For Rachel’s sake, I certainly hope it is.

Back to Big Brother then…

http://www.oxfordmail.net/news/headlines/display.var.1456078.0.cyberstalker_caught.php

Genette

And if you ask me it’s only trolls who’ve ever sent FJL nasty comments. The rest of us have merely pleaded with her to give herself up or get treatment, and offered Rachel and Dan our support during their bombardment.

This is NOT designed for your entertainment. We are talking about a seriously sick person, who has made multiple threats, some of which are very sinister and physically threatening. It is not a game, so if you are just trolling for your own amusement, please stay out of this matter.

Anon (nubwtbt): There’s a lot of difference between writing nasty stuff about someone (which at the end of the day is all we are talking about) and breaking into your house and stealing your possessions. Yes, they can both be considered crimes, but let’s keep thing in perspective. Don’t get me wrong, I’m strong on law and order. (For the latter crime, I’m with the Sharia model - amputation).

Yes old FJL needs to be brough to rights but personally I am very uncomfortable with all this baying mob stuff. She’s hardly going to feature in Britain’s most wanted. Of course I understand how upset some of her victims are, but I’m not sure that the degree of victims’ upset should be the yardstick by which we measure the severity of a crime. There’s a part of me that wants to see the crafty fox elude the baying hounds and self-righteous huntsmen charging round the countryside, even though he’s slaughtered all the chickens in the hen-house. (Obviously I’m pro-hunting).

On a positive note, and without taking any sides, this is all very exciting isn’t it? It’s much better than Big Brother and I eagerly await the outcome.

Witty!

(You probably live in a council flat as well)

What cackle! I’ve never seen so much posturing in all my life. The post itself is enormously arrogant. And pompous, presumptive; tea-break analysis.

Face the truth; Felicity is a very good writer indeed: sharp, vivacious, enormously interesting. (Is that why you’re all so lacerated?)

And Gerard, palatable has one L, that’s all.

You are illiterate.

-Robert.
(I’m illegitimate, but it don’t matter)

One key characteristic of group process that TC’s work with is that individuals HAVE to be accountable to the group for their actions, And if they are found to have transgressed the communities rules then they are expelled.This is undeniably intense and bruising but is an essential part of why the TC works.

Out here in the internet world , the processes are similar but nowhere near as contained, most of us are aware of ‘Flaming’and ‘Trolling’ and at some level understand that that The internet is a medium that can exagerrate/minimise our everyday psychology etc

I dont see anything wrong with Unity trying to understand lownde’s motivation, it seems to me to be both a health warning and a way of taking some of the heat out of the urge to scaegoat.
Yes , many people object to diagnosis and see ‘personality disorder’ as a pejoritive term, but overall I think this thread does more good than harm.

1) Unity - thanks for the post. I have only just started to read about the whole situation and it scares me. To learn more about the possible, potential or even likely “reasons” for it help lessen that fear.

2) Gerard - if someone broke into your house and stole your possessions, got reported to the police, got caught, got told to go to court, didn’t go but got convicted of theft in their absence, had many previous convictions for the same crime, went on the run and continued to thieve, would you call the thief a victim if a community, still being stolen from, was to put up posters wherever possible to catch the now convicted thief and muttered loudly about the affect the thief at large was still having on people ? This is not a witch hunt and there is a very big difference between ‘poking the mad woman’ as JonnyB says and raising awareness/trying to get the person rightly ‘caught’ not least of all to get her help but predominantly to prevent any further crime to anyone else…

.. in my opinion.

Apologies for my anonymity; I am no-one exciting or related to this closely, nor a victim, I just don’t want to run the risk of being stalked myself.

It would be interesting to know how those who dismiss FJL’s sustained hate campaigns against virtual strangers would react and feel were they themselves subjected to one of her vendettas over an extended period of time.

As Rachel has previously said, this is not some one off random nutter who can just be ignored and will eventually go away. FJL means business once she gets her hooks into someone and is BAD as well as whatever definition of mad you wish to choose.

Just write your blog, you poof.

AndrewM

Gerard, I do have sympathy for some of your points of view (of which more in a second). I’ve certainly been very uncomfortable with a few of the more - er - gloatier comments I’ve seen elsewhere, where they’ve come from third parties. As a third party myself I’ve been caught between so many conflicting issues: not wanting to make things practically worse for the injured parties; not wanting to indulge in a Victorian freakshow and poke the mad lady; wanting to show support for the victims which will practically help them feel that they are not being left alone to be bullied; not wanting to blunder, blogger-like around what could be seen as an interesting and exciting story from ‘outside’; wanting to do anything I possibly can to help put a nasty convicted criminal out of circulation so they cannot continue to hurt and manipulate people who I know.

My problem with those who say ‘why doesn’t Rachel just let it lie’/'what’s her problem with some name calling - they’re as bad as each other’ is this. It’s not just about Rachel. It’s about other people who Felicity has launched campaigns to destroy. One of whom is a friend of mine.

But what can I do to convince doubters of the seriousness? They’ve told me in confidence; I can’t break that. I can’t point people towards the websites that she’s set up to, for instance, ‘expose’ blameless individuals as corrupt - it’s not my place to highlight this material to the world. So I’m left, alongside so many people, in a ‘you’ll have to take my word for it’ situation.

Which is desperately unsatisfactory, as you don’t know me from Adam, so there’s no real reason that you would. To say that this is frustrating would be an understatement.

What I do know, is that Felicity Lowde needs to be caught, and she needs to be stopped from using the Internet. However you would explain her behavoural pattern, the trail of distress that she’s left behind her makes this rather important for the wider community.

If you re-read my comment thoughtfully you’ll see that I was cautioning against the easily over-critical responses to fjl’s actions, and hoping that she receives treatment rather than mere incarceration. It is sadly clear from her blog, in particular the comments (and associated e-mails, of which Rachel has received 400) that she is deluded. The nature of that delusion is such that NPD, as described in that medline link (which includes proper sources of alternative and oppositional symptom-sets) fits well with what all of us except fjl herself can see, and in that sense, NPD (like any other behavioural pathology) exists as a set of observable traits. Its origins may not be discernable or tractable but, like other obsessive disorders, it is capable of sympathetic-critical intervention, and that is what I hope Felicity receives.

If you read the sample in Rachel’s blog and multiply by 400, you get an idea of what Rachel and, now we know, others have suffered. (The single response by fjl to my comment is mild in contrast.) You will also see that Rachel attempted to be reasonable in asking her to desist but received more of the same. The source of this (high quality) discussion was Rachel’s final attempt at closure after fjl’s failure to support her case in court, after a year of victimisation. It is typical of fjl’s own self-delusion that she would portray herself as the victim, and harsh self-examination in a treatment regime is the best that we can wish for her. I don’t hate her or believe her to be evil or even ‘mad’ (those comments are best left with those who make them), but I do hate what she has done. If I were a Christian (I have no religion) I might depict it as hating not the sinner but the sins.

How sad that someone as intelligent and well-educated as Felicity could come to this. I suppose we could blame the internet, call blogging a waste of time better spent in ‘real’ persuits, appeal to the breakdown of the family and its replacement with anyonymous or false-alias communication structures. I have some sympathy with those views, but in this case I believe that the amount of support Rachel has received is indicative of a belief that the downside of the net can be ameliorated by concerted action using those same structures. Which is a long-winded way of saying I support the campaign to find Ms Lowde.

[Unity has responded more eloquently and to the point since I began writing this - please take note before firing off another piece]

IainC