Violated

If anyone has ever been harassed by creditors, it's really not fun. They're just mean. We had one once insult Chris' deceased mother, say that he was a no good loser, I mean, just really not nice people. This week, they took it to a whole other level.

This week, we were contacted by a creditor. They knew I'd moved to Georgia, they knew about the situation with my ex, they knew everything. They knew it because I told them, or I'd written it on my blog and they'd found it. Apparently, they've been reading about our life and deciding how they should respond. Violated doesn't even begin to describe how I feel.

I mean, yes. Writing on a blog isn't private. I know that, I've even talked about it before. But I thought I'd done everything right. I made it so you can't see my last name or address when you to the website owner search, I've NEVER said my last name, my husband's last name, or my children's last name, I thought I'd done everything right. But when they said that they knew all this stuff, and that they were making decisions based on my blog...it just really creeped me out. If they can find me that easily, anyone could. It's not that I'm hiding, I'm not. It's that I kind of thought there was some filter between internet life and my real life. There isn't. That's crystal clear. And that scares the shit out of me.

This isn't about what we owe or who we owe it to. It's about the ease in which my life was able to be pryed into by someone I didn't know. By the way, had these people asked where we lived, I would've told them. I never tried to hide. My issue isn't that they "found me" (because we were in phone contact with them almost once a week, so it's not like we were MIA), my issue is, that they threw my life in my face. My issue is, they pretty much said, "we know you live in Georgia, we know that you did such and such. We know everything. We read your blog". If they can find it so easily, who else can? If they know all this, who else does?

Where does this leave me? Where do I go from here? Can I write the way I want without fear from retribution? Is this just part of the territory? Is just the nasty underbelly of the internet that I've just not seen before? Is it even worth the trouble? I don't know. I just don't know. All I know is I feel completely violated.