Crazy "cousin"

Please Note: Names in this blog entry are fictitious to protect the identities of people involved.

I met a young woman on FaceBook a number of months ago. Lets call her Jill. It happened that she heard me talking about my heartache during a live podcast for a group I used to frequent. Jill felt the hurt in my voice, so she decided to befriend me and try to help.

I was very pleased to make Jill's acquaintance and her friendship did help me. She also introduced me to some of her other group-member friends, her favorite of whom was named Kim. And the introductions helped me to feel less isolated in my situation. Jill knew I had written a book and when she was assigned to do an oral presentation for her college class, she asked me to send her a copy of my book. I don't have a lot of money but I figured this was cheap advertizing, so I bought and sent a copy of my book to her. She read the book. (Although due to illness she never did her oral presentation on it.) And this is when things started to get kind of strange.

My book, The Disposable Noble Wife, is strongly emotional and highly personal. It is based largely upon my own story and incorporates my own true journal entries to drive home the craziness and the feelings involved with adultery. When Jill read my book, she felt she knew me. And in a way, she did. But in other ways, she did not.

This is when Jill started calling me her “BFF.” She asked for my phone number. I declined but she pleaded. As I knew Jill lives in Ireland, she is a student with few financial resources, and international calling is expensive, I figured she would not call me often. So I gave her the number. (Which, yes, she abused by calling me and waking my mother at 4:30 am. Somehow, Jill also got hold of my cell number. But I reamed her out about using my minutes, so she stopped calling my cell.)

It did not take long before Jill asked me if I would be her “mommy.” She had a few other friends that she called “mommy” and I thought that was weird. So I declined. She begged. I tried to reason with her by stating that I am only 11 years older than she is. Still she begged. So I submitted to allowing her to call me her “cousin” and she was satisfied.

...\\\ Fast forward through time to last Saturday. ///...

Last Saturday, my parents needed an early-morning ride to the airport and I was the designated driver. So I woke up at around 5:00 a.m. By the time I got home from the airport it was daytime, so I stayed awake for the day. But I was ready to go to bed early. It was 16 hours later, at just after 9:00 p.m. when I slipped into my red satin jammies and crawled under the covers. No sooner were the covers pulled up to my chin than the phone rang. It was Jill and she was drunk.

Jill is not a happy drunk. She gets depressed and suicidal. When I answered the phone, she was crying that she had consumed all but two bottles of the booze (I am not sure what kind) that she had purchased for her birthday party. Crying, depressed, talking about how nobody loves her or cares for her, Jill had me on the phone for three and a half hours. During the entire conversation, I asked her to pour out the rest of the booze and call the hospital for help. At around 12:30 on Sunday morning, with only ½ of 8 bottles left in her hand, she hung up the phone to call the hospital.

I was soooo tired after having been awake since 5:00 the previous morning. But I managed to pick up my netbook and typed out a quick message to Jill's favorite friend, Kim. Then I laid back on my pillow and closed my eyes to go to sleep. Within minutes, the phone rang. It was Jill. She said that theemergency worker who answered her call had asked that she call someone to keep her awake until the EMT could get to her. It would be about 40 minutes.

Jill was not in a good way and it would be 40 minutes until help would arrive. She sounded like she might fall asleep. So I had her go downstairs and unlock her door so the EMT could get inside if she fell to sleep and couldn't wake up. Then I talked to her until the EMT got there. When he came to the door, she called out for him to come in but he wouldn't enter her home until she got up and let him in. At that time, I had Jill hand the phone to him.

The EMT seemed a little taken aback that I wanted to speak to him. But I told him that Jill is an alcoholic and that she'd had at least 6 1/2 bottles of booze. Then, thankful it was over and I could finally go to sleep, I hung up the phone.

I laid down and closed my eyes. . . And I remembered that Jill had also told me of an unusual and uncontrollable flow of blood that was not her menses. I could have kicked myself!

And then the phone rang. It was Jill. The first thing out of my mouth was advice for Jill to tell the EMT about her flow of blood. But she refused to tell him and asked me to do it. I was too tired to argue at this point. So I told her to hand him the phone. I told him what time it was over here in Wisconsin and that I was very tired. Then I told him about the flow of blood. He said he would make sure Jill got checked out. Then he hung up.

Jill did not call back for about five hours. When she did, she told me that her flow of blood had been a miscarriage of a baby she did not realize she was carrying.

The next time Jill called was Monday afternoon. She and I talked about her alcoholism. She denied it. But I defined alcoholism and expressed my concern for her. I suggested she go into AA. She flatly refused. I insisted that she needed help. She said that the only option for her was to go into a mental hospital to detox. So I advised her to do that.

Tuesday morning, I was awake to get my daughter out to school and was sipping my coffee drink when the phone rang. It was a complete stranger with slurred speach. After a few moments, I determined that she also had an accent. It was a woman, calling on Jill's behalf. Apparently, Kim would not take her calls and Jill desperately wanted to speak with Kim. The strange woman asked me to call Kim to ask her to call Jill (internationally) and give her Jill's call-back information. Then the stranger kept me on the phone until about 7:10 am, as I was walking out the door to drive my daughter to school!

Enough is enough already! There has to be a name for this kind of crazy person. She is not exactly a stalker. Is she? She is just obsessed and compulsive.

Looking at the Caller ID on my parents' phone, here is a recap of the unsolicited calls I received from Jill.

Sun May 9
1254 am – This is when Jill called me to keep her awake. The caller ID did not register the number when she called me back to tell the EMT about her unusual flow of blood.
710 am – This is the call to tell me that her flow of blood was a miscarriage
401 pm – I was out at this time and did not get these four calls.
407 pm – “”
426 pm – “”
435 pm – “”

Mon May 10
532 am – I was asleep and did not even hear this call.
1216 pm – I was at lunch and did not hear this call.
403 pm – I talked to Jill about her alcoholism and convinced her to get help. I suggested AA. She refused AA and submitted to the mental hospital to detox.

Tues May 11
636 am – “Susan,” a complete stranger called me to ask that I call “Mommy” Kim on Jill's behalf. (I sent an IM so that I would not disturb Kim at an inopportune time.)
1120 am – I was out and did not get these four lunchtime calls.
1127 am – “”
1130 am – “”
1143 am – “”

After lunch, I saw some of Jill's FaceBook posts from the hospital. I added comments I hoped would be supportive encouragement.
429 pm – I ignored these calls. I could not deal with any more emotional stress and needed to decompress.
434 pm – “”

That evening -- I learned from a mutual friend that Jill was claiming I'd had her committed.

Weds May 12
331 am – I was awakened but ignored these calls.
513 am – “”

600 am -- I went to FaceBook to leave Jill a message that I would IM with her but I wanted her to stop calling me. It was at this time I saw she had deleted her profile. Instead, I left her a Yahoo Message saying not to call me.
1041 am – I chose not to answer this call.
323 pm – I picked up the phone and hung it up right away.
324 pm – “”
A few minutes later, Jill called my cell phone. – I turned it on and off again quickly.