Sweeties" Â would be a lot more frequent.
B: She wants something. Art, a white knight, you all to herself (She's very jealous and I'll get to that in a bit.)...If she can get something from you somehow, you'll be the favourite.
Of course, I didn't see the pattern until recently. You never do realise until you've gotten the hell out of a relationship just how messed up it has been.
When she added me on Skype and telegram, we'd chat sometimes. Since we both suffer from similar mental illnesses (Autism and ADHD in her case, with some other things on the side, ADHD and Bipolar Disorder for me) she could give me a lot of tips and e-books to read. It felt like something clicked, we seemed to have pretty common interest and stuff too. I jokingly called her my big sister, then that just stuck. She was chosen family now.
Then I started talking a little more to her friends, because it just comes naturally, you know? I got especially fond of one girl who shall remain nameless for her protection. She talked to me the most when I was trying out my new account on FA and was overall very sweet so I added her on Telegram because once I find someone I REALLY like I want to have access to them even though I don't use IM programs often.Â
Out of nowhere, Perlan messaged me one day and told me she didn't like how this girl was trying to become my new best friend. Internally I went a little "???" and asked what she meant. Perlan went on about how this girl "stole" her best friend and now she felt replaced. She has RSD (https://www.additudemag.com/rejection-sensitive-dysphoria-how-to-treat-it-alongside-adhd/), apparently. Makes her feel rejected and replaced even when she's not and causes her to be incredibly possessive and jealous.
(Now, I do believe that this is a real thing and suffering from it must suck but that is not a free ticket to control who your friends do or don’t talk to.)
Anyway, I told Perlan I was sorry she had to deal with this horrible feeling and assured her she was still a dear friend of mine, no need to worry. On the inside, I was rolling my eyes just a tiny bit because I never understood this whole thing where you can only have ONE best friend? And being "stolen"? Excuse you, I don't belong to anybody.
Although Perlan basically told me that the girl I befriended is nothing but trouble, my gut kept telling me otherwise and we stayed in touch. Turns out she's a pure delight and just wants to be friends, she wasn't even aware of how much Perlan hated her guts (While still keeping her icon on her profile page with <3<3<3's everywhere.) and only found out later just how much crap the other girl had to put up with to reassure Perlan that she still mattered. Perlan has abused that girl emotionally, there's no other word for it, but it's not my place to go into too much detail about that.
Then I started following Perlan's personal twitter and my god, I couldn't believe how passive aggressive she could be! Sure, an online diary is good for venting, but she would use such horrible language that I was actually shocked. This wasn't the impression I'd gotten at all when we became friends.
If someone rubbed her the wrong way, she'd come running to our group chat on Telegram to recruit some white knights before even approaching that person. She'd give us very one sided stories then she'd move on to Twitter, trying to indirectly get as many followers on her side as possible before dealing with any issues. This habit of bringing any fighting out in the open (While pretty much bragging about how this is something she would neeeeeever do!) irked me, but I just put her on mute for a while and moved on.
Chapter 2, Perlan and her ex (Or "How I finally had enough.").
I found out they'd broken up via a group message on Telegram. Didn't have much to say besides "Aw that sucks! I hope you can still be friends." and left it at that.
Then the tweeting began, and from an outsider's point of view, it was really ugly. Perlan broke up with her girlfriend because she couldn't stand not having her to herself (Which isn't a very good mentality to have if you're entering a poly relationship, IMO.) and possibly some other things, I honestly didn't want to get dragged too far into it.
I happened to love her ex’s art a lot and she's been very nice to me so I have no reason to dislike her myself. Perlan, however, started calling her horrible things on her Twitter. I have an entire Sai file of screenshots just in case I'll ever need to be reminded of how Perlan is in private, which is...Very immature, sadly.
Once someone doesn’t please her anymore they’re an immature child at best, a monster or psycho at worst. Anything to justify treating them as anything less than a fellow, adult human being.
I ended up muting both Perlan and her ex because this entire tweet war (Perlan actually started it, then the ex got so much crap just for defending herself it was insane!) was like watching two teenage girls having a fight and I got tired of it.
Once again, my gut kept telling me I should at least investigate this a little further, so I approached the “monster” of an ex girlfriend with an open mind. I'll just give you a copy pasted version of what was said, with names censored.
