As I sit here and reflect on the past six months of pure hell one thing is for sure, I have definitely learned some very important life lessons. As the blog title depicts, if life had a do over button, even a rewind button of sorts, the world would be a much easier place...my world at least.
My half-year of insanity began quite the opposite in the summer of 2013, June 22nd to be exact. You see, I have a medical condition, one that is not widely recognized or supported by some, including some hard-fast, die-hard, old fashioned medical professionals. I could go on and on about that, but that is another story for another time, and another blog. When you have an "invisible disease" such as I do, you search for, and reach out to those that share your nightmare, your pain, and your suffering. You look to find others that can sympathize. It just feels better knowing that you aren't alone. So in the summer of 2013 I did just that. I found a Facebook online support group for my specific medical illness, I joined several in fact, and found peace in knowing I wasn't alone. The other members there accepted me, and the posts there were of the sort of issues I deal with day in and day out. It was a wonderful forum to find the most up-to-date information on my illness, tips, and even to make friends, or so I thought...
In June I was instant messaged by someone I had seen post in the group, "a regular" if you will, someone who seemed very kind, friendly, and had had a lifelong battle with this "invisible disease" among other medical issues. We instantly "hit it off" and became the best of friends, despite the fact that she lived thousands of miles away in Arizona. Looking back now, there were several "red flags", things I should have stopped and said to myself, now wait a minute... is this normal? But for some reason, and I have no earthly clue as to why, I dismissed these "red flags" and we went about our friendship. We grew closer every day, and quickly. She seemed just like me. We enjoyed the same movies, TV shows, food, shopping at the same stores, had a great deal of the same life experiences, work interests, and I could seriously go on and on. You name it, we were identical (or so I thought). We even called ourselves "twins separated at birth", or "twinzies". She had started calling us Thelma and Louise (without any violence or guns, or course). I did think that was cute. What I found odd, however, was the fact that after roughly a month of constant talking, face-timing, instant messaging, texting, and Emailing, she referred to me as "her BFF". (RED flag number 1). But you see, she always did come off as a little um... intense, passionate, and impulsive, and then again, some might say the same about me. And with this "invisible disease", having four children, getting married at a very young age, working a professional job when all my other friends were out making new friends and having fun, leaves you quite desolate and without many friends to say the least. Not that this bothers me much, my life has been fulfilling, successful, and full of laughter and happiness, but after the initial "did she seriously just call me her BFF"? I shrugged it off and accepted that, in fact, I thought of her as the same. We were "Twins" didn't you know?
Fast-forward about six weeks and we were planning a trip for her to come out to Georgia for a visit. A FOUR WEEK visit and we were both full of excitement! A great deal of friends and family thought that this was odd, and looking back I suppose it had to have been RED flag number 2, but once again, we were virtually (no pun intended) inseparable. I would just make a comment about people not realizing how close we were, or how much we talked, etc. and they would eventually shake their head and go about their business. One of the most disturbed by this whole plan was my mother. Goodness, one can always count on her mother to be overly protective and concerned about her child, even when the child is a grown adult. "Do you really think it is normal for a stranger to just up and come to visit you for FOUR whole weeks" she would say, or "What does her husband think about this", "Her family"? And I would just explain to her that it was okay, that I knew her well , and that times are "a-changing". I mean come on, people meet others all the time on the Internet and become real-life friends and even date and marry this way (NOT the case here, let's be clear on that) and I did not feel as if it was "weird". Hmm, yeah... In retrospect definitely RED flag number 2. So on that fateful early September day I made the irritating 40 mile trek in Atlanta traffic all the way to the airport by myself, a feat never before accomplished by me. I was so excited to put a name with a face and finally meet my "BFF". She arrived a little late as her flight was delayed, but eventually she got here. And then we sashay on to RED flag number three. This chica arrived, a grown woman mind you, with a two foot tall stuffed animal. Who does that? But anyway, I digress... We hit it off, of course, and had a great visit. I am serious when I say we had the time of our lives. We laughed, we played games, we went to a local arts and crafts festival at a national park, we went out to eat, we behaved as people with our invisible illness usually don't dare to do! That is until the 5th night of her planned four week visit. We had had a long day at an arts and crafts festival, followed by an awesome dinner at my favorite wing place, and then a visit to my son at work. I was absolutely exhausted. We eventually made our way home , I took my night time sleeping medications, and we sat down with our laptop/iPad. Here is where the story gets plenty entertaining, do you have your popcorn out yet? It was about 12:30 AM. It wasn't more than two minutes after sitting down that she jumped up off the couch in sheer panic. She points to a status on Facebook that mentions something about someone's brother dying or something of the sort, and then she immediately makes a phone call, asks if "it is true" to whomever is on the other end of the line, and states she is flying home immediately on the next flight to Arizona. I