First post—really long. Sorry in advance. I tried to be as concise and coherent as I could—this is a lot.

I was online friends with a woman for 3 years. She suddenly switched up on me politically in 2020 and I got upset. I unfollowed her on social media and in retaliation she used information I trusted her with to hurt me. I’d been involved with an abusive man and she connected to him and started talking to him—it completely freaked me out and I ended the “friendship” with her. In the 3 years since that, she’s cyber stalked me so badly I’m now locked up everywhere online and super careful about how much personal information I give out and who I connect to. She’s target harassed me on Twitter by screenshotting my landing page to her 2900 followers, encouraging them to block & harass me. She follows me on any other socials she can find me on—Blue Sky, Threads, Instagram, TikTok. On TikTok she’s followed me in the past. On Threads she set up a fake account and followed me. She reads my blog for hours. She sends other people to my blog. She leaves me harassing, trolling comments “defending” herself against anything she sees me saying if she thinks it’s about her. I’ve tried to set up anonymous accounts to shake her and go on but she watches my friends’ accounts online and figures out who I am. She then blocks me so she can watch me and use what she sees me doing or saying but I can’t see her. Currently she’s started using my teen daughter in her smear campaign—accusing me of sending my daughter after her (my daughter has yelled at her online to leave us alone because this woman has been so creepy…I’ve made my daughter delete the messages after she’s told me about them or the stalker complained but too late, the stalker uses them as fodder now). I’m so frustrated.

Like, the only way I’m able to find any peace is to be anonymous and locked up. I had to lock up all of my PINTEREST boards for the love of all. Meanwhile, this woman is happily smearing me everywhere she can, while telling complete strangers I’m the person stalking her while she’s constantly watching anywhere she can access me. She grows a following quickly anywhere she goes because she does a lot of selfies and interacts constantly with other people (she seems to be online almost 24/7) and she’s really great at presenting an empathetic kind persona…she fooled me for 3 years.

I’m so angry and freaked out. I’ve tried everything I can think of to shake her and I can’t. I feel absolutely trapped. She’s even followed friends of friends of mine to continue trying to access me. Or freak me out. I really don’t even know what her end goal is, actually, other than to continue contact with me anyway she can.

I’ve honestly never dealt with anyone like this, in 25 years online. I’ve always made friends and kept them. She’s so intense and creepy in everything she’s done—I’ve threatened to sue her, I’ve tried to contact her husband for help (she intervened—I think he’s as trapped as I am), and I’ve threatened the police.

I’m trying to understand what her mental illness may be so I know what steps to take next. I’m not a mental health professional, but unofficially I’ve diagnosed her as attention seeking histrionic with BPD and narcissistic tendencies. And maybe a touch of Oppositional Defiant Disorder.

I’d love for her to move on so I can get back to writing and creating like I was doing when I ran into her and let her in. She seems to have a bizarre hatred for me yet a deep obsessive need to emulate me and have my attention even if it’s negative.

She’s brought up a couple of times that I abandoned her and ended the friendship flippantly. When I reminded her she betrayed me and that’s why I ended the friendship she started telling her online contacts that I betrayed her. She’s lied pathologically. When I’ve caught her & called her out, she switches to a different story like the first one didn’t even come out of her. There’s a lot of vindictiveness and tit for tat retaliation.

I don’t want to hurt her family or cost her her job by calling her local police on her—she lives 900 miles from me. I really just want her to move on, stay away from me and my daughter and my friends. And leave me alone on the Internet. I never even spoke to this person on the phone. The level she’s taken things to is bizarre, frankly.

This was really long. And edited/reposted because I didn’t realize I’m not allowed to ask questions about diagnoses—sorry, I’m just so frustrated and I’m looking for any and all help I can get.

Thank you for any insights anyone can offer. I feel so trapped and depressed.