Me: I have a feeling your comment on my journal entry about breaking up with friends indirectly was about Perlan and you, and I've been meaning to ask what happened. All my knowledge about this whole mess is based on mostly her personal Twitter rants but I never did get to hear your side of it all.You're not obligated to tell me, of course, I'm just that kind of person who wants to understand things.Â
Anything you say will stay here, I'm not here to gather information for her to use against you or anything. I'm not even here to pick anyone's side, this is entirely about my curiosity.
If you feel it's none of my business (Which is understandable.), we'll leave it at that.
I was going to just DM you on Twitter but I seem to be blocked. I'm sure you have your reasons for that and I hope I didn't overstep some kind of line now.
-After this, I got a long reply with screenshots and other things I have been asked to not include and because that request came from the victim of Perlan, I respect it.-
I then thanked the lady for telling me her story and was unblocked from her twitter. I have bonded with her since then. Mostly about art and common interests but whenever Perlan acts nasty towards us, we'll allow ourselves to be salty. Perlan noticed her ex had been commenting on my journal entries lately and told me to just block her and not listen to her.
This only made me more alert and curious, because short backstory: I've been in her ex’s position. An ex boyfriend of mine was a gaslighting, emotionally abusive, manipulative bastard who would constantly try to make me look crazy and told others to avoid me whenever we disagreed on something.
All I could see was Perlan being (pardon my french) a total bitch and her ex trying so hard to defend herself with as much dignity as one can muster when one is angry. Sure, hurtful words were said, but it was easy to understand where she was coming from.
Now, this ex girlfriend has admitted herself that she has done and said some less than nice things because of her depression, but the difference between Perlan and her (And this is a huge sign of maturity to me.) is that she actually works hard on becoming a better person. She is very aware of what she might need to work on and she genuinely wants to learn how to. Does that excuse anything she might have done before? No, but at least she's trying to grow and move on, which makes me respect her tremendously.
Perlan, however...For as long as I've known her, she's blamed everything on her ADHD/Autism/RSD/etc etc but has never actually done anything to get real help. She'll seek comfort in her hugbox when she's angry and people tell her what she wants to hear just to keep her calm because the tantrums she'll throw are just out of this world.
Multiple friends have told me just how difficult Perlan can be. I got to see the early signs and decided to leave because I know from experience that it rarely, if ever, get better. She showed me some pretty alarming signs of jealousy and possessiveness. Heck, I even told her another friend of mine a little about how she's been towards me and they were like (Without being biased!) "Dude, those are some toxic signs Perlan's displaying.) and that’s what made me decide.
One day I made a tweet (Not related to Perlan or her ex! This is something I see a lot in general.) about how I find it funny when people say they don't care about something only to talk endlessly about it afterwards.
Moments later Perlan replied that she got what I meant because she was sooo tired of her pathetic ex who wouldn't let go, and that's when I couldn't stay quiet anymore. I just said straight to her face;
Really? Because after following this entire tweet war of yours, I get the feeling that you are the one who can't let go.
That's when she lost it. She couldn't stand that I called her out on her hypocrisy and immediately got defensive and asked me to delete my post. I wouldn't. Instead, I closed Twitter for the day and moved on to healthier things.
Later that evening I made my first journal entry on FA, leaving out all the names to protect both Perlan and everyone else involved, to get some feedback from my followers. A mutual friend of Perlan and me told me it was like tossing a rock into a wasp nest. Perlan immediately print screened everything and shared it in her Telegram chat group (Which I wasn't in anymore, as I'd deleted my Telegram account.), gathering her minions and if it weren't for this lady I would have been clueless.
That was the last straw for me. It took Perlan less than 48 hours to start proving the points I made in my journal entry and I went from being "The little sibling she never had <3<3<3" to...Her new enemy, I guess? Because I wouldn't blindly agree with her.
She also went ahead and started hanging out with one of her ex's abusive exes (And Perlan knew and agreed that this person is a toxic bastard while they were friends.), claiming she's "seeking comfort" from them. In my opinion, that's uncool. You don't start kissing up to your ex's abusive past friends/lovers just because you're salty, you just don't.
But wait, there's more!
After my first two journal entries, people commented on them telling me I did the right thing and that made me feel much better. I was hoping that would be the end of it, as I didn't call anyone by their name and stuff.
