Rachel Wolf

Okay, you probably clicked the link at http://about.me/rachelwolf, which brought you here. You were curious. I get it. People seem more interested in reading horror stories or tales of woe than something uplifting. That's why they slow down to gape at accidents, or laugh when people get injured on "America's Funniest Home Videos."

I get it. Well, actually, I don't. But Facing Bullies was created because bullying has reached epic proportions and it's time to fight back in a big way.

Bullying has been around for centuries and millenia. It was prevalent in my childhood; I was the recipient of extensive bullying both at home and at school. But for some reason, society turned its head back then. Now, anti-bullying campaigns are everywhere. That's a good thing.

This brings me back to what probably brought you here. For a while, if you searched "Rachel Wolf," page one of Google was overrun with links to defamatory ugliness created by petty and malicious women who had nothing better to do than manufacture lies about me. Now those results have been replaced with pages of links to numerous women named Rachel Wolf. You see, it's a very common name.

It's dangerous to assume that Internet results give you the whole story about any given person or situation. Unless the information comes directly from the source, you can't depend on its accuracy. That's why hearsay isn't permitted in a trial. When NBC did a story about me, they hadn't even spoken with me or interviewed me, and they posted information filled with mistakes.

Another "reporter," and I use the word loosely, interviewed me on the phone. Even with full cooperation and direct answers, she wrote the article with a bevy of misrepresentations, skewed me in a negative light, and even misquoted me. She was a freelance writer for the Examiner. Most of what's there is written by people who claim to be reporters or wish they could've cut it as reporters, and they write articles that are mostly opinion.

Here's an example of a story that spun out of control thanks to the Internet. The other day, a woman had posted a photo on her Facebook page. It was of her dog with a plastic bag on its head. It set off a viral frenzy of death threats and character attacks. People didn't even know the whole story behind the photo. (I do agree it was a foolish and irresponsible thing that she did, and quite cruel to the dog. The dog should be re-homed. But death threats?) Worse yet, people tracked down another woman with the identical name and started calling her with threats, and she's a different person who just happens to share a name with the woman in the news.

Let's say it plain and simple. The Internet is a dangerous place. Murders through Craigslist. Rape through dating sites. Phishing through job ads. Unfortunately, the Internet is freely in the hands of the masses, populated by many who are not in their right minds. I've encountered more than my share of them, and experienced the ugliest side of humanity as a result.

Ironically, the posse that wreaked havoc with my life had accused me of being a "serial cyberbully," yet I was the victim of their stalking, bullying, harassment and epersonation for almost a year. They enjoyed tormenting and terrorizing me. One admitted that she did it because I was "easy and fun to mock."

About two months into the nightmare, one of the leaders of the pack broke rank. We had a lengthy phone conversation. She cried and apologized, saying she hadn't expected it to get that out of control, and admitted I had done nothing to deserve the intense and relentless bullying they had gleefully inflicted on me for months. This whistleblower provided me with the identities of the other criminals. Yes, I call them criminals. What they did to me was and is illegal. She gave me tons of written evidence, and promised to come clean in a blog, outing the whole operation, but she chickened out and never did it. As you know, bullies tend to be cowards. They're fearless in numbers, but when you get down to brass tacks, bullies are ball-less.

When my attorney sent them all cease and desist letters via email, the one living in Long Island tweeted within minutes, "Bring it on, bitch." That's a good example of the sociopathic behavior I had to endure. Sure, she was brave when shielded by 3000 miles and one of her many Twitter identities, but if we were face-to-face, one-on-one, would she have been so cocky? I doubt it.

More insanity... these women created multiple Facebook profiles to harass me. Each time I'd block one, they'd come back as another person. They had a lot of time on their hands, that's for sure.

I had briefly been friends with one of them a year earlier, and had ended that friendship because of her instability. During the four months we were friends, I had naively shared intimate details with her. When she got wind of what this band of bullies was up to, she reached out to them and shared everything she knew about me... things they wouldn't have found on the Internet.

Not only was that profound betrayal, but it goes to her intrinsic lack of character and damaged moral compass. Before and since, she occasionally sent me unprovoked email rants saying I'm a worthless human being and allegedly ruined her life. I did not respond to those unwanted emails for a year. (Finally did have to send her a C&D.) She told the group she was "afraid" of me and I was supposedly stalking her. But all the emails were one-way, to me... never from me.

It was mind-boggling. The end result? I reluctantly walked away from a great cause that was gaining momentum, because these women tainted the effort and made it impossible to continue. And I re-learned a big lesson. You can't trust anyone. Oh, and most people are real shits.

The Internet is like the Wild West, an unregulated free-for-all where people hide behind anonymity and fake personas to cause harm to others. Congress is behind the curve, so for now there is little accountability for cyberbullies. People write what they want, disregarding truth. They present opinions as facts and create fiction as a game. Others read the gossip and assume it is true, not bothering to dig deeper.

Do not put stock in what you read on the web. Do not believe what you read about me, especially when it's written by people with an overblown grudge, who have never even met me. The negative blogs now further in the shadows were created by a dozen (or so) bitter women. They were angry that I asserted my IP rights with a new venture. Some were jealous I started a cause that was lauded globally. A few stole the idea, then maligned and discredited me to thwart my efforts. In that group of cyberbullies, I discovered that at least four suffer from documented mental illness.

Because I asked Facebook to shut down their Facebook pages which attempted to piggyback off my efforts, without my permission, they made it personal. They came after me and my life. It's not as if I took food off their tables or money from their pockets. This was all over a Facebook page. These women devolved into psychotic, childish, bullying behavior over a Facebook page.

How frightening is that? How pathetic.

This lynch mob violated my privacy, judged me, abused and ridiculed me publicly, and posted outright lies. They revelled in humiliating me and sought to damage my reputation. Their behavior would fit right in on Jerry Springer.

Where are they now? Probably ganging up on someone else. Or still obsessed with me and my life. About a year after their path of destruction, I popped onto one of the blogs out of curiosity to see if they had moved on. They hadn't. The creator of that particular blog was still discussing me with disdain, writing more lies, claiming she knew what was going on in my life... which she didn't.

Bullies must lead very boring, empty lives. While this group of bullies spent weeks digging up "dirt" to expose my personal life and judge me, I was busy living. So who is the serial cyberbully? Me or them? The answer is clear to any sane, reasonable, logical-thinking person.

That nightmare seems to have served one positive purpose. It has caused me to speak out against bullies and identify them, with the hope that I will empower anyone who is being bullied. Here's my two-cents. Stand up for yourself and fight back. The people who bully you are probably jealous of you, terribly insecure, or damaged in some way, and they bully you to feel better about themselves.

Just remember that the problem isn't you... it's them.