The original blog post with this title dates back to 2021, when it was first published here. For a period of time, I removed it as irrelevant but am feeling compelled to republish because of recent further harassment and new revelations.

Below is the original 2021 Blog Entry together with periodic updates:

This is one of those stories that’s probably harder to tell than to hear.  Or, in this case, harder to write than to read. I’ve never spoken publicly about it in any kind of detail, because these things carry a lot of shame. We, as targets of the harassment, are shocked, hurt, scared and feel ashamed. That this is happening to us.

We feel that we must have done something to trigger the behaviour.

We feel like it’s our fault this is happening to us.

And of course that’s not true. The stalker’s personality structure is fractured – it’s all about them, nothing to do with us. But that can be very difficult to appreciate as you are being targeted and stalked.

Here is what happened to me:

As it turns out I can only tolerate giving a very abridged version, because I still get too upset when I focus on the details. I will attempt, over time, to flesh out further details, as I feel comfortable sharing them. It is important for members of the bar to be aware that online targeted harassment by colleagues is real. I don’t suggest it’s a frequent occurrence, but it can happen. It has happened, to me.

There are two separate tracks to this story, but as you’ll see they unfortunately merged when I literally put two and two together too late, as it turned out.

On the relationship track, I had a very close and long standing professional relationship to these lawyers. Right after I got onto a particular social media platform for the first time with any real engagement, early in the pandemic, an anonymous account was created on the same platform. It was intended, I gather, as a satirical account about law and lawyers. There are a surprising number of such accounts across various platforms.

This particular account had a lot of followers because at first it was all good clean light-hearted fun. However, many of us noted over time that the account had become rather mean-spirited and was focusing on diminishing the successes of mostly women lawyers, mostly young and racialized women’s accounts.

I had taken on the role of Women’s Director for the CLA in the fall of 2020. I started calling out that account for its gender and racial biases. The account then started targeting me personally, sharing my posts but with increasingly malicious commentary. The comments were getting more and more nasty and other colleagues on the platform were contacting me to say this seemed personal and struck them as in very poor taste and defamatory, troubling them.

To be clear, it never once occurred to me that this account was run by anyone I personally knew – I figured this was all in retaliation to my calling them out for their misogyny generally.  I blocked the account and they blocked me but then they started also going after any other account with which I was associated, and making derogatory comments about those organizations or accounts.

In the meanwhile, although I continued to work very intimately with the lawyers I mentioned, the relationship began to break down with several incidents at particular times and then completely broke down and I ended the relationship altogether. I realize now that it probably sounds extraordinarily naïve that I did not connect these two developing situations to each other, but it would NEVER In a MILLION years occur to me that these two extremely close colleagues and friends whom I really cared about would do this.

After I terminated my personal and professional relationship with the lawyers in question, the anonymous satirical account exploded with defamation and harassment of me personally. The account also grew an alt, which was a related account that we now realized was set up at exactly the same time that I encountered my first big rift in my relationship to these lawyers – many months before. That account was devoted almost entirely to harassing me personally.  Eventually, that alt account began threatening me outright and directly. At that point, I called it out and indicated on my own account that I would be investigating.

The threatening posts were then deleted. I locked my own account,  – but they were still within my wheelhouse, presumably operating under a third and fourth anonymous account, just to stalk me. They continued to respond to my now private posts so I knew they were still able to access my account. I then purposefully made it clear that I intended to identify and hold the account holders responsible for the defamation and harassment.

The account then went quiet although it was never taken down. Both accounts remain live to this day, albeit apparently dormant now for some time.

When I went back to review each post by the two anonymous satirical accounts, I found 161 posts about me or directed at me, corresponding day and time-stamp wise to things that I either posted or things that had happened between those lawyers and me over time, spanning 7.5 months from the day we had our initial conflict.

At that point, the effect on me was devastating – I knew who it was but what could possibly be at the root of all of this? Once I knew who was behind this shocking display of anger and hate, I was able to match the dates of the harassing communications to specific incidents and I was able to identify their “trigger.” The details of that trigger are perhaps shocking because of how insignificant an “incident” lies under all of this massive drama.

It’s almost too insignificant to get into here in any detail, although perhaps in time, I will fill in the details more clearly for completeness. For now, the “trigger” incident doesn’t matter.

What does matter is that this single incident led to the creation of the 2^nd alt account and 7 and a half months of sustained stalking, harassment and cyber-bullying, all the while continuing to work on files and projects together, because I had no idea.

