The Boundaries That Weren't

Introduction

  This is going to be long. And I hate doing this, but the only reason I have to is because of Brandolini's law: "The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it."    As my husband and I have already been targeted with a false narrative stemming from members of this circle before, we are obligated to set the record straight so that earlier events do not repeat themselves.  This blog post exists  because of the actions of the parties in question. Let us proceed. 

The need to do this in great detail stems from the fact that we did not do this the first time around, and this has resulted in six months of lies and misinformation spread by Liana Kerzner and Poppy Diabolique regarding our moral character, exacerbating mental health stigma, and ostracism.  With these factors in play, why wouldn't we?

The Background

In  a Bluesky post, my husband showcased a list created by Poppy and Zena, in which they created a list of 'harassers' who 'both side' suicide and sexual abuse:

Poppy and Zena (Poppy's fiancée) created this list in their now-established practice of labeling critics  as harassers who have acted in 'an abhorrent fashion' towards Poppy and her circle.  Poppy Diabolique attracted the attention of the troll forum known as KiwiFarms, in part  for the following reasons:

1. An extremely messy lifestyle where she airs her personal dirty laundry online, dramatically condemns old lovers and acquaintances (a rather frequent occurrence), openly feuds with individuals, maintains questionable relationships with individuals who try to normalize and mainstream incest (one of Poppy's own fetishes) and other similar content. 
2. Poppy herself has condoned ethically questionable actions such as a therapist referring a minor-attracted patient to an adult sex worker capable of affecting the look and mannerisms of a minor. 
3. A significant contingent of Poppy's lovers have lodged complaints of abuse against her, which is also a factor, and those who depart her polycule and cut contact are met with accusations of emotional violence for doing so.
4. There  allegations of sexual assault that Poppy has leveraged against her second-to-most recent lover (her newest relationship as of this writing has collapsed, with her newest paramour ghosting her as per her own reports.) Poppy has gone on the record on Kerzner's radio show describing how, after coming to visit and engaging in sex, her then-girlfriend broke up with her through text afterwards, prompting Poppy to leverage accusations of rape through deception. There are different opinions about this, with KFers believing Poppy's allegations are vindictive, and opinions elsewhere running a wide gamut.

However,  something that should be considered is that:

1. Another part of KF's attention on Poppy is also motivated by transphobia, and Poppy is constantly deadnamed and misgendered in their threads. So they are not  objective observers.
2. There are multiple reports of suicides and self-harm as the result of KF campaigns, such as that of the dev known as Near,   trans gamedev Chloe Sagal and Julie Terryberry.
3. Poppy claims that KFers were responsible for her losing a position she held with a former employer, but accusations about inappropriate online behavior have also been lodged against her as a contributing factor. Without concrete evidence one way or the other it's difficult to prove either one;
4. Whatever critique a KFer could leverage against Poppy's actions is better sourced from other parties who are not part of a harassment forum, and less likely to be motivated by ulterior motives. There is little on KFs that cannot be found elsewhere in more reputable sources, and no-one should take them seriously.

It is also to note that a harasser from KF sought to insert my husband into KF's Poppy thread,  in part because of his association with Liana. Something I discuss in greater detail on my post about a harasser impersonating us through email here. 

In this list, Poppy and Zena equate Poppy's critics as being on the same level as their trollish harassers, obfuscating legitimate complaints with noise.

Upon Poppy and Saige's breakup, Saige was added to the list, yet another former Poppy liaison who went from ally to 'harasser' in the blink of an eye.  This is particularly egregious since the title of the list implies that Saige 'both-sided' her own suicidal thoughts. Poppy Diabolique's behavior in this respect is pretty monstrous- a behavior that, I will remind readers, Liana Kerzner defended against my husband's observation of manipulation (which she claimed was a transphobic accusation, most likely at the behest of Poppy.)

This, then, is the context in which this list exists. My husband highlighted the list, and sought to expose the hypocrisy of its existence by pointing out that his timeline was no different from the timeline of other individuals such as Kerzner, Poppy, Saige and others in that they openly aired their opinions and spoke of and about each other- but that when Poppy and Kerzner do it, it is proper, and where Saige and my husband speak up about their experiences, it is 'harassment.' 

 Following an exchange with Saige, Poppy's ex-girlfriend, and her girlfriend Audrey, there have been things that are being misrepresented and which now need to be addressed.

Saige objected to being 'lumped in' with the likes of Poppy,  to which my husband pointed out the only way in which he was 'lumping' her in the others,  not making any implication of similarity of tactics. The conversation degraded quickly on Saige (and her girlfriend Audrey)'s side, which eventually led to blocking and Audrey making the following statement:

Okay. That's a loaded text. In order to address it, we should take a look at some of the concepts being bandied about- because research and reference are my bread and butter, and I find that people nowadays bandy concepts around, saying one thing and meaning something else entirely.

