Monica Lewinsky: The price of shame

I'm posting this to show support for the cause that Monica Lewinsky speaks of.  I too went through a period of online cyber harassment.  The degree to which it was waged upon me was in every way as bad as other cases that resulted in suicide.  Perhaps the biggest difference is that I experienced it for approximately 4 years, nonstop.  The harassment I experienced included publishing offensive articles in my name by the harassers.  My wife, my daughter, and I received death threats by email and online.  I'm talking about a small child and a female immigrant, powerless to fight back against these online harassers.  This made my wife increasingly paranoid.  Today she suffers from schizophrenia.  Personally, I believe this harassment may have contributed to this illness that has destroyed her life.

Once the harassment took hold, other individuals that knew me, such as my ex-wife, her husband, some former coworkers, and other mentally disturbed people joined in.  I know who many of them are.  I could list their full names here, but let me settle for their first names: Holly, Bridget, Elise, Josiah, Jack, Mike, Michael, Doug, Mary, Karen, Jan, Daniel, Jim, Cy, Bill, Gustavo, Laura, Cyndi, John, Hang, and Stephen.  This isn't the whole list, but this is a list of the most vile.  There is a sociological phenomenon that is as old as the human species.  We see it under dictatorial regimes where cowards anonymously turn in or falsely accuse those they dislike or those they are jealous of to the authorities.  We see it online in anonymous bullying where, once it gets started, mentally ill sociopaths gang up on a target simply because they can.  In Salem, it took the form of witch trials.  In the South, it took the form of lynchings.  It is all about killing a person, biologically, mentally, or virtually.  It is all about destroying a life and getting pleasure from it.

However, there is a price these animals have paid for their harassment.  Other people know what they did.  Whether they realize it or not, they have diminished their own lives by being known as someone that has worked to destroy others.  In the case of some, they lost a good friend.  Several of these individuals do not know it, but I did many things to help them and improve their lives, without seeking credit, before they put their masks on and began the harassment, all those years ago.  There is no going back.  One will be visiting my mother late in May.  I won't be there when she comes.  I choose not to be.  She lost a friend by joining the dark side.

Listen to when Monica Lewinsky has to say.  People that do these things are the lowest form of life.  If you know one, shun that person.  They are murderers.