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Undiagnosed New member - online emotional abuse

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Hi, all.

I hope you are well. I joined a little while ago, then panicked and asked them to put my account into hibernation. After all that, I think I need to be here.

I am currently dealing with the fallout from a bizarre online friendship that consumed eight years of my life. I supported an online friend through an eating disorder for three years, which ultimately claimed their life. That threw me for a loop, and I grieved for five years.

Following her death, her family sent eight emails full of photographs and YouTube videos that they claimed were her. The descriptions on the YouTube videos didn't match up, so I Googled the photos, only to discover that they could be found on other websites that were nothing to do with the people I was supposedly in contact with.

My friend's fiancé, her mother in law, and my friend herself all passed away within a few years of one another, supposedly...but I can't find a single death notice for any one of these three people.

Slowly realising that I've been duped, rather elaborately. Each time something happened with my friend's health, I would receive in depth emails full of medical information that I had never asked for, and was ill equipped to deal with - given that I was grieving the very real loss of another friend at the time. These medical emails, up to and including a detailed account of the non-existent friend's death, are fodder for intense flashbacks which dominate my nights. No sooner do I lie down to rest, than I am back in a bathroom in the United States.

Apart from the electronic exclusion, the DSM diagnostic criteria are a checklist of my day to day experience. Now have very good help in dealing with this, but wanted to find some people who might understand.
 
I do not understand emotional cat phishing. I am so sorry that you went through that.
 
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My guess is that your “friend” isn’t dead and it was your “friend” who sent you those emails, pretending that they were sent from family.
 
I was duped into online dating someone who later turned out to be a cat phisher. I had joined a religious online match site and the "guy" I started communicating with was kind and led me on for almost three months with texts, chats, and even phone calls before he asked me for some help I felt suspicious about. When I told him I didn't feel comfortable with what he was asking, he became angry and sent mean texts as well as yelled at me in calls. I felt emotionally hurt and so vulnerable as this was my first attempt to date after about 20 years. I then promised myself, after breaking off all contact, that I only wanted to be true friends with someone I could meet in person within a few weeks of knowing them online. It is just too easy now a days for people to hide who they are and take advantage of others while hiding behind a screen.
 
Do you have any trauma that qualifies you for a PTSD diagnosis? While what happened to you sucks and can certainly shake your trust and cause significant distress, it doesn't meet the criteria A for causing PTSD.

Are you seeing a therapist. I urge you not to try and self diagnosis.
 
Hello :)

It isn't what gave me PTSD, exactly, but I was literally forced to live in a fantasy world of my ex for nearly ten years. I understand how out of hand it can get... although my situation was different than yours.

Anyway, welcome :)
 
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