Polyfrazzlemented

[lb_lee]

A few people have already asked me about the recent fundraiser and the refunds. The short version is: polyfrazzlemented , AKA catlover555 , santorumsoakedpikachu, and space-pikachu, conned me, and now I'm out $632. And that's the least of it.

I've known polyfrazzlemented casually online for a few years. They had access to my memory work filter on my blog, and while I can't say I knew them well, I felt safe considering them a casual friend, and I've cited their essays on hypnosis, animism, and structural dissociation theory. Needless to say, they conduct themselves very differently outside of text.

Polyfrazzlemented disappeared from tumblr, Dreamwidth, and Discord on December 9th, 2020. They left a locked post on catlover555 reading, "If you don't hear from us in the next 24 hours, assume we've been killed. If you have any identifying information on us, please look into our deaths." (screencap available upon request; other people with access to catlover555 can also vouch)

A group of folks who see the post, including me, confer: what do we do? What CAN we do?

I have polyfrazzlemented's legal name and location; we mailed them an AllFam postcard a while back (censored screencap available upon request). I spend the next month and a half on death watch, checking the news and obituaries in their area for bad news.

Last Thursday, on January 28th, 2021, polyfrazzlemented resurface. I receive this email:



I respond, and arrange to call them, which I do the following day, around 3:30.



We talk for about 45 minutes, and it's a surreal conversation.

Polyfrazzlemented tell me they can no longer tell what is real and what isn't. They claim that they and their partner had to flee home because abusers were programming them hypnotically, stealing their food, poisoning them and their cats, and assaulting them. They seem to have forgotten that the pandemic is happening, and apparently they and their partner have spent the past month in this hotel, hypnotizing each other and doing memory work together 24/7. (Don't do this, holy shit.)

I ask what they need most and fastest. They say housing and human contact. They very badly want to meet in person, indoors, and are clearly hoping I'll take them into my home. (I can and will not.) I ask how long they can stay in the hotel, work up a plan involving local social services.

But something about this whole situation feels... off. Their partner is with them; apparently they've also been mind-controlled and abused and are in similar crisis, and yet polyfrazzlemented hasn't voiced any concern about them, or spoken to them at all. I haven't heard a peep from this partner; I only have polyfrazzlemented's word that this person even exists, and if they're saying they can't distinguish what's real...

"Can I speak to your partner? Just to be sure they're alive?"

Pause. "Sure." They sound a little surprised that I would worry.

They pass the phone over. Very different voice. Dead flat. "Hello?"

We switch to Sneak. "Hello, stranger! I don't know you and you don't know me; I'm just checking to make sure you're alive."

"I am alive."

Sneak asks what seems a safe, simple question for a stranger in crisis: "Are your kitties with you?"

"My blood sugar's low. I'm passing you back."

Polyfrazzlemented take the phone back and mention nothing of the cats, but finding crash space for two humans is hard enough, never mind two humans and an unknown number of cats. So again, when we get a chance, we ask, "are your cats with you?"

Silence. And then polyfrazzlemented tell me that they gave their cats to a friend in November. They can't say when, who they gave the cats to, or where this happened, and apparently neither can their partner because they were both compelled to amnesia the cats and hallucinate them for a month, thus why the cats were still on the blog in December. They insist all of this is absolute truth, and then burst into theatrical sobs how I must believe them, they would never abandon their cats to die.

There's no kind way to say this: the tears sound fake. I need to check on those cats.

Futhermore, polyfrazzlemented tell me that I too have been programmed by my abusers, with the implication that my abuse involved far more attackers and exploitation than I know. They're very intuitive about these things, they assure me, and maybe I'm here to help them.

"Let's keep the focus on you for now," I say.

(As a side-note, this is when I know that our relationship is over. I have been public about my abuse history. Unless my brain is pulling one humdinger of a magic act, there is no way I was programmed or used by an organized group of attackers. I just had a shitty family. Nobody gets to undermine me by pretending they know my crazy better than me. But at the time, I did still think that the "fuck you, you don't get to say that to me," could wait until after I was sure they wouldn't freeze to death in the street over the weekend.)

I finish the call. I put up the fundraiser. I go hunting mental hospital recommendations, confer with friends. And the more time I have to think, the worse I feel. Something's wrong.

I need to check on those cats.

I ransack my records and find polyfrazzlemented's mailing address. I dig through their tumblr and Dreamwidth to get photos, names, and health conditions for all five of their cats. Then I call the local animal control.

There's not much they can do, of course, but they say they can knock on the door and leave a notice saying, "Are you caring for the cats here? Please call..." I say thank you and try to make my peace with that.

Animal control call me back later that day.



There was no friend in November, or December, or ever. The cats were abandoned. One is still missing. Animal control found the other four: three alive, one dead.

They abandoned the cats.

They abandoned the cats.

And now one is dead.

And polyfrazzlemented are still texting me, emailing me: do I want to meet up? How am I? I've been so kind, so generous, oh thank you so much! Please call! Please meet!

I stare at a wall for a while. Then I block them on all platforms, refund everyone's money, and send polyfrazzlemented this email:



Too many of my friends know polyfrazzlemented for me to stay silent. They used me. They used my friends. They left their cats to die, and indeed, one of them did.

I'm angry. Maybe you are too. Maybe you want to do something.

Some folks have offered to reimburse me, but I'm fine. Angry, sad, but financially okay. I don't need money right now.

