.. set a notification so I'll know when there are new comments? 

So yes, I'm jumping on the Nadia Bandwagon, but my point of view is quite different.

Probably most of you have never heard of me, or if you have, know very little about me.  I have never been big on Mindsay, I only came on here to read Nadia's.  And a lot of you I "recognize" from comments you left on Nadia's blog, but I didn't comment very often... I talked to her so much that whatever I had to say, I generally just said to her directly.

I am quite sure that a lot of you are going to disagree with what I have to say, and that's okay.  I don't expect everyone to agree with me.  And I am sure at least one person is going to accuse me of BEING Nadia, but I'm not, and Dianne (healmyheart  knows that for sure, you can ask her, and if that's not good enough, well, tell me how you want me to prove it and I will.  I welcome dissenting views in the comments, but if you are nasty I'm just going to ignore you, and probably delete the comment.

So since no one really knows me, not being a "Mindsayer", here in a nutshell is who I am and how I met Nadia.  It's just easier for me to write this as if "Nadia" was a real person, so forgive me for writing as if she was, although I DO know differently.

My name is Carolyn, I'm 35, and I'm a farmer's wife in Missouri who has a 13 year old girl, a 9 month old son, and is due with a girl in April.  I met Nadia through a bipolar web ring. We commented on each other's blogs, then started corresponding and eventually it turned into what it was - a very good, close, daily friendship.  That was over three years ago, and I'd say for the last 2 years or so we talked damn near every day, for hours at a time.  I work from home, and a good while ago I said to her, "Hey, since you're having trouble sleeping, do you want to learn how to do transcription?" and she agreed, and so she was working for me as well.

Even on days when I was not on the computer - when I had doctor's appointments and was gone half the day - we talked through my cell phone on the IM.  She was the one person I told just about everything to.  I have a LOT of "real world" friends and family, but say if I was pissy at my husband, I didn't want to be filling their ears with that stuff - in a past relationship when I did that I inadvertently turned them against him.  And I'll be the first to admit, I can be a royal bitch, and so half of what I was saying was probably half-undeserved, and so I didn't want to do that again with my husband.  Nadia was my sounding board, always there for me.  She treated me like any other person who cares for me does: remembering my birthday, remembering when I had doctor's appointments, asking about the kids, listening to my endless prattle about the kids, sending me text messages if I had been offline longer than usual asking if I was ok.

Nadia was a part of my "real life" too, in a sense, in that I had sent out mass emails to everyone I knew when she was in a medical crisis, or her babies were, asking for prayers.  I cried when Jacob and Olivia were murdered.  I invited her to send me text messages on my cell if she needed me when I was asleep - and she did. I got up out of a sound sleep on several occasions to get online to talk to her, listen to her cry, about those babies. My friends and family would ask me frequently how she was doing; they prayed for her, they cried for her, too.

When I was first contacted with the information that she wasn't real, I vehemently denied it.  No way was this possible.  I knew her too well.  And even when given information that proved the truth, I still denied it - I couldn't accept the truth, and I'll be honest, I lied to those women in an effort to protect Nadia, trying to prove that they were wrong.  And yes, since then I have contacted those women and apologized for the lies and the nastiness I gave to them in my misguided attempt to set things straight.

But as more and more information came my way, there could be no more denying it.  Nadia was indeed a big fabrication.  And she had eliminated every single thing on the internet that proved she once existed.  Every email address I had for her came back as "user deleted."  I didn't even have a way to reach her online.  I called her cell phone (knowing full well it would cost me at least $5 for the first minute since it was overseas) and it went straight to voice mail.  And I knew, or thought I knew, that she was going to disappear without a word, and I was devastated, angry, hurt, you name it.  The fact that I still owe her over $100 for her transcription work also "proved" to me that she had disappeared since she had just asked me the morning before to send it to her and I hadn't had a chance to yet, and the paypal account I sent it to had been deleted as well.

Then I got the message that she had posted on the pregnancy forum, and the next morning, the email that was sent to me, Dianne, and Kimmie (wonderingsoul  all together.  If you're reading this you've undoubtedly seen Dianne's blog, so you know what those things said.  It gave no answers, just apologies and a plea to leave her alone.

