Safety on the Internet

Woo hoo, look at me everybody, it's another insanely personal post that's hard to share!  I'm setting records here.

This is something that's come up a lot in my life lately, and sometimes when things just keep coming up like that, I think it's a message from God, that maybe it's time to share my experiences, for the sake of others... so that's what I'm doing.  This is personal and not easy to write or read so please be kind, but every day I see and hear things that scare me more... that some young girl, somebody's daughter... is not going to be as lucky as I was... and I have to do everything in my power to stop that.




I was twelve.  The internet wasn't entirely new, but it was still in its infancy.  Remember when the internet was basically AOL?  Dialup, anyone?  Errrr-uh-err-uh-errrr-uh-errrrrrrrrrrgh!  Yeah, that's the time period we're in.  No facebook, no myspace, no xanga, no twitter, no youtube... okay, there were pictures of cats, but not near as many and they most certainly weren't as funny.  The internet had not achieved the social network status it holds today... and people underestimated it - myself included - which turned out to be very dangerous.

It started with a school project.  I got to do an independent study on anything I wanted.  I wanted to write about the military - especially JAG (yes, lawyers.  It was my favorite show.)  So I was online, doing research, when I found this message board (the social network of the time) that was ALL about this show!  Now even then I'd heard people warn - don't tell anyone where you live or your real name on the internet... don't give out your phone number or any other personal information... but I couldn't resist posting, so I created possibly the most anonymous alias I could think of (okay, it was JAGfan1.  I didn't win any points for creativity here, basically).  And I posted once, and then again, and then I was hooked, posted all the time.  I remember that people panicked when they found out I was only twelve.  Perfect strangers worrying about my safety, asking me to have my mom verify that she was okay with me being on this board (she was).    I took it all very personally, I was very defensive ("I'm mature for my age!  I'm smart, I can handle myself!")... and he saw it.

I have no doubt he knew he was playing on my weakness when a poster named Marco (yes, I'm naming names, because, you bastard, if you're still out there, I want you to know that I see you for what you always were now) came to me and told me that he could see that I was much more mature than most kids my age, and that other people just didn't understand, but he did, and would I like to be friends?  He was 35, he was up front about this - no lying about age, which is so often something we warn our kids about today - but sometimes they don't even need to lie.

I said yes, I want to be friends, and we talked via e-mail (side note - remember when people actually sent emails?) and in a chat room for our message board.  About a month after I found that board, my parents split up, and it was the second place I went to cry (after calling my best friend).  Everyone was supportive and kind... especially him... and I thought he was just being a friend, but now I realize that I had inadvertently given him another weakness to prey on.  We talked more... he 'helped me' get through it... and then when he started to share some issues that were bothering him, it didn't alarm me because we were just friends helping each other... but his issues were grown up issues that a twelve year old shouldn't have been dealing with or even hearing about.

And that was when he found the key - my most crucial weakness - the innate want - no, need - to help others.  I told you all in another post that I'm a fixer.  I always have been.  When he spoke of his problems, I wanted to fix them, I wanted to help him.  Now, I'm fairly certain that they were all manufactured to gain my trust and sympathy, bond me further to him.  He was grooming  me.  He was slowly teaching me that only he really understood me, and that I was smart and kind and I understood and helped him, that he needed me, that no one else believed in him and I was the only one who saw the good in him.  Is this starting to sound like an abusive relationship to anyone else?

Well it was.  But it happened so gradually, and I was so young, so naive, that I couldn't see it... and I was so determined to be right - to show everyone that I was smart and mature - that I ignored every piece of good advice I was ever given.

He asked me to share a picture of myself and I hesitated, because I'd been warned about putting pictures on the internet, but finally I relented when he said he'd share his picture too.  I shared one of me in a Limited Too hoodie and pigtails.  All I remember about his is that he had a goatee.  After that, I was 'desensitized' to posting pictures (I did it once and nothing happened!) and I shared many more.  He told me I was cute, pretty, which pictures were his favorites... and I took it all as compliments.

I will never forget the day he said "Can I tell you a secret?"  He'd been acting off all day.  I was nervous, in the pit of my stomach I felt uneasy, like it was going to be a bad secret.  My gut was trying to tell me that something was not right with this guy, but I didn't listen to it.  I said yes.  He said I couldn't tell, even my parents.  And then that became the standing rule with all his 'secrets'.  And he told me about a (sexual) relationship he'd had with a married woman he met online, who he still 'loved'.  He gave me her email and asked me very innocently to contact her.  Now I believe that he was using me to continue to stalk and victimize this woman.  Over time he started telling me what to say... and I said it.  I was his mouthpiece.  I regret falling into that trap more than anything else... being a tool of his abuse.