Knowing Your Nomenclature

Let's start with boundaries.   Boundaries aren't rules for others, but in reality, they serve as personal guidelines. It's self-responsibility over attempting to change others' behaviors. The latter is manipulation, not boundaries. 

"Don't talk about me" is not a boundary, especially with someone you don't have a relationship with and you've had public interactions. Neither is "Don't tag me."

"If you tag me/talk about me, I won't interact with you" however, is. Boundaries are, perhaps, one of the most misunderstood and weaponized concepts in our current environment.

This particular passage from Olga Khazan's article is especially relevant, so let's take a long, slow look at it. 

Dana Skaggs emphasizes the characteristics of what a boundary is. More importantly, what a boundary is not,  which is not a ruleset for others. It acknowledges that other people have their own yards, and that your own ethical choices refers solely to your own yard and you cannot and should not control what they do- as long as the individuals in question are not doing something that is illegal.

For a second opinion, Anna Drescher highlights the difference between a boundary and a rule.

Notice how rules are something you might use for someone with whom you already have a relationship?  When examined with a broader scope, however, the existence of rulesets instead of boundaries hints at the presence of maladaptive practices in a relationship, potentially unhealthy. So what exactly does it say when this need to control the behavior of others extends to people with whom you don't  have an actual relationship?

Let's go back to Audrey's statement.

I think I have been able to show that what Audrey and Saige did was not  setting a boundary, but making demands- to wit: Control.  

 Abuse tactics are now being mentioned, implying that we are the abusers.  Let's talk about abuse tactics. One abuse tactic is a manipulation tactic called Lying by Omission, where events are presented with a removed context so the reader is forced to draw a different conclusion from one they'd conclude, were all the facts available to them. 

 In this particular example, Audrey is intentionally misrepresenting events. My husband explained why he tagged them in his thread much earlier:

 This was followed by Saige implying that it was somehow improper for us to speak up about Poppy and Zena's abusive practices and the impact they had on our lives, because we were not 'actual victims of Poppy.'  

This is an observed phenomenon called Competitive Victimhood, a tendency to view one's group as having suffered more compared to an adversarial group. An in-group and an out-group. The subtext in Saige's posts is that any person who wasn't  in a relationship with Poppy couldn't possibly be victims of her actions.  This is grounded in, as an article from the Scientific American points out, things such as a sense of moral elitism (the belief that your treatment of others is superior to how they treat you), constant need to be recognized your victimhood, a lack of empathy for the pain and suffering of others (by, for example, minimizing and dismissing their experiences as inferior to yours because you are too preoccupied with your own victimhood) and a constant rumination of wrongdoings suffered.  This definitely appears to be the mechanic that is at play in this exchange.  Throughout it, I did my best to remain equanime and both reassure that this wasn't a competition, while also asserting the legitimacy of our own experiences, underlining the fact that Saige was not privy to all of the details. This fell on deaf ears.

What followed afterwards was a continued exchange that became more and more uncomfortable as Saige and Audrey asserted we had no claim to grievances against  Poppy, and that doing so was somehow inimical to victim advocacy.

This followed into a puzzling statement.  After I stated that victimhood is victimhood- that is, that all victims are valid because of the injustice they suffered, Saige proceeded to dismiss me with the assumption that I was a white man... responding the way a white man does to mean jokles about patriarchy?

I'll remind you that Saige has claimed to know our situation, yet she seems to be completely ignorant of who I am and what my background is (more on that below):

If you are puzzled as to who the new challenger is, I'll explain: Cerise is one of Saige's 'alters.'   Saige's angle at claiming victimhood supremacy through guilt-tripping was unsuccessful, so Cerise decided to front.  

Cerise describes herself thusly:

Cerise took the racist angle that Saige had started and brought it to full term,  implying that, as a Latino, I should think a certain way that agrees with her. 

In other threads, I have written a short critique about the performative use of alters in this fashion, because this maladaptive behavior does a disservice to DID sufferers. This is where Saige/Cerise imply that the conversation (re: Poppy's victims) doesn't concern me, and that I am talking over the person... talking over us. While also claiming to not know who I am. Despite also implying she 'knows a lot more' than what I think she does. This is incorrect, since my basic assumption going into this discussion was that she at least had a grasp of who the dramatis personae were, which is the most basic level of knowledge concerning any event. She clearly didn't.

Cerise, consistent with the throughline of Saige's argument, argues that even identifying as a victim of Poppy's is to treat all other victims (in truth: Saige/Cerise) in a blasé way.  Especially since our argument has never been to claim equal form or level of harm- this is a narrative that Saige introduced and Audrey and Cerise insisted upon, but which is completely absent from our replies and our treatment of the situation. 