I back wrote to her at the email address she sent it from, but have not received a response.  She did respond to Dianne though, and I don't know what to make of that.

My life is now changed, in that I no longer have her to talk to for hours on end all day, to tell her the stupid things about my husband that I won't tell my friends and family.  It's only been a few days, but it's left a pretty big hole in my life.  I miss her.  The Nadia I knew was funny, insightful, smart, and fun.  She was supportive of me, and she was a very close friend.

I have spent a LOT of time thinking about this situation and talking to my husband and others about it, reflecting upon myself when I was in my teens and early 20's, and this is what I have come up with:

I am 35 now but I was rather disturbed when I was in my teens and early 20's and I was not always honest in my internet dealings either; in my case it had to do with men though. I cannot forget that Dianne met her 6 or so years ago, this Kim had to have been what, 13 or 14? I can only imagine how lonely she must have been and what kind of home life she must have had in order to start a farce like that at such a young age - she had told Dianne she already had the oldest twins and had just lost another set. When I started talking to her she must have been 16 or 17. And again, holy cow, for someone to have carried on that big of a farce for so long at such a young age! Obviously there are underlying issues there!!!!!  That saddens me.  I have a 13 year old daughter – I cannot imagine her feeling the need to spend hours online making up these crazy stories and nonexistent children; her life is too full of her friends and family to do this.

Nadia  mentioned in her email to us that it started out as "a bit of fun" and she never dreamed it would go so far. I know that there have been many times in my life that I started something that snowballed and I sat there helplessly going, "Oh my God, what do I do now???" watching it spin out of control.  I can only imagine that is how it was to this young girl. She also told us that she wanted to walk away, but that she had become so close to the three of us that she couldn't.

I told lies as a teen too, mostly to my parents, and I remember quite vividly there being times where I had to cover one lie with another with another and then it's like "Oh God, how do I get out of this?" and again, I can only imagine that's how this happened for this girl. And whatever else she lied about, I do NOT believe she lied about caring for me, or Dianne, or Kimmie. If she didn't there is just no way she would have spent the amount of time talking to us she did. If we meant nothing to her, she would have just disappeared, not sent that email to us apologizing.  She said in the email that one of the reasons it was so hard to walk away was that she didn't want to lose us, and I do believe THAT. How the hell do you tell someone "Um, I have to tell you something, everything I've told you up to now was a complete fabrication!" and expect to keep their friendship???

And so after the initial shock and whatall passed I really sat and thought about it for a long time, and discussed it with my husband and others. And yes, she was wrong, there is no question of that. Yes, lots of people grew to care for her and the kids she claimed were hers, and yes, she caused a lot of heartache with her endless tragedies and whatnot, and then of course with this shocking revelation it was all BS.

But I do remember being a teen.  I remember telling lies and not knowing how to get out of them.  I remember being in situations that snowballed and left me helpless to stop it.  Can any of you honestly say that you've *never* done something like that, especially as a teen?

I can't get past the fact that she was just a kid, she was 14 perhaps when it all started, 17 when she met me. And for someone to go through all the trouble she did - my God, think of all the time she had to have spent researching medical issues and finding pictures to pass off as her own and all that!!! - there is just no question that there is something wrong or missing in her life.  And it makes me very sad to think about that.

I know that me, Dianne, and Kimmie were important to her - as I said, there is just no way you talk to someone for those countless hours and for such an extended period of time and not be - and I think that she clung to us and felt that she had to keep up the whole farce in order to keep us.

I don't claim to understand why she had to go and invent all these continuing tragedies and of course I do think that was very wrong.  She said "Munchausen's by Internet" and that is essentially a way to get attention, and perhaps this was the only way to get attention she knew how to do.  Does that make it right?  Of course not.  But it does make it, to a certain extent, understandable.  My 13 year old is ALWAYS dramatizing something for the attention, both at home and with her friends. 

I had always sensed a bit of low self-esteem in Nadia, and perhaps she thought that if she didn't keep us "entertained" so to speak with all these dramas that she, by herself, wouldn't be enough.  I don't know.

I DO know that a huge part of her life is missing now. I am not exaggerating when I tell you she and I talked for hours on end every day. Hell, a huge part of MY life is missing now, and for me it was just her; for her it was me, Dianne, Kimmie, and I don't know who all else, all the blogs and all that. I mean seriously, how did she have time to have a "real" life???