was floored. After she got off the phone she called her husband who, according to her didn't want to transfer money for her return and thought she needed to stay. She stated "that he was more worried about me and hurting my feelings after all the plans we had made, than he was worried about her". She then goes on to explain her friendship to this gentleman, how she grew up with his brother, etc. She immediately went back to the bedroom, packed all of her stuff in a matter of minutes, had called Southwest, AND a cab apparently. We briefly discussed how I couldn't take her, obviously I couldn't considering I had taken my nightly medications, and my hubby, a 7 day a week factory worker who gets up at 5 AM and it was nearing 2:00 AM, couldn't take her because: 1. He has to work and has no time-off left for the rest of the year and cannot be late, and I wasn't about to wake him knowing that he needed his rest, he works on machines for goodness sake. 2. Even if he could get the day off he wouldn't know HOW to get to the airport seeing that he has never once driven there by himself, sigh, my good ol' country boy, and 3. He works nowhere near the airport so it was not exactly something he could do on his way to work. All of this was discussed very quickly, nicely, and in an almost joking manner at which point she said "that's alright, no big deal I will just call a cab. I am thinking in my mind, um.. I wonder if she realizes just how far she is away from the airport, but I figured I would let her find that out for herself, which she had apparently already done and with the price quote of around $180-something dollars. I mean, it was well after 1 AM by this point. She kept asking if I was mad. I kept telling her no, you see I am the most non-confrontational person in the world, I am very passive aggressive. I mean, I was a little hurt that she would just ditch me at the drop of a hat when she couldn't do much about the situation going on in Arizona, but I understood she had to do what she had to do, and I was far from angry. I told her just that, that NO I am definitely NOT angry, you have to do what you have to do. She said.. "well... if it were me, I would be angry", told me her mom would pay for her to come back out (quite ironic) gave me a long hug at the door, and left. That was it. She was gone.
After she had left I decided (since her phone was literally about to die), that I should Facebook message her husband who is probably freaking out by now with worry and irritation and let him know that she had taken a taxi to the airport. Now here is where it gets even more interesting. The guy gets upset AT ME! Tells me that I was responsible for her (Um... no dude, she is an adult I am not holding her hostage), and then goes on to tell me that it is my problem because I should have been more compassionate and talked her into staying. AND to top it all off, the icing on the cake...She apparently had messaged him, or called him and told him that I kicked her out (RED flag number four). This is actually laughable if you really know me in "real life" because that is NEVER something I would do. I basically just told him, look... she was determined to leave, she wanted to leave now, and there was no stopping her. I voiced, quite pleasantly, that it was unfair to be blamed for all of this, and I felt like "I didn't know what just hit me". I think that this is the point where I knew something was definitely wrong. I didn't know what was going on, but something was not right, and boy was I correct. I retired for the night or should I say morning (by now it is close to 4 AM after all of this drama). I awoke the next morning with the dread of what had happened the night before on my mind and instantly messaged who I will now refer to as "crazy friend from hell". I actually messaged her multiple times throughout the day to no avail all the time thinking...Did she make it to the airport? Did a crazy cab driver pick her up and have his way with her? Is she okay? Could I have done more to comfort her and influence her to stay? It was driving me nuts with worry (apparently I worry too much and I should have just let it go, not worrying about if she was safe and what had happened to her). I also messaged her husband who told me the last he heard from her she was on a flight somewhere up north and he hadn't heard from her since early in the morning, Georgia time. At this point my worry went off the charts. I continued to message her and her husband trying to make sure she was okay. Still no response from her, but he did respond telling me she was mad at us both (RED flag number 5). Eventually he told me that she had arrived in Phoenix and was safe. I thanked him for letting me know she had gotten home and he responded to the gesture by de-friending me, nice guy huh? Oh goodness..we are on a roll now here aren't we? I continued to message her out of concern to make sure she was okay emotionally (now that is laughable) and eventually ended up telling her that basically she was being childish (duh, the woman carries around a stuffed animal, should I be surprised), and that "friends" don't do this. and that when she was ready to talk to me she was more than welcome to, but I could no longer stress over the situation. I had an extremely stressful situation(s) going on at home with the health of my daughter and with my health and this just put me over the edge into a near panic state. I wasn't handling it well at all. The next message is what absolutely set me into a tailspin. She finally, after over 24 hours, responded to me by rambling off this huge, staged or memorized depiction of events as to why she was angry with me and that in her crazy mind (I added that there, sorry) I had kicked her out. I was absolutely freaked out beyond belief by this point as not a single thing she said had happened, actually happened! I go on to call her psycho because by this point it is very evident that this is the case, and tell her that she needs psychiatric help and that I hoped that she got it. She responded to me in a horribly nasty manner. We went back and forth. The next correspondence to her was weeks later and was