sheldrake

WHY do people DO this?

GRRRR.

Wait, WHAT??? So her mother was in on the whole thing? Because unless my memory is totally shot, there are people on LJ who spoke to her mother after her death, or "death" as the case may be.

*hugs* Kudos to you for posting this. You know you're not alone in feeling duped by her.

I did alot of thinking about this at the time I spoke to you and I came to the conclusion that she isn't worth my time, she isn't worth yours either so please don't let it effect you too much. *hugs*

I told Katie after I spoke to you and she was as WTF? as I was. That seems to be the favoured response to such an utter shitty piece of fuckwittery.

I am really glad you decided to post this.

*boggles* You are fucking kidding me????? Was Shallow in on it? I remember they were really tight back in the day?

Jesus, man, I fucking mourned that girl. I can't believe she'd do something like this. How did it come to light?

Fucking hell. I am...christ. I don't know? Disappointed. Furious. Disgusted. All of the above. Christ.

Hi, I know we're not on one another's flist, but Zoni mentioned your post to me and I wanted to come and reply. I've actually known for a long time now what Kia did. It was confirmed to me by a mutual friend whom I had no reason to doubt. I never said anything as I didn't want to betray confidences.

It's an awful thing Kia did. I can only assume that she's not mentally well, and let her fear rule her actions. It makes me sad for her; she had so many people here who loved her, and she walked away from it all.

Thank you for posting this. It's hard to be the bearer of bad news, but it's good of you to put it out there. People deserve to know.

*hugs*

I don't know what to say.

I'm really glad you told me. I know people on my flist had said something about someone faking suicide, but I had no idea it was someone I had cried for too.

I just don't know how to think about this. I've been lied to in my life, but I never thought somebody I actually liked and who seemed to like me okay too would mess with my emotions in such a brutal way.

Thanks for your post.

Hi love
I'm feeling a tad overwhelmed right now.
When I heard the news a few weeks ago, my first reaction was JOY. JOY that this person, my friend was ALIVE.
Weeks on, I just want closure.

This person stayed in my house a month. I just deleted a whole essay about what *THAT* was like.

I am still happy Kia is alive. A flawed, pathetic person alive is better than a saint below ground.

I just wish she'd owned up to what she did. I GRIEVED for her, year on year. I am now AGGRIEVED. I want closure, like a lot of people, but I doubt we will get it.

If you want to talk to me, I'm more than happy to do that.
x

Jesus. I do remember this, from however distantly across a fandom I had joined much later. I'm so sorry.

I AM glad you posted about it though, definitely, and hope that the communal nature of this grief - the being duped, the disbelief and anger - can help you and others get over it easier.

What a nitwit.

*hugs*

Wow. I'm shocked! I've read about this kind of thing, but it's actually happened to people I know?! We exchanged exactly one email about going to see Sniper 47 but then she disappeared. And Disappeared! Until recently. Wow.

When Kia "died", I was one of the people who was "contacted by her mother". It's a long and painful story, and one I do not particularly care to relive, but trying to shed a little light now seems only fair...

Back in the summer of 2003, I used to spend hours online chatting on IM with three people: Kia, and two others. they were my best friends and I was more than a little in love with one of them at the time. Long story short, from being really close, something went down in the following months and at the beginning of 2004, the four of us had a big... fight, I guess. I never fully understood what happened and I was hurt more than I've ever been by the whole thing. In the aftermath, one of us and Kia pretty much went their own way and the other one and I were left behind. It was a very ugly thing and I spent months licking my wounds. I'm still licking them to be honest.

Fast forward to September 2005. After a year of silence, Kia wrote to me and apologized, asking about renewing our friendship. I was hurt, badly, and I just couldn't. I told her it was too hard for me and that I was sorry and forgave her but could not forget. Two weeks later, I was getting an email from "her mom" telling me that she'd died. I believe I was one of the first to post about her death on LJ, and I felt terrible, sad, guilty, crushed. I hated myself for having rejected her, I honestly thought that I was partly responsible for her death. Maybe I was, maybe I was partly responsible for her faked death, I'll never know. I'll probably always feel a little bit guilty. I mourned her and I cried for days, literally. The whole affair was devastating. Ryn and I both got emails from Kia's supposed mom, we were both told in details about what had supposedly happened, how she'd died, etc.