This is a very strange argument that centers the notion of 'flattening', where the existence of different claims of injustice must necessarily imply that all of them involve the same level of harm.  Sufferers of assault have a different experience from those who are victims of stalking and those who are victims of extortion, defamation and fraud, for example. Yet, in Saige's argument, we are to believe that if all three actions were performed by the same individual onto different victims, only victims of assault have any claim to call for accountability by virtue of being the greatest victims, and all other victims do nothing but diminish their claims.

It is victimhood as competitive sports instead of an actual pursuit of justice for the aggrieved. 

The final interaction had Cerise indicating to Audrey that she had muted us because we were setting victims back by fifteen years. 

This seems somehow contrary to the progressive principles of dignity and inclusion by the logic I stated in an earlier paragraph. 

In any case, you will notice something missing in this exchange: the claim Audrey made about my partner saying that she had been tagged because of her own actions. 

This is because that exchange, as it was portrayed by Audrey, never happened. What happened afterwards, after both blocked us, was that Audrey put us on a Bluesky list that reads as follows:

This was segued by the rather quaint retelling of the anecdote as follows:

Once again, Audrey's misrepresentation of events is centered. You'll also notice the malicious manipulativeness, deliberately doing something she thinks will trigger us- specifically, trigger an individual whom she believed was having a manic episode (my husband, more on that assertion of hers later). This is no different from Poppy Diabolique leveling accusations of splitting against my husband and, knowing him to be Borderline just as she is, subjected him to public shaming by putting him on blast for her followers to pile upon him.  

These are deliberate and pre-meditated actions of cruelty- poking someone one believes is experiencing a level of mental distress, and subsequently acting cute or funny about it.  To quote one of my favorite musical colleagues, 'ponder this in your heart like Mary' as we move forward (we both were Catholic by upbringing, but are now non-believers.)

So, where does the reply that Audrey implied was Asher's reply to her request not to be tagged come in?

During Saige's preocupation with asserting herself as the alpha victim, she blurted out a personal detail that her trolls picked up on: namely, that Poppy allegedly assaulted her.  It was then, and only then, that Saige and Audrey erased all of their replies to us and Audrey, on her own timeline (as she had blocked us and thus we could not respond to her directly)  claimed we had painted a target on their backs:

My husband pointed out that it was her own actions at trying to one-up everybody's victimhood so they could be the most important people in the room and silence anyone else they deemed unworthy of victimhood- their own actions -that got their trolls (whom they know are watching- more on that to follow) to pay attention.

The... Hell?

Now you can see this is pretty manipulative, linking two completely unrelated skeets as if they were statement and answer,  painting a false narrative. This is the same kind of behavior that is found in Poppy Diabolique's toxic community. 

At this juncture, it is important to point something out, which is easily verifiable by reading our replies to this entire event. Neither of us has ever, ever made any claim to any 'broader situation'. Asher has always stated, paraphrased, that he doesn't have an informed opinion on Poppy's claims of assault. He is also not interested in talking about her past personal drama and only speaks in regards to his involvement with her and her with us. Saige, who claimed we were talking over her, seemingly would not listen to this point. 

 Audrey misrepresenting events in this deliberate fashion is DARVO-  which they're insinuating my husband is performing in their vagueskeets following the disagreement. The record shows that this is not objectively what happened. Audrey and Saige deleted their responses to erase the record and  context so they could create their own and take control of a narrative that favored them.

The conversation was documented, however, and posted to avoid precisely that. Parts of it can be seen here, here, and here. 

Audrey and Saige are  trying to control the narrative. They claimed we condescended because we were 'talking over a victim of abuse', while being victims of abuse ourselves. Victimhood is a zero-sum game to them, which is not the nature of the  beast whatsoever.

The question to ask is, of course, why? Why must there be victims who are more important than others? Saige claimed that me saying that all victimhood is important is dismissible as a tone-deaf response to a patriarchy joke.

Why? One injustice's impact is not diminished by others.

The answer is found in the realm of Competitive Victimhood. People who derive some significance from victimhood need to maintain it (especially if they've experienced neglect), else they fear losing relevance. They see it as their only measure of control- a maladaptive response. If other victims share the spotlight, that's less light on them.

I think we can all agree that victims of abuse deserve empathy, but that by pretending  maladaptive coping behaviors are healthy, we do a disservice to them and their cause.

Audrey displays manipulative tendencies in this exchange, which this post puts in stark evidence. Being manipulative in minor interactions (with 'nobodies') indicates this is a deeply-seated tendency. In that regard, she resembles Poppy, including her penchant for deliberately trying to cause distress to an individual she believes is experiencing psychological distress. 

