Round Two

I've been repeatedly ridiculed by a particular person in the last few years. I don't really know her and don't care to, yet I'm affected by her creepy online behavior. As much as I hate dedicating parts of my blog to what looks like childish bullshit on the surface when I do write, blogging often helps me process.  

I've always been one who wants the world to operate under some kind of "Do the Right Thing" rule, and in most cases, doing the right thing isn't all that complicated to figure out. Most people know right from wrong. In some cases, the right action is clear, but there's an obstacle that inhibits the right outcome. That's what I consider normal, but in rare cases, people are just assholes or mentally ill and can't help but inflict their misery onto others.

It's never my goal to harm anyone, but if you fuck with me or worse, my friends, I'm not going to take it lightly. I have a tendency to be far too nice up to a point, but when someone keeps needling me or the people I care about, I will eventually react. I was much too kind in this blog post about someone who has presented herself as an obsessive stalker and continues to play fucking games because she's completely unable to either address whatever is going on in her mind directly or let go of whatever made-up bullshit grudge she has against pretty much all the people who ever tried to help her or were nice to her, me included. If you want the long sordid but true story, start here: http://www.kemibe.com/kimduclos.htm

I can't imagine going through life like that, just constantly lashing out at people, creating fake identities and constantly lying. How do people like this sleep at night? I'm familiar with having regrets, but I've never hounded people for things I imagined or pretended they did. Hell, given the way I was treated when I was young, I'd say I've done a pretty good job of forgiving and moving on. This woman appears to be completely incapable, and I can't imagine how anyone can look at the way she behaves and be OK with it. I'm certainly not.

I've been along for this nightmare of a ride since it started, since the first time she attempted to meddle in my relationship and lied about me. I witnessed her outbursts on Facebook when her former coach decided he had enough of her antics and nonpayment and cut her off, and I was at a hearing after she filed a false police report when a judge strongly suggested she fucking stop "trying to make Mr. Beck look like a bad person" online, which, of course, she didn't. What I don't understand is how anyone who has clearly been abusive could claim she's a victim, which is her latest trick.

That's the worst thing about all of this now, that she's pretending to be the victim of abuse of some sort after starting all of this. She's posting in various Reddit groups giving obvious clues that it's her until she eventually gets banned or booted for saying bizarre or obviously false things that rarely have anything to do with the theme of the forum. It makes me physically ill to see her pretending to be a target of any kind of misconduct and offer "advice" as a way to promote her lies. Why was this kind of abuse never brought up in the hearing? Because she was never anyone's prey. Though this post isn't what I call nice, it's accurate. Anyone who thinks it's unkind should imagine having someone attack you and your friends for years on end, and then ask yourself if you could continue to ignore it as the ugly behavior escalates.

You would think that someone who gets banned and whose comments get deleted in Reddit groups would at least take a break, but nope! After being booted from one group recently after making very unsettling comments that appear to be targeting me, she's already posting in another group, still pretending to be a victim. This is all a lot of blah blah to people who don't know the details of the saga, but normal people don't say the kinds of things she does. Normal people, even ones who truly are hurt, eventually get a fucking grip and stop irrationally lashing out at others. Because she said she could basically fuck with me (something she seems fond of doing and even threatened to do with her boyfriend's parents at one time) by going to my place of work, I'm more than a little concerned, not because of what she would say --my boss is like family to me and knows me extremely well -- but because of what someone this unhinged could potentially DO. I mean, this is really messed up, and I can't believe it's still going on with her. Over what? Over fucking what?

You might ask why put this out there. It's because people like her don't stop, ever. They obsess and try to manipulate and orchestrate, even if their plans look ridiculous. Below are three different versions of something she posted before she got kicked out of a narcissistic abuse group on Reddit. Having a relative with severe BPD, I'm familiar with "N abuse". Notice her controlling and manipulative language. There are a few things Kim needs to know that I will state clearly here:

1. I will never, ever go out for tea or meet you in person unless I'm forced to in a courtroom, and in that case, you can trust that I will be there prepared for whatever nonsense you attempt to hurl my way.

2. Kevin is not an abuser and has addressed his past openly, and I wasn't posting in that forum because of him, period. I consider him my best friend, and he has been there for me in ways very few people have throughout the time I have known him.