The balance of it was that my terminating the relationship was not something they could tolerate. They lashed out in a sustained, prolonged and profoundly damaging way with 161 malicious attacks.

Various other things also followed later on and I expect will continue, as they already are.

The harassment has since taken different forms, moving to direct online harassment and stalking, in various virtual environments, in all sorts of unpleasant, if creative, ways.

All because I had created boundaries that were healthy for me.

They clearly felt entitled to something they perceived I took away from them, and then lashed out in a wild, uncontrolled, and prolonged fit of rage.

This maybe is a clue to what drove them off the cliff they were precariously dangling over anyway at the time:

https://twitter.com/pouchbaby/status/1776290477643272393

What I wrote was this:

@pouchbaby

Apr 5, 2024

Today I had occasion to reflect on the pathological harassment I was subjected to for a prolonged period. Among the many things my stalkers tried to use to diminish my professional success, confidence or popularity was to suggest that the SCC litigation I did was worthless. 1/2

They suggested I was not retained based on merit and that younger lawyers I chose to work with did not respect me but were only feigning respect to get the work and the $$ {hilarious!!} Some people get this work by currying favour with instructing counsel — not me. Their posts:

It was a LOT to take in. And I consider it one of the most difficult professional experiences of my career. That changed who I am and who I trust. I experienced a very serious depression in the wake of this incident that took months to recover from, if I am even there now.

Post-script May 1, 2022

It turns out that the targeted online harassment of me undertaken by these former cherished colleagues (& what I wrongly believed were good friends) was much worse than I initially understood. The original investigation into these matters was focused on identifying the perpetrator(s).

Once I was certain we had identified who was harassing me, I stopped looking at the material. However, a recent deeper investigation reveals more than 50 additional communications, beyond the 1st batch of 161+, that take direct aim not just at me, but everyone in my circle.

The offensive communications attack not only me and my associations, other social media accounts with which I am associated, but also my associates, my close friends and collaborators, my books. The irony is that the harassers were part of this circle, among the very people whose accomplishments I was celebrating, in large part on their account. Bizarre.

But the most terrifying thing is that they went after my family. After my children. While they removed the most threatening posts, some troubling content remains live on two or more now seemingly dormant accounts. Posts remain live where my expressions of pride in my children or sharing how difficult the pandemic has been on them were turned into objects of contempt and ridicule. This is beyond hurtful. It’s worryingly disturbed and disturbing.

I hope the perpetrators rethink the utility of maintaining these accounts on the platform.

As I continue to investigate, no doubt more information will come to light.

Post-script May/June, 2022

Sadly, the online harassment, hiding behind anonymity. pseudonyms, adopting a former mutual client’s identity to stalk me, were mild compared to what we now know they’re capable of. All of the previous behaviour, which was hiding in the weeds, escalated. The harassment took an even uglier turn to threatening, intimidation, anger and hostility directed at me, this time witnessed by independent observers. This toxicity poisoned my work environment and adversely affected an important proceeding.

At least they’re revealing themselves and no longer trying to hide. Unfortunately, this does not bode well for peace in the long run. For me, but also for them. Clearly, the amount of space I take up in their heads, the efforts they’ll go to to get a rise out of me, the inability to control emotions despite what professionalism clearly requires, is a LOT.

I hope they get the help they need to address their underlying issues that really do not lie with me.

There is a limit to the boundaries I can maintain and enforce, no matter how hard I try – as long as those accounts remain live – but what I can do is insist on no contact and in future call out the behaviour where it happens in public. I don’t relish the experience but I have the right to work professionally and in a safe environment, without enduring humiliation, discomfort or having to share all of this with colleagues, each time it happens, in order to put the irrational explosions of temper into context.

Post-script June 17, 2022

And finally some good news. My stalkers clearly follow this blog and this time I am glad.

Having publicly declared that the next time I get harassed in a public forum, I am going to call it out, the behaviour appears to have stopped, at least for now.

More recent contact in virtual meetings or proceedings has brought me nothing but (insincere, albeit, meaningless and empty, but yet at least not damaging) praise in almost embarrassing buckets. Another manipulative move, but on its public-facing front, at least harmless.

The smirking and eye-rolling, glaring, staring and furrowed brows have given way to obvious attempts to get a grip on their otherwise unremarkable faces. I prefer this stoic concerted effort to appear non-plussed by my presence.

This now marks fully one year to the day since I called it quits with these people and set my boundary.

I can only hope this is the end.