I felt a little sad after having to break up with the person I used to call big sister, who wouldn't?
So I started watching some new people through another friend of mine and rediscovered some old faves. I'd comment on pieces I liked, not thinking much of it, until I realised some people were ignoring me, and it was very obvious that that's what they were doing and I wasn't just being paranoid. I immediately suspected Perlan had something to do with that, and sure enough, she'd been throwing a temper tantrum in her Telegram group about how I had the nerve to talk to her friends (Again, thinking of people as possessions!)!
People in the chat who've never even met me before immediately agreed that I'm gross and creepy. Sad, but there’s not much I can do about this.
Some of the more reasonable people among Perlan's friends do at least reply to me when I comment, so that's nice. A friend of mine who kept me updated also told me that when Perlan demanded that her best friend would just block me and ignore me because I'm only kissing up to her to annoy Perlan (Hmm, where have I heard this before?), This friend just told her she wouldn't, because
1: I'm being nothing but nice. Why block someone who's not harassing you?
2: That would only prove my point further.
I made my third journal entry, expressing my feelings and plan to leave it at that now. Once again, I made sure I used gender neutral pronouns and left out everyone's names.
Perlan, however, linked to my latest journal entry on her public twitter (I believe her name there is Ladyfenrir there now if you want to look it up, I'm blocked so I can't provide a link but I've seen screenshots. For some reason, I can't copy and paste them from Twitter's DMs.), showing my name and everything. She used the word psycho to describe me. That is one of the few things that really made me upset. I strongly dislike it when people
A: Use it as a slur towards someone mentally ill in general it enforces the idea that mentally ill people are dangerous, which isn't true. The stigma is bad enough without people making it worse.
B: Use it to label someone who isn't a psychopath as one. It waters the very real and serious diagnosis psycho- and sociopath (because they're easy to mix up) down until it has no meaning anymore.
Fast forward a couple of months and I (Along with Perlan’s ex girlfriend.) am not only being stalked (Multiple friends and an IP address tracker confirms this.) but I also find myself being blocked by people I haven’t said a word to. Or in some cases I have, but Perlan quickly rushes to burn any bridges I’m trying to build before I get a proper chance. She then has the nerve to whine about how I am obsessed with her and should just let go.
I go out of my way to avoid her and keep acting nice towards others to keep up my good reputation which she’s doing everything she can to ruin.
A handful of her friends do talk to me, but it’s obvious that they’re being careful and wary.Â
I even had someone unfollow me because Perlan (And this actually disgusts me.) will go through her friends lists looking for traitors. AKA people who watch me anywhere. That’s beyond creepy, no matter who’s doing it.
Perlan also uses my mental illnesses against me in the most insulting way, which is also incredibly annoying. If she’s not using slurs then she’s at least going on about how I have “severe mental issues” to get people to step away from me.Â
So to sum it all up: Perlan has displayed some downright frightening signs of being a toxic, manipulative person and I’m glad she lives nowhere near me.Â
I pity whoever will make her displeased in the future because they will be next in line for slander and insults, possibly stalking as well.
She’s a textbook example of an abuser. Kind and sweet to reel you in and then as long as you’re on her good side you’ll be safe.Â
I’m hoping that by speaking up about this I can somehow encourage other ex friends of hers to step forward.
I have very little faith that she’ll change at this point, as her attitude towards this whole thing and other instances where she’s hurt her friends can be summed up like this:
I have nothing more to add to my story as I don’t plan to ever let her back in and I stand by everything I have said, even the harsh words. I’m not sorry for speaking up.
That being said, I release her from my life and mind with love and I wish for her to heal from what hurt her so she’ll stop bleeding all over those who didn’t cut her.
To Thorsvision directly, because I know you stop by sometimes: Do not contact me again, on any site or through my email. I’m not budging, you get no more chances with me.
Do better with your future friends.
To friends who are also friends with her: I have no issues with what you’re doing, there’s no need to justify or explain anything privately. You are not my property and I trust you, as adult people, to do what’s right for your well-being.
I will never, directly or indirectly, try to tell anybody who they can or can’t talk to/hang out with and I expect the same courtesy from MY friends. If I don’t get that then I’ll see myself out quietly.