Then, as time went on, he fixated on different women (both famous people and people in our 'online community'), obsessed over them, told me all about it (often in very inappropriate ways), used me to contact them as well, and then ultimately came to me telling me how he'd propositioned one of them and they'd rejected him, and that he was so emotionally hurt that he felt suicidal... and it became my job to talk him down off the ledge.  A twelve year old.  Today I'm pretty sure there was no ledge, but even if there was, I shouldn't have been the one up there with him.

At one point, in those olden days before the wonders of DVR, I'd gone on vacation with my family once and tried to set a tape to pre-record all the episodes of JAG while I was gone, but it failed and I missed something significant.  He offered to send me a tape.  I talked it over with my mom.  What if I gave him one of my parents' work addresses instead of our home address?  That would be safe, right?  Or I could get a PO Box.  I really wanted to see that episode.  After much discussion it was agreed that I could use a work address, and he sent me the tape and a mostly innocuous note.  Another hurdle gone - I'd even had him send me something, and it wasn't a bomb or anything like that... so sharing this business address must be safe.  Later more mail packages were exchanged - seemingly innocent, but conditioning me slowly to believe that corresponding via US mail was 'okay', that sharing an address was 'okay'.  Toward the very end, he even started to push for my home address.

But while all that is a bit creepy, it wasn't the typical sort of 'internet red flag' they told you to watch out for... which is probably why I fell for it.  But I shouldn't have fallen for the bit I'm about to tell you about.  It should've been a huge red flag... but he'd built up my trust so much that it wasn't.

The summer that I was 13, the air conditioning in our house went out.  I took to lying around in my (very first) bikini pretty much all the time, and lacking modesty I shared this fact with him.  He asked me what it looked like.  After that he started asking  me what I was wearing all the time.  I told him.  He'd tell me what he was wearing.  Even if it was nothing.  I thought it was just making conversation, and when you're thirteen, talking about stuff like that isn't sexual, it's more like "Heehee, you're naked!  That's funny!  Naked is funny!"  So one day when he told me that he and another friend played a 'game' where they would always tell each other when they were naked, and that maybe we should do it too, I felt a little uneasy, but then that part of me that was desperately trying to prove myself rose up and I thought, "Hey, maybe this is just what grown-ups do, how they talk to each other.  Maybe he's just treating me like an adult like he always does.  I don't want him to think I'm not mature."  So I agreed.  He was also always trying to convince me to get a webcam.  I probably would have, if I'd had any money.  Thank goodness for being broke.

Time passed, and this dysfunctional, scary relationship continued.  Today I'm pretty sure he had every intention of making me trust him until I was willing to meet him.  He would mention being in my state or a neighboring state and comment that maybe we'd meet someday.  Thank the Lord and my parents' gut, that never happened.

Around my 14th birthday, he wanted to send me a gift.  I told him he didn't have to, but he said it was special and he picked it out just for me, so I relented.  After it was in the mail, he told me he sent a little something else as a birthday gift and he hoped I wouldn't get mad.  I was nervous... deep down, in my gut, about what it might be, but I didn't let on.  When the package came I opened it alone in my room.  A letter, a pin of a gold angel carrying a race flag (that he said reminded him of me) and a $20.  I smiled.  I thought it was sweet.  I told him I wasn't mad.

At dinner that night, my parents asked what he sent.  My father still came over on Wednesday nights and ate with us.  I told them casually, with a smile, not expecting the reaction, nor the chain of events that came after.  I will never forget the look on my father's face.  It had me petrified.  I can't even describe it.  He wasn't just furious, he was... well, I think it was the look that someone gets on their face when they realize that their little girl is well on her way to an episode of 20/20.  I never felt so small.  That feeling that had been lying surpressed in my gut for so long grew so large it took over.  I wanted to vomit.  I couldn't finish my meal.  I thought - if my parents were so angry about this... what would they think about all the 'secrets'... the things I hadn't told them?  My gut had been right and I suddenly knew it.

I threw a typical teenage temper tantrum, but inside I knew they were right.  Even though my mom told me I didn't have to, I told him I was cutting off contact with him, I would no longer chat or email or IM, no more mail (except my parents' stipulation that I send the money back).  It was his response that absolutely confirmed that my long-ignored gut had been right.  I'd lied, told him that my parents were making me cut off contact - it was easier to lie.  So he tried to get me to disobey them - deceive them - keep talking to him but tell them I'd stopped.  I'd gotten a computer in my room for my birthday, and he knew it.  Then he tried to guilt me by saying I was his only friend and he didn't want to live anymore.  Playing on my weaknesses.  I could've easily kept the secret.  But the one thing I knew was that when anyone tried to tell you to secretly disobey your parents (unless it was something like sneaking starbursts after bedtime on Halloween), it was a big, fat, red flag... and that was what I needed to have the strength to walk away... physically, but not emotionally unscathed.