I gave these people a combined quarter century of my admiration, respect, devotion and affection.

My support, money, reputational advantage and goodwill – a truckload of good faith, wasted.

Let it end here and I can continue on with my happy fulfilling life and career without further disruption.

Fingers crossed, but as always, while hoping for the best, I’ve learned to fear the worst.

Psychopathology is unpredictable, unfortunately.

In the meanwhile, happy anniversary to me.

Despite all that has happened, that I never could have predicted or anticipated, cutting them off was still the best move I ever made.

For my mental health.

Everything they’ve done since has served only to confirm the wisdom of that decision to end all contact.

Post-Script March 2024

In late January of 2024 I received a very suspicious email claiming to be from a company offering to scrub bad law firm google reviews from the internet for a fee. The email indicated they were attaching the specific reviews they were offering to remove. These were all reviews of lawyers in my stalkers’ law firm. This is no coincidence. There are nearly 60,000 lawyers in Ontario. This is not my town – but it is the city where my stalkers are located and it was only bad google reviews of them that somehow came to be attached to this email. None of the content or attachments had anything, whatsoever, to do with me or my firm. This clearly originated with my stalkers, in another city.

There have been other weird such things from fake or anonymous email and other accounts over the last two years that randomly periodically show up. I suspect this is ongoing bizarre attempts by these lawyers to harass me online. I continue to document but ignore. I have steadfastly committed to having zero contact with these people and in fact have refused to acknowledge their existence or say their names including at meetings where they may attend and I do. I have become enormously successful at internalizing that they’re dead to me. I no longer see or hear them. In fact, I attended a large scale event where I am certain they also attended in person. I managed to literally not see them, despite that I know we were all in the same room. I just remember that the opposite of love is not hate but indifference and this continues to serve me well, while they continue to devote significant emotional resources to finding increasingly more creative ways to disrupt my work days and try to unsettle me. I don’t think they’ll ever settle down now.

My (hopefully FINAL) thoughts

What’s most remarkable about all this is for many years, and in case of one of them, literally decades, I loved these people with my whole heart. It takes a special kind of skill set to make someone who was prepared to run into a burning building to save you, no longer prepared to intervene if you were on fire.

It’s a sad reflection on their collective bile and toxicity that they’ve never been able to acknowledge their role in the harm they’ve caused but rather continue to manifest jealousy, envy, fury and hysterics over my ongoing successes and accomplishments. They had my undivided admiration, support and camaraderie, my desire to collaborate and work with them, opportunities to make their own careers a success, to make a name for themselves, to enhance their reputation, to do meaningful work, earn money and have fun. They threw it all away and burned it to the ground because of their own instability and insecurity. Their personality disorders, individually and collectively, destroyed what could have been a life-long journey of personal growth and contribution to the profession filled with affection, intellectual stimulation and rewards, both personal and professional.

Now they’re left adrift and isolated. This is entirely of their own making even while they blame me for their predicament. My withdrawing my investment and involvement is not outcasting them. It was and remains protecting myself from exploitation. While it took me years to understand what happened, I now realize they inserted themselves into my life not out of any mutual appreciation or even a reciprocated respect for me, my work or my value but to use me for a single opportunity to do one thing they wanted that they couldn’t make happen on their own. That was all they cared about but not enough to be real friends or even respectful colleagues. I was used. And then, when I refused to play along any more, abused. They are ultimately nothing but bullies and abusers. The things they purport most to abhor. Even the people-pleasing unremarkable face of the one that just wants to blend in to avoid conflict or controversy, the one whose entire life is geared toward a single professional goal of never rocking the boat, is not blameless in all this. That lawyer is complicit by association. They knew that they were a pawn in a game designed to extract maximal benefit with zero return effort. They took, took and took, full advantage, financial, reputational, and whatever else they could extract, without ever giving of themselves, not a single thing. That’s exploitation.

NEVER AGAIN though and it would be impossible to overstate the positive impact this has had on my life. I have never since then allowed anyone to take advantage of my generosity of spirit. I am now surrounded only by people who are grateful for the opportunities I am privileged to provide to them who also support me and my work and celebrate my successes. In the nearly three years since I finally came to my senses, literally dozens, well, no, actually hundreds, of colleagues, friends and family have benefited from my spreading good into the world. All the time and effort that had gone solely into sustaining a worthless relationship that only I carried and sustained for many years, has now benefited a huge number of young lawyers and others tremendously instead. Love is all around………no need to waste it!