3. The more you play the troll, the worse you look. I beg you to get whatever help you need to stop harassing and trying to manipulate others.

4. I don't hate my job and have always said how grateful I am to be working in a beautiful place with people who are like family to me. If you try anything at my place of employment, you will have to deal directly with the owners and their lawyers.

5. Obviously, if moderators and everyone else can see through your bullshit, maybe it's time to stop, just fucking stop already.

Kim has tried to convince others that she's the author of neither these anonymous attacks that always look the same nor the ones behind her own Twitter account but only when what's posted is really shitty. When she switches from genuine asshole to everything's all unicorns farting rainbows, then she wants everyone to believe it's her again. Because she has posted volumes of awful comments about Kevin, me, Brad, people in Boulder, my mom, those with eating disorders, the homeless, women who march for various causes, former running partners, pretty much all of Kevin's ex-girlfriends, and people with addictions, I'm only posting a very, very small sampling of what's out there. And because she has a special kind of venom for Kevin's former girlfriends, my guess is that she made some assumptions about their relationship.

I want people to know exactly what she's doing and has been doing over the years. I doubt there will ever be any real justice, but I can at least let people know what kind of person this woman is and how much she has lied and lashed out at me and other innocent people. Yes, I could look away, but I won't anymore. I did that for years, and it only seemed to encourage her to become more savage. I want it all out there. Sitting back and doing nothing feels worse so I will address this as much as I feel necessary.

ETA:
You can listen to audio clips from the hearing that demonstrate that Kim lied countless times after filing a false police report:
https://chimprefuge.com/2018/11/20/adventures-in-courtroom-lying-part-3-kim-duclos-tries-to-defend-a-demonstrably-false-allegation-audio/

Collateral Damage

For a few years now, I have been debating whether or not to write about an issue in my life. It's not my issue per se, but it affects me a great deal, especially more recently. I've tried to ignore it or take the high road by simply sitting back and doing nothing, but that became increasingly harder to do in the last few weeks. I'm putting this out there because I'm tired. The strange and escalating online behavior of an individual has gone past shocking to worrying me, and I'm really sick of saying nothing about it and pretending it's OK. It's not. When I write this all out, I assume it will look like the shenanigans of kids in middle school, but when this stuff happens in the adult world, it's unsettling.

In 2009, I *met* a woman through a mutual friend on Facebook. It was actually my boyfriend, Kevin, who introduced us. He had started coaching her sometime in October of that year, and, despite my initial first impression and a sense of uneasiness, we friended each other the following month. This woman and I had a few online chats and occasionally commented on each other's social media posts. Though she confided in me about a few of the issues she was facing at the time, I felt the need to keep my guard up and never really opened up to her, something I'm glad about now. By the summer of the following year, she seemed to want to keep her distance, and I was fine with that. From what I could gather, she was preoccupied with a guy. Our communications ended, and the only real tie that linked us together was Kevin. You can read his recap of events here.

Sometime in 2010, Kevin asked if I had been saying things about him to this woman or to anyone else. Apparently, she told him that I and one of Kevin's ex-girlfriends had been saying some unkind things about him. Both his ex and I denied having said anything, and this was enough for me to realize his client was not someone with whom I wanted to socialize. I quickly blocked her on Facebook and other social media websites. I assumed I would never have to deal with any of these kinds of antics from her again. Out of sight, out of mind seemed appropriate, in theory anyway. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

Long before she and Kevin began having issues, I found out that she had tried to convince Kevin to lock me out of the house where we were staying. It's true that Kevin and I had our ups and downs and were in a down spell at the time, but I still find it odd that someone I hardly knew and still hardly know, and someone I had made every effort to be kind to, would suggest something like this. He didn't, of course. When she and Kevin had their first falling out, I wasn't surprised, and when she came back to him later and requested that he coach her once more, I and many of his friends gently warned him that it might not be in his best interest to take her on as a client again. When their second falling out occurred, it also wasn't a surprise, but what happened after that was, at least the severity of it was. When things seemed more than a little bit out of hand, at least from my perspective, I tried to encourage Kevin to go to the police, but he didn't think the police could really do anything and didn't think things would continue. They did.