an actual apology (because I am a sane, logical, forgiving person) for how everything went/turned out and that it didn't have to be that way. She then responded back FOR THE FIRST TIME in our whole series of messages since she left, to stop messaging her, and that she had filed a "restraining order against me and I would be served by Georgia police". (RED flag number 6). I laughed for several minutes before sending her back something to the effect of I was glad that I had saved every conversation we had had, because no judge in their right mind would waste their time with a petty argument between friends. Boy... was I wrong. You see folks, in Arizona any ONE can file what they call an "Injunction Against Harassment" for ANY reason whatsoever at NO cost to them whatsoever. So... any Joe Smoe can walk down to the local wherever and file a claim against someone that goes on their permanent record, has the potential to totally screw up their life, their employment, their criminal record, etc. with no knowledge to the person whom is apparently doing the "harassing". I found this out because I was served at my home by Georgia police (funny how this is the only time she was indeed true to her word, or truthful in any manner) on a day when I was resting peacefully after a medical procedure. They walked up to my door apologized and served me. My husband and I told the officer it wasn't a big deal, that we knew what it was about and that, in our eyes, it didn't amount to anything because it was completely unjustified. I reviewed the reasoning for the injunction, half of which was completely fabricated. She had inserted comments to make it look like she had asked me to quit contacting her, when in fact she had not. She also stated that my last name was something different than it was, she said I weighed 50 pounds heavier than I weigh, low blow, right? Especially since she used to be a rather large woman. She goes on to say I verbally harassed her (wrong once again as I hadn't spoken to her hence the word um, verbal since she left at 2 in the morning). She also goes on to cry about me harassing her husband on facebook which I find the most humorous because he had de-friended me the moment she got home. I had no contact with him beyond me being concerned for her well-being and prior to him de-friending me. There is so much else wrong and perjured on the injunction itself it had my head spinning, but all I could do was laugh and wonder how in the world this could happen to me when all I did show concern for her and only snapped back when snapped AT over her pathological lies.
As you can probably assume, I turned around, called the county office court for where "crazy friend from hell" filed this fraudulent claim to obtain the injunction and faxed a written notice to petition the court for dismissal of the IAH (Injunction Against Harassment). I then decide that if she wants to try to do this to me, a mother of four children (one of them autistic and one with an auto-immune disease) with multiple chronic and debilitating diseases, someone who has never in their life been in trouble with the law, someone with a squeaky clean record, out of spite? Then I am hiring an attorney, and that I did. The BEST decision I have ever made. We postponed the hearing so that my attorney could gather evidence and do all the usual legal paperwork because Maricopa County/Suprise City Court in Arizona decided that they just HAD to set up a date irregardless of the fact that I told them my attorney was handling all of it. On a side note: She actually apparently went to that hearing, which also made me giggle seeing that we were both notified of the postponement. And also of note: When they scheduled this first "hearing" I was on vacation on a getaway to escape from the multiple stressors in my life so I wouldn't have a "break down" because I was darn near my breaking point. This did not help.
Fast-forward once again to today, my day of liberation, I call it. Today was the big hearing day. Guess what? Dun, dun, dun, dunnnn...I won! Big shocker, like there was ever a question. The burden of proof by the petitioner ("crazy friend from hell") was not met, and they found no proof of harassment, only concern for a friend in a troubling time. She rambled on and on about how she did not fabricate Facebook messages (it was blatently obvious that she did), and that her health had been affected by anxiety and stress due to all of this... Yeah, by something she brought upon herself. This made me laugh uncontrollably because the stress this whole situation has caused ME and MY family and my near break-down over it was never brought up. I didn't want a pity party you see. I didn't mention that I was 8 days out from a major surgery and had to go back in in a week for further surgery. I didn't mention any of that. It didn't matter. She just came across as overly sensitive and just plain stupid. They found the claim for the injunction baseless and it was dismissed, but folks, if I hadn't hired an attorney this whole thing could have turned out so much differently! She could have gotten away with her lies, her fraudulent claims, and her perjured evidence. Since when is this okay? This is all a part of how the law in Arizona works, as aforementioned, and it is called an ex-parte motion, meaning one-sided. The judge doesn't have to hear both sides and approves an injunction that can drastically alter someones life forever! We will delve much deeper into this in future posts, but for now, I have definitely experienced some life lessons. First, don't ever invite someone you meet on the Internet into your home, seriously, just don't, as if my horror house-guest story (book) is not proof enough for you. Second, always follow your gut instinct, and third, to everyone out there in "virtual land" heed my fair warning about who you befriend on Facebook, especially if he/she has a chronic disease and resides anywhere near Phoenix, Arizona, because "crazy friend from hell" might turn around and do this to some other unsuspecting innocent person. My 6 months of hell could have been prevented had I never responded to her initial Facebook message