For years I kept his letters, the pin, the tapes.  I sent him an e-card every year on his birthday (in hopes that if he knew someone still cared/remembered, he wouldn't end his life)... until I got a little older, a little wiser, and realized that something had been wrong and I wanted to be as far from it as I could.  I burned the letters, threw away the tapes, and changed my e-mail address.  And then I went on with my life.

It wasn't until college that I realized the extent of what really happened.  I was in a psychology seminar where the lecturer was discussing how pedophiles groom their victims, and as I sat there scribbling notes, I realized I didn't need to write this down... I already knew it because it had happened to me.  Over the next few days and weeks, the reality of how lucky I'd been, what could've happened if things had gone differently, hit me hard.  I struggled with coping and acceptance - five years after the fact.  I thought about it all the time.   I told no one.  I was too ashamed.  How could I have been so stupid?  When I finally told my mom, then took control back by contacting various authorities (even though I knew nothing could really be done - I was doing it to take my life, my control back)... that was when I could breathe again.  But the reality never deserts me.

I was almost a statistic.

I was one of the lucky ones.

I got away.


Not everyone is that lucky.  And that's why I'm sharing this tonight.  Now and again, I hear people discussing whether or not to put computers in their children's bedrooms, whether to let them access facebook or chat or instant messaging.  I hear adults discussing whether or not to add people they don't know to their friends lists on facebook.  Because for the most part, people are trusting.  We want to see the good.  And yes, we want to build those relationships that might start in unconventional ways - I won't tell you that I never made another friend on the internet, because that's not true - but I certainly exercise a lot more caution these days.

I'm sharing this because people don't think it can happen to them.  I didn't think it could happen to me.  I was too mature, too smart.  I wasn't one of those people that things happened to, I wasn't a victim.  Until I was.

So forgive me, but if I don't accept your friend request or readily give out my address... this is why.  Once you've been burned, you try to stay away from the fire.

And I urge you, all of you, to exercise caution in your online activities and especially in your children's online activities.  For all I know, if my parents hadn't intervened, I could be dead.  Your kids might hate you.  They might scream and yell and slam their doors and tell you you're ruining their lives.  I did all those things.  Then I grew up... and I said thank you... because my parents didn't ruin my life... they saved it.  As an adult, if you want to talk to people you've never met, go for it - but don't put your life on a platter for them.  I've met some of my best friends online - rewarding relationships can start there, especially these days, but just like you wouldn't go on a blind date in a dark alley, don't let yourself be lured, unarmed into a trap by the hope of finding something good.  Talk on message boards and groups - if you accept a friend request on a social network, set your privacy so that they can only see what you want them to see.  Personally, I don't accept requests from anyone I haven't corresponded with extensively in the past.  Keep certain things about your life, particularly identifying factors, private from people you haven't met in person.  If you decide to meet someone you first became acquainted with online, do it in a public place and tell someone where you're going and when you'll be back.  I wouldn't tell you to do these things if I wasn't already doing them myself - which is why I won't tell you, as an adult, not to 'talk to strangers'.

But your kids are a different story.  They shouldn't be talking to people they don't know, period.  Their judgement, their 'gut feeling', just isn't developed enough to recognize the danger, no matter how smart or mature they are.  And that's not an affront to your child, please don't take it that way - remember, I was that child... the smart, mature one... who fell into the trap anyways.  Please.  Put parental filters on your web browsers.  Keep your computer in a public place.  If you have a laptop, put a password on it so little fingers can't disappear with it.  Talk to your kids about internet safety, about warning signs that may not look like warning signs.  Keep an open dialogue about what's going on on the computer.  Facebook has an age limit for a reason - adhere to it.  When you do decide to let your child have an account, know their password.  Monitor their activity.  Be up front about it, let them know you'll be checking up on them - don't just read their diary when they leave the door open - but do check up on them.  You're not being a helicopter parent, you're being vigilant.  I tell M (who is 13, and who I told this story to when she first got facebook) that I don't really care what she says to her friends, what they talk about, if they swear - even if it's not something I'm proud of her doing... whatever, normal teenager things - we all did them.  All I care about is that she's safe, that she's not talking to people she doesn't know or people who might be dangerous.  And I do monitor her activity - but only for safety - and she knows and (I hope) understands that.  But even if she doesn't, it's not going to change, because she's not going to be a statistic either if I can help it.

I know it may not seem like it folks, but we are on the front lines... and sometimes you can't see the enemy until he's already in your camp.  We can't stop internet predators from seeking out targets, no more than we can throw every single starfish back into the sea... but we can limit their pool of victims by protecting ourselves and our children the best as we can... and we can do that without putting ourselves in a bubble.  That's what my parents did ten years ago, and I can tell you honestly...

It made a difference to this one.

Me - 2002