Things turned ugly after the second falling out, and she took many opportunities to complain about Kevin online, sometimes anonymously on Let's Run and sometimes on her blog or on social media. When he finally responded, she went off the deep end to the point where Kevin ended up in a hearing after she filed a petition for a restraining order that was filled with something other than facts. The hearing was bizarre. Kevin purchased a recording of it that's now in my hands. To me, it seemed like the judge was aware that not everything was adding up, and toward the end of the proceedings, he said that he felt Kevin's former client was doing and saying these things in an effort to make Kevin look like a bad person. He also said that Kevin could take her to court for defamation of character and for lack of payment, but it was a hearing only and didn't address those kinds of issues. At one point, the judge turned to her and said, "I suggest that you do not post anything publicly about Mr. Beck online..." He added that he felt it was best that the two of them leave each other alone. Her response was to go home and immediately post something publicly online about Kevin, and he is no longer quiet about pointing out her inconsistencies.

Since then, she has continued to take both direct and indirect swipes at Kevin; me; our coauthor, Brad; many of Kevin's friends; anyone living, coaching or training in Boulder; people with eating disorders (how we are stupid); and at Boulder in general. Oh, what a crummy place it is to be. I'm pretty sure Kevin is no longer going to let any of her attacks slide, which is understandable considering nothing seems to work to stop her, not even a judge suggesting she do just that.

Some of the more hurtful comments she has said about me include stating outright that I haven't eaten since high school, that I have "huge problems", that I'm a "legendary anorexic" who is in no position to coach, that I enable or even go on drinking benders with Kevin (I barely touch alcohol!) and, the worst, that I'm basically using my mom, counting on her dying, so that I can inherit her house. This last one is bogus, of course, but because I'm very close to my mom and love her dearly, it bothers me more than the others that show more about who she is as a person than about who I am. People who know me know the kind of person I am. I'm not worried about that. I'm very fortunate to have some incredible people in my life. There have been other mean-spirited remarks about me, but the gist is always the same, that I'm washed up, a failure, don't have a good job, that I'm a victim of domestic abuse etc.

I've never hidden the fact that I struggled with an eating disorder that nearly killed me, more so in the past, but I have put it out there in an effort to help others and let people know that it's OK to struggle. We are not our illnesses. She can rip on that all she wants, but to bring my very kind, very able-bodied, older mother into things is hitting pretty damn low. She tried to claim that Kevin somehow manipulated or edited these tweets, but I got them directly from her twitter feed:

This isn't directed at me, but my mother and I are collateral damage.

More of the same kinds of tweets by Kimberly Duclos.

Though something like the tweet below, as absurd as it is, isn't directed at me in particular, it's directed at runners who have some type of an eating disorder, and I fall or have fallen into this category, as do many others, I would guess, especially if you take a broad definition of eating disorders and don't limit it to anorexia, bulimia and binge eating:

Another odd remark from Kim Duclos.

I don't know. This is something I will never quite understand. In general, I try very hard to be a decent person. I'm not perfect, but I do my best to be helpful, kind, compassionate and considerate. In this case, I'm really not sure how to handle it. Doing nothing and looking the other way hasn't helped. If anything, things have gotten worse.

It's possible that there is some hurt under all these outbursts. I think it's misdirected at me, but I know that finding your true identity as a runner can be difficult. It might be that the falling out with Kevin, a coach who helped her reach some pretty lofty goals in running, caused some conflict in her mind. The coach-athlete relationship, good or bad, can be a hard one to let go of, but this is a lot of speculation on my part. I don't know enough about the situation to make any solid conclusions. There may be deeper issues at play, too. All I know is that I want all this bullshit to stop. Whatever grudge she has against him or, for whatever unknown reason, me, I just want her to go live her life and be as happy as she claims to be in between venomous bouts of tweeting or posting my name on Let's Run, Twitter or Facebook. There's no need to constantly and relentlessly drag other people into this fight. These kinds of attacks are so unnecessary and so very cruel. I may be expanding the scope of conflict by posting this, but my intent is to stop pretending like this shit doesn't affect me. It does. It's upsetting and weird and even a little bit scary. 

And obviously, this is my perspective. Again, I don't know this woman and have no idea why I am so often the brunt of her online remarks or even why Kevin is. All I know is that I want out of this situation and really hope something will eventually help her stop lashing out and move on with her life.