In her post on the pregnancy forum and in her email to us I see two recurring themes from her: she is so sorry this spun so out of control, and she is scared to death. She is scared that this is going to affect her real life, her future job, her family, her real world friends.  I think that at least one person has taken it upon herself to start contacting this girl’s real life friends, and I personally don't think that's right. I think the poor kid should be left alone.

There is no question she is suffering now, number one that she has hurt people, number two, from the fear that this is going to destroy her whole life, and number three, her entire world has just fallen apart - she spent so many hours as "Nadia" and now that is gone.

And honestly, if her real life is affected by this, if her real family and friends are turned against her, if her future job prospects are ruined, how on earth is that going to heal those of you that are hurting?  It’s not.  It’s just revenge, and that’s not a way to make things better.  What it probably WOULD do is make whatever is wrong with her even worse, and I think that regardless of what she did, that she ought to be given the chance to fix herself, to heal, to get beyond this, to learn how to live a real life, as her true self.  Let her take it as a lesson learned.  I know that each of you reading this had to learn some hard lessons in your life, and I would bet that each of you has hurt at least one person along the way unintentionally as well.

In the end this was something that happened over the internet and everyone knows you shouldn't trust people online.  I don’t let my 13 year old talk to people online that she doesn’t know in real life for a reason.  You’ve all heard the horror stories and YES, I trusted her too, and I was betrayed and hurt too, I’m not saying I didn’t.  But what I am saying, is that it was just the internet.  This is not a rare thing.  Look up the lyrics to Brad Paisley’s “Online” http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/bradpaisley/online.html.  Matter of fact, while you’re at it, watch the video, it’s good.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GcVnhNjWV0  But unfortunately, this happens every single day – people lie online. 

I’ve read various people saying they’ll never trust people again on account of this and things like that and I beg you – don’t let this do that to you, change who you are.  I believe there are way more inherently good people out there than bad.  But DO learn a lesson from it, and perhaps keep the people you talk to online at arm’s length and don’t trust them as implicitly as the people you see in real life.  Of COURSE people can and should have friends online, but there really is, and should be, a difference between your online life and your real life.

Would I feel differently if she had been to my house, in my real life? Absolutely. But that's not the case.

So after much soul searching and reflection, I am able to forgive her and to feel sorry for her, knowing that there must be something very wrong for her to do such a thing and for so long, knowing that she started this at all of 13 or 14 and didn't know how to stop it, knowing that she felt she had to continue it to keep those she cared about, and now that it’s all out and gone, feeling that she’s lost the friends as well as that part of her life, not to mention being terrified that this thing she started as a young girl is going to destroy her future.  I have forgiven her, I am at peace with it, I will not let this affect me in any major way, and I hope that everyone else who was involved in this can come to the same point, and just LET IT GO.

The Nadia I knew, as I said, was smart and funny and insightful, but she was also a bit paranoid, afraid of what people were saying about her, and I’d be willing to bet that she IS reading Mindsay and so this next paragraph is directed to Kim, the woman behind the fictional Nadia:

I forgive you.  I have questions, all of us do, of course.  But aside from the “facts” about Nadia that I know are lies, the kids and all, I believe that a lot of the personality and hunor and intelligence that I knew and loved was YOU, and I miss talking to you.  I hope that you will contact me someday so I can get to know the real you, and maybe you can get to know the real you too, now that “Nadia” no longer exists.  Don’t let this ruin your life; learn from it.  Don’t waste that brain – you are obviously quite intelligent.  I wish you all the best.

I am not overly religious, but I DO believe in God, and I am grateful that he's given me the capacity to forgive the lies and betrayal and move beyond it and not stew in anger and bitterness for a prolonged period of time.

 

Now I also have http://benjamingerding.wordpress.com/ about my new baby.  I also have one that I don't update much about having bipolar disorder.  Send me a message if you want that one, it's not for the general public.

I don't use Mindsay, I came on here because my friend Nadia is.

 

My blogs are at:

 

www.pregnancyjournies.wordpress.com

 

www.farmerswife.wordpress.com

 

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll&friendID=42713494

www.ouralaskawedding.wordpress.com