Not long after that, our two other friends renewed their friendship and for some reason, soon discovered that Kia's death had most likely been faked. While I haven't been friends with one of them for years, the other one told me about their suspicions. I've known about this for four years, now. But to be fair, I was never 100% sure, had no proof and knew no one willing to talk with me about it. None of us who suspected knew for sure, I don't think anybody had enough proof until very fairly recently so it was more something we suspected strongly than something we knew for certain. Accusing someone of faking their own death is clearly not something you can do lightly and without proof. As a result, I decided not to say anything, to let her be. I also stopped talking about her in any way after that because while I wasn't sure her death had really been faked, I had enough suspicions that I didn't want to keep leading people on. I am relieved and grateful that you've posted about this today because I was still waiting for closure and I think maybe today I can finally mourn something that I was never able to completely get over. The loss of Kia and our other friend's friendships, the hurt of feeling so disgustingly betrayed, the guilt over having rejected her, etc. Kia's changed the way I apprehend things and people on the net forever, I don't think I can ever trust anybody quite completely ever again. But yes, finally today, four years after that fateful email from "her mom", I can finally, finally put the whole thing behind.

I'm sorry I never said anything but thank you for having the courage to do so. From the bottom of my heart.


PS: I'm sorry for editing this comment but I kind of reacted to this without thinking and while I realize it's a little late to start thinking, I thought it was wrong of me to name names. I'm such a fool. Sorry.

I have no idea what to say this. I am so shocked. Thanks so much for passing this on, Duckie. I think people need to know.

Wow.

I must confess I thought she was a manipulative drama queen, and I had stopped trying to keep up for the most part. Shortly before she "died" she left me a critical tl;dr comment on a locked post, and then deleted her account again (*again* - *sigh*) before I could reply. When I heard she'd died, I speculated that, tragically, she must have known she was seriously ill (or even - hell, maybe she'd suicided and it was being tactfully whitewashed?) so she was going around enjoying sticking the last word to everyone she felt aggrieved by. And I thought that was really sad - sucks to die when you are still such a bloody adolescent!

Well, I guess there was a level on which I was right. Sheesh.

Dudes, if you don't want to hang with people on the intermesh any more, just stopping using the service in question! Really! That's all you have to do! Go hang somewhere else using different accounts!

Pointed here by azewewish, and I first want to say thank you for bringing this to light.

I'm one of those who 'knew' Kia through fandom and though we weren't tight, I still mourned her death. To discover it was faked, for whatever reason, pisses me off so much that I don't even know if I have the words to express it. To know that, mentally ill or not, she was (and probably still is) capable of manipulating the feelings of so many of us just...yeah. No words. And honestly? I can't say I'm feeling too many warm fuzzies for the people who have known for YEARS and didn't say anything, especially when other people were making public mention of how much they missed her and all.

Hi, hello, here via friendsfriends. As some people here will know/might expect to know, I've known about Kia's faking her death for some time, as have several others. I don't think anyone particularly thought it was their story to tell—I know I didn't—because we didn't do the groundwork to uncover what she'd done, and in my personal case, because of my last interactions with her over the weeks before her pseucide, I was under no illusion that I would be believed if I'd said anything much earlier than now. People were incredibly hurt first by her alleged death, and then much later by the uncovering of all of this, and honestly I'm surprised by how many people still weren't aware of what shed done. I very much hoped this would all sort of Go Away, and she'd be forgotten and unable to continue hurting people, but that was clearly never going to be a good answer. I'm very glad you posted this, because maybe it will provide closure—I hate that word and its implications, but I'm hoping you understand why I went for that easy choice of words—to those who were still mourning her, once they are able to move past their very, very legitimate anger. No one who knew was ever looking forward to all of it coming out, and certainly no one was looking for "warm fuzzies" or anything else for having kept it to themselves. I'm very much of the mind that any putting on of the mourning brakes would have been incredibly unwelcomed, shouted down, etc., especially if it had been attempted without reams of proof being presented, and no one was in possession of all or enough proof that Kia had faked her death until fairly recently.

