Harassment and abuse in FF14

[twynfpd]

My personal story

I knew such people exist and are highly active for years. I didn't know who I could talk to about it, and who would listen. Manipulators approached me numerous times, in different videogames and social platforms, I usually just blocked them immediately as soon as I realized it's one of those people trying to assault me in underhanded ways again.

What I couldn't imagine, and didn't want to believe, is that the person who I considered my closest online friend is one of the manipulators who targeted me all along, used my trust to gather private information about me and monitor my psychological state, attacked me with his alts, and badmouthed me in his circle. Sadly, it only become apparent to me in retrospect. I wish I could realize it earlier. From his "good guy" account, he acted very friendly and supportive towards me all these years, while working behind my back to hurt me.

How did I realize it was him all along? Harassers used private information about me that I only ever shared with that person pretending to be my friend, sometimes even saying exact sentences I said earlier to him, probably in attempts to startle and disorient me. Said "friend" made references to things that I said to people who assaulted me before, again, sometimes using exact same wording. And there were numerous, countless references and hints in conversations with him about what was going to happen to my health in February, meaning of which only became apparent to me after the fact.

Said "friend" was displeased that I'm blocking communication with his alts and accomplices, making it harder for him to assault me, since he didn't want to arouse extra suspicion by acting from his main. He kept nudging me to resubscribe to FF14, to be less timid, and spend more time in social spaces, pretty innocent suggestion all by itself. At that point, I thought I could avoid those few people harassing me. I thought, surely, there must be a plenty of nice folks in this game, there's no way the whole Limsa is somehow involved in this.

When I got back into FF14 this winter, of course strange confusing approaches resumed. It started slowly, and I tried to ignore them. It kept ramping up, and a lot of what followed happened in a blur. I didn't want my fear of harassment to prevent me from playing videogame I enjoy. I was convinced I had my bearings, and that they cannot hurt me.

[twynfpd]

Harassment intensified, those people tried to bring up every topic they thought I was vulnerable and insecure about, over and over, in every context, sometimes even directly verbally attacking me. I tried to just shrug it off, and laugh it off. Looking back, I understand how extremely stressed I was at that point, but at the moment, being as disoriented and confused as I was, I didn't even realize it.

When I talk with someone and realize they are trying to mess with my head, I interrupt the conversation, yet get immediately approached by someone else who continues the same conversation from exact same point the previous person left off. I block this person again, and suddenly people next to me start talking in public chat, continuing exact same conversation in the open, as if between themselves, but knowing that I still see it. I switch to a different server, and get immediately greeted by a stranger who says things to me as if he knows me for a long time. And this continued for a while. Judging by those people openly mentioning "paranoia" and "ptsd", they tried to create an impression that I'm going crazy. After some time I ended up disabling every chat, including "say", "shout", "yell", and eventually even "tell" and "party", trying to block every channel of communication they could exploit. Unfortunately, too late.

I remember phrases like "keep going", and "don't stop". There was also a some sort of a countdown. From different angles and different sources, I kept hearing things like "ten more days", "one more week", "three more days", "one more day", etc. Then one day I woke up in the morning, and one of my eyes didn't see anything at all.

In my conversation with my "friend" the next day, before I even told him about my eye, he said to me something along the lines of "wouldn't it be a shame if there was gray poop floating in front of your eyes instead of the bright colors and beauty of the world you seem to be so fond of?"

When I tried to tell my "friend" about being harassed in this game, to my surprise, he immediately went livid. He was furiously angry at me and demanded me to "stop making up weird stories", and called me "conspirologist". I couldn't understand what is "conspirological" about being harassed online, it's unfortunately not an uncommon occurrence, especially since I didn't even have a chance to explain the whole situation yet. Him mentioning conspirology is especially curious considering that the same "friend" started persistently sending me videos about UFO's several weeks prior, which I refused to watch. He threatened to invite that person who I revealed to be one of the harassers into our conversation, and laugh at me together with them. He then proceeded to talk about dying and promises of a short miserable life. At this point, I have no doubts left about the kind of a person I was mistaking for a "friend" this whole time.

[twynfpd]

Then I started remembering all the things I've heard over the years, both from with my "friend" and strangers, conversations that arbitrarily involved losing eyesight. There were many random talks about pirates. Comparing me to fictional characters who wears an eyepatch. Phrases like "I can't see any anything" and "my eyes hurt" frequently inserted here and there, with a loose connection to the topic of the conversation at the time. These people, frequently referred to "seeing stars with naked eye", as I now understand, referring to blackened vision with white dots similar to TV static. Teasing and taunting me about my eye directly prior, and afterwards. Hinting about "true damage". No doubt, those people are very proud of what they did to me.