We calmly stood our ground, and in doing so it exposed maladaptive behavior, which Audrey now tries to erase and recontextualize as us violating her setting a boundary (which was not a boundary, but a demand).  Just like with Poppy and Kerzner, Audrey's concept of boundaries is not a self-promise but an imposition of control on others. If you say you will not interact and then continue to interact- albeit indirectly, then was it truly about boundaries?

If you say you will leave a conversation if X happens, and then you come back to berate the person, was removing yourself the goal, or were you aiming to silence someone? To borrow Skagg's language: Are you tending your yard, or trying to HOA someone else's? If your goal is the latter, than anyone who points it out needs to be dismissed for the sake of convenience.

The Other Of The Other Is A Strange Beast

Most dismissals leveled at my husband come, inevitably, every time he points to a contradiction or an inconsistency. Something he is very good at. A simple question, "Empathy for what?" threatened to expose the fact that Poppy was, in fact, asking for empathy for abuse defenders...

Because, according to Saige and her other exes, Poppy is an abuser. Poppy danced hard to evade Asher's questions and in the end, when cornered by an argument that pointed out the extremely manipulative manner in which she was handling the conversation by shifting terms and context, resorted to claiming Asher was splitting (remember: "I can't diagnose someone who's not a patient" according to Poppy's own words) and when that didn't work, she claimed he was transphobic- an accusation that her associate (Mrs. Kerzner) gladly weaponized for several reasons.

He has a knack for finding the crack and poking it. It's why he makes a lot of people nervous. A lot of people who have reason to be. He usually avoids engaging in psychoanalysis, he only points towards the behavior and the contradictions therein.

The words people use reveal a lot about what they think or believe. Asher pays attention, all of the time. Poking at the swollen blemish makes the pus gush forth. Intellectuals revealed as flim-flammers. Advocates revealed as manipulators. Niceness hiding self-serving cruelty.

People don't come to Asher's defense often for a very simple reason: The vast majority of our friends are not terminally online. They don't roam social media to gang up on people and execute campaigns. So it may appear, to people who ascribe some weight to that, that nobody cares what he thinks.

Asher is well-loved by friends, and almost everyone he meets. People remember him and look forward to time with him- he's a fascinating and smart conversationalist, and several friends see him as family- including the family who opened their doors for Kerzner to come to my best friend's wedding.

Her Nanna treated Asher like one of the family, and with whom she facetimed while in hospice. A family who is aghast and repudiates Kerzner's behavior. A family that includes a trans individual.

Whereas a lot of people on social media who are very online are disingenuous, trying to sell an image or a book, want to manipulate people or are building clout. People with a lot to hide and lose.

Questions are uncomfortable if they are too real. The Wizard needs the curtain. Questions are inconvenient, such as:

1. Why would a peer counselor spend countless video hours defending someone accused of abuse in the name of destigmatizing mental illness- only to turn around and paint critics as mentally ill and dangerous?
2. Why is someone claiming they're better still acting like they never left a toxic circle?
3. Why are so many people who have allegedly successfully recovered from PTSD and abuse seem to constantly have trauma responses for which they can't be held accountable? 

Uncomfortable questions, uneasy implications. How can they be dealt with?

Easily: Through dismissal. The poisoning of the well, the dismissal of the person making the observation to render them less credible, and thus putting off the inevitable for yet another day.

But eventually all days come around.

Asher is long-winded and writes a great deal- that is part and parcel of his ADHD condition combined with his extreme intelligence.  He holds thorough discourse outside of the bounds of the tweet-brain sound-byte concept that any argument that takes more than two tweets is invalid or an indication that the individual is 'triggered.' Regardless of the fact that any intelligent argument or discussion, contemporary or historical, would have never  fit within the scope of only a few convenient tweets. Social media commodification has created an entire population with an intellectual grasp that is even shorter than its attention span. It is fascinating, since Audrey herself at one point made allusion to this herself:

In this twitter thread she is willing to grant many concessions to para-social relationships... but  when encountering a thorough conversation she, too, devolved into the troll mindset-

Or did she? Just like Mrs. Kerzner accused me of 'exploding' at her in a series of twelve skeets where I outlined my grievances with her, and yet a few weeks later she herself perpetrated an  even longer thread than I ever wrote in response to my blog regarding her accusations... almost as if both Audrey and Kerzner understand these mechanics quite well and hold different standards for themselves when it is convenient to appear victimized, or to dismiss others. Ableism, after all, is a tool of convenience.

 The Audrey and Saige situation is, to be honest, only a split end in the taglock that is the Kerzner-diabolique situation, but it exhibits the same twists and tangles found in its macrocosm: the weaponization of legitimate therapeutic concepts into coddlesome victimization-fetishizing boundaries-as-control pseudotherapy whose aim is not to transcend trauma, but to make it everybody else's responsibility without accountability.

You can try to evade reality, but not the consequences of evading reality.