Many, many people tried to be Kia's friend, to help her on every possible level, especially mental, emotional, and financial. As I told elouisa, we'd done nothing but ask her to be honest in her dealings with people and get help for herself, because she was draining us and then slamming the door in our faces. She became incredibly toxic. She played every single person she encountered through Lotrips on so many of those levels, and walked away the martyr. Clearly there are still people deeply affected by her and what she meant to them, and what they thought they meant to her. Which is not to say I'm surprised by the hits she's taking here now in these comments—they're very much deserved. Yes, she was/perhaps is deeply unwell, but she's also a manipulative, unkind, narcissistic person who spent most of her Lotrips fandom time deeply in denial and prepared to say or do anything to retain her standing—anything but offer the truth about herself. Evidently it became too much for her when she discovered she'd become too much for nearly all of the people who'd tried to support her. I firmly believed she could not have been more delighted than over the first few months after her pseucide, reading all those messages of goodbye. She was in faked death as sloppy as she was in true life, however, and it caught up to her.

As I said, I'm glad you posted this. The more people know now, the better, obviously.

D:


I just...don't even know.



:(

What. The fuck.

I cried over this person. I grieved for days. I still felt bad when I saw her name on my flist or anything that was connected with her all this time later. Wow. Just.

I'm glad she's alive, but it's a little hard to find that under the anger right now.

Every time I read about someone doing this - and it's a fair bit, it's part of my research - I think, well THAT must be the last time. People know friends are REAL and that what you do online affects people offline. People wouldn't dare try it again, wouldn't willingly cause people pain again. and EVERY TIME I am disappointed and upset when it happens again. This is the first time when the 'death' is of someone I knew though.

wtf is with people.

What.

Like many other people, I'm glad she's alive, because god knows I'd rather have her living and flawed than...well, what we were led to believe. But...I grieved for her. I thought I'd lost a friend, and that hurt. And now...shit. I don't even have the words. What the fuck, Kia.

I hadn't known her intimately and was a little taken aback by the drama of her life, the whole thing of being stranded in the UK, space science, Katrina, brain aneurysm and everything. And she owed a number of us money. So I'd suspected, and heard some evidence that she might still be around, but it seemed better just let things lie. I guess I was wrong, and I'm sorry everyone found out this way. *hugs you*

I don't know what to say, I'm not even angry but more like whaaa...? Oddly, my first thought was 'poor Trianne'.

Thanks for posting this: I really am glad she's alive but still disappointed of her deception.

While I recognize the LJ names, I don't recall having direct contact her...but I have had other "friends" online who faked their deaths. The thing that really pisses me off about this is that it gives online friendships a bad name. Criminy!

Good and peaceful thoughts to those who might need them.

Thank you for posting about this, because otherwise I'd never have known.

I was away when news of Kia's death broke, so I've always felt oddly disconnected from it. But liked her, I helped organise the fund to get her home from the UK, and I mourned her. This is terrible.

Thanks for saying this, duckie. I recognize how hard it must have been and I'm grateful you took the time to share the knowledge. While I wasn't, perhaps, as close to her as some, I'm fairly sure that you and I actually ended up talking because of her. So despite all of this, I have some fairly good memories and experiences that I owe to her, and this doesn't change that. I'm honestly surprised that I'm not more angry with her about this. It seems like a perfectly reasonable reaction. I guess all I really feel, though, is sadness that so many people were hurt - and that she was unable to overcome her own challenges in any positive way. What's interesting is that her death seemed so tragic, at the time, and now, years later, it reveals itself to be even more so.

Also, I don't think it's at all fair or productive in any way to direct anger at those who knew and didn't say anything. And I say that as someone who considers herself fairly close to some of the interested parties. Kia's decisions were her own and even if they were hurtful to others, as her former friends, I think these people were right to respect her wishes to disappear. Who knows what further psychological damage this thing coming to light could have inflicted that close to the event on someone who was obviously already unstable. The whole thing is terrible and the pain is so needless, and I'm not sure that there is a lesson to be learned here for those of us she deceived. But maybe there's a lesson in it for Kia, and who knows? Maybe it's something that will help her. But even if not, at least now the truth is out and everyone can start to heal.