It's widely known that extreme stress tends to manifest itself in psychosomatic illnesses. It's not very common, but also not unheard of that people sometimes lose sight in one eye from accumulated stress, manipulator himself told me that "it's usually retina detachment". My best guess about mechanics of this sort of assault, is that the victim is being put under extreme duress, while at the same time frequent and persistent but underhanded suggestions about eyesight direct the accumulating stress to manifest itself in the intended body part, while simultaneously victim is targeted by confusion tactics and even sweettalked to distract and divert her attention away from the fact of intense internal discomfort.

If this whole story sounds absolutely crazy and bizarre, please know that I didn't want to believe it either. But at this point there's absolutely no doubt left in my mind that this is the grim truth. This happened. I just cannot deny it anymore.

It's very concerning to me how many people were involved in this, and were on board with harassing someone to the point of damaging their health. More than a dozen of active players, regulars, people from other servers, were all approaching me with same words.

There's no possible excuse or justification for leaving someone disabled for life. It's above and beyond of what could possibly be considered forgivable. I'm baffled that this person even blames me for "betraying" him when I blocked all the communications with him after everything he put myself through.

[twynfpd]

There are still some things I don't quite understand. This manipulator knew very well that I'm aware of such people existence and activities, and he knew very well that I've ever been vocal against abuse and abusive relationships. Yet he still, for whatever reason, tries to drag me in his shady business over and over again. Or "games", as he calls it, however it's clear as day that games ended at the point where real people's health and well-being are at stake.

If you had a dark secret you don't want anyone to know, the last thing you would do if you had even a little bit of common sense, is to try to involve a person who already knows too much about your activities, and wants nothing to do with them.

I've even been approached by strange people (likely to be his alts, judging by the fact that they acted as if they know everything about me) who told me in the face "I will make sure you will not enjoy this" and "I don't tend to give people what they want", dropping any pretense of caring about consent, relinquishing last excuses of plausible deniability. Well, he succeeded in that at least, I indeed did not enjoy it. That is why I'm here to share the tale.

That person repeated a few times "don't involve bystanders into our game", meaning "I don't want anyone to know what I'm doing to you, keep your mouth shut". I tried to keep it to myself. Until I couldn't anymore. Now that I can finally share everything that was weighing on my heart, I feel relieved from this burden.

Even after I blocked this person on every social platform, he still tries to contact me with messages like "I will break your legs if you try to run away again".

I know that after this post, my inbox will be flooded with even more furious attempts to confuse me, more disturbing convoluted cryptic messages, and even more threats. These people just don't seem to grasp the idea that I don't want to participate in anything of what they're doing around here. If you refuse to let me go, I have no other choice left but to bring all this situation to the attention of the public and developers, and to withdraw from any internet communication.

If reading this reminds you of your own experiences, know that you are not alone. Trust yourself, trust your gut, and trust your heart. Avoid people who keep insisting that all they are doing to you is your own fault. And don't stay quiet. Speak up. Let the truth be known. Don't let anyone to sweettalk or intimidate you into silence.

Please spread the word if you can. Share it with your friends. Be extremely cautious about all of your online contacts. And stay safe.

[Vahlnir]

Holy Great Wall of Text! For future reference you can edit your original post to add most or all of the rest into the same one. Honestly, I'm not going through all of that, but figured I'd try to help you stay more organized. lol

[SturmChurro]

Holy Great Wall of Text! For future reference you can edit your original post to add most or all of the rest into the same one. Honestly, I'm not going through all of that, but figured I'd try to help you stay more organized. lol

It was a really good read tbh.

To the OP: This community never ceases to amaze, horrify, and surprise me by what goes on.

[WoW]

Screenshot or it never happened.

[White_Wolf_X]

Report them with screenshots then just blacklist.

Edit: Also from your "personal story" SE can't do anything if it happen outside of the game.

If you know this "friend" in rl and not only online ( games etc ) then you should maybe think about contacting the authorities.

[LisSquid]

What the great googly moogly..? I echo report and block. There really isn't much that can be accomplished by posting this here.

[Awha]

Isn't this more of a general internet issue and not something inherently tied to FFXIV? Am I missing something. Based off what was said SE has their hands full since you are solely responsible for your own safety IRL. All you can do is go to the proper authorities after the fact in most cases.