But Amorpha do.

Amorpha really are who and what they say they are; I know, because I was there, in person, lugging boxes and running interference with Astraea. Amorpha are brave and generous. Even homeless, even with recurring dental infections that require surgery, they donated to polyfrazzlemented, who they thought even worse off. That is community and friends I can be proud of, not polyfrazzlemented's cruelty and lies.

I don't want people to tear polyfrazzlemented down; they've already done that themselves. No, I want to build Amorpha up. I'm not nearly as mad about losing the money as I am about losing the ability to send it to my homeless friends. So, if you want to help me or give me money, cut out the middleman and send it to Amorpha instead. (Paypal button at the link.)

Because true revenge isn't living well. It's helping your friends live well.

Comments

[lithophiles]

Not going to lie, the main thing I'm angry about right now is that they did a terrible job at being good animists when they wrote such a good essay about it. They absolutely did not conduct themselves with respect and understanding towards other beings (not to the poor cats, certainly) or with mindfulness about how their actions affect the people and relationships they're connected to. And I had been pointing people to that essay occasionally for explanations of "actually, no, my definition of animism isn't that everything has a sentient soul, it's about a worldview where your actions and awareness are more important than specific beliefs." We weren't close to them, but we thought we might want to be eventually, since we seemed to have some interests and ethics in common.

Well... it is a lesson, I guess, to remind me: pay close attention to what people do rather than focusing on the ideals they claim. Or focusing on the ideals only in the sense of making sure their actual actions line up with those principles. (Bearing in mind that we're all human, and we all slip... but there's a difference between slipping, and jumping down while dragging a bunch of other people with you.)

I know I've had several days to get used to the idea that this is who they really are, but my main feeling now is sadness. That so many people thought they were helping them, and they weren't. That we don't know how to help some of the people involved in this. That sometimes we just have to drift away when a situation is beyond our control. I just... wish it hadn't turned out this way and I feel kind of like a 5-year-old who's shocked to discover the world isn't fair.

I do want to add, since you mentioned it: We'll forever appreciate your help in moving our stuff and getting us away from Astraea. We want to strive to continue to be someone you can call brave and generous, to be worthy of those compliments.

I don't... know what else to say.

-Istevia

[ex_not643]

I'm sad about this entire mess as well, Istevia. I'm really sorry, yet again, that they were so hypocritical. They may have posted about all their principles, but when it came to actually putting them into practice, they failed miserably.

There's part of me that thinks that there may be some residual good in them, that there may be something legitimate to what they've written, but I just can't make it work with the evidence I've seen.

~K.

[hungryghosts]

I know I've had several days to get used to the idea that this is who they really are, but my main feeling now is sadness. That so many people thought they were helping them, and they weren't. That we don't know how to help some of the people involved in this. That sometimes we just have to drift away when a situation is beyond our control. I just... wish it hadn't turned out this way and I feel kind of like a 5-year-old who's shocked to discover the world isn't fair.

Yeah... we've been repeating over and over the last few days that it is possible to be both in dire straits AND cruel, to be both mentally unwell AND manipulative, that just because someone might be in a bad situation doesn't mean we are obligated to give them everything if it is unsafe to do so. And to be honest - I think we're saying it mostly because we need to hear it as much as anyone else.

[lb_lee]

It's true. Like, different situation, but Draven WERE legitimately homeless and probably sick with SOMETHING. But they still hurt the people around them, and nobody is obligated to put up with mistreatment.

I mean, it's not like we're getting paid for this!

I have that damn song from "Night at the Roxbury" stuck in my head now

[lithophiles]

Yeap. Astraea (and their ex-husband) treated us like crap when we were helping move Astraea's stuff out to California, when we were paying the bills for everything (including some of the ex-husband's shit). And we thought the fact that their living situation was crappy and that they were legitimately disabled meant we were obligated to swallow mistreatment and help them; that we owed them, materially, a better life because we had money then and they didn't. We had no idea that it could ever be okay to say "you know, this is all on our dime; treat us better or we'll take back the damn truck and leave, because we don't want to live with someone who thinks this is love."

-Anselmus

Re: I have that damn song from "Night at the Roxbury" stuck in my head now

[lb_lee]

Yeah, like I said before, I wouldn't have been NEARLY so upset if they'd come clean with me right off the bat and I'd been able to check in on the cats without doing a lot of completely unnecessary work. Like, I THINK they told the truth about a lot of things, but the thing about the cats calls everything else into question. And that was a big damn lie.

I really do hope they come through this okay, restabilize, and learn better... but I think that's going to have to happen away from me. If they change, this pond is small enough that it seems likely I'll hear about it.

--Rogan

[lithophiles]

It's ok, don't worry about it! I'm sorry we took so long to respond to this comment. Astraea have been all those things you mentioned above, at the same time, and to be honest, we feel that earlier in our life some of us were too sometimes. We were really fucked-up, there was no doubt about that, but we responded to some situations in ways that were manipulative or made things worse, because we didn't understand there was any other way to respond in those situations. We thought that in order to have friends, you had to lie, and some other stuff kind of similar to that. Although... the thing is, we were young at that time, like late teens, early 20s, either in bad living situations or just escaped from them, and Astraea were old enough they should have learned better.

And no, you're not obligated to give everything, to people like Polyfrazzlemented, or to give them anything at all. I mean, we don't even know what they really are using the money for at this point, considering that they lied about so much else.

-Lotte