Dear Hoaxer, thanks for the poems

[snaky_poet]

‘I write very good poems / when people die,’ I declared recently. Those lines were the start of one such poem, one of several I wrote in mourning for an online friend who had died from a brain tumour not long after her 18th birthday. I also blogged about the experience, but have now removed those blogs.

I was not the only one intensely grieved, nor

Comments

[metahara]

That is terrible! I'm glad you found the gem in the experience, but wow- she is sick.
Mental illness on the internet; we see it in many forms. Depressed, angry, anxious entries and comments and flame war threats that are completely unproductive, but the made up persona is just a whole new level isn't it? I can barely keep my life organized as it is, the time and energy it takes to make up stories and pretend they are real-and have to live them out! that is just so far out there.
Doesn't she know truth is stranger than fiction?

I'm sorry you had this experience and glad for the poems.

[snaky_poet]

I have mostly been very lucky in my internet experiences, I'm glad to say.

[avahgdu]

Wow

[snaky_poet]

Thanks, sweetie. I am certainly feeling waves of positive energy, wonderful

[asakiyume]

Shortly after I joined LJ, I became aware of an LJ community called something like "Fake LJ deaths." (Not sure if that's the actual name.) Apparently this is a thing some people do: create a persona (or use their own life) and then pretend to be ill and pretend to die. It struck me as very, very strange--but apparently it's common enough for there to be a community of people who expose the frauds

[snaky_poet]

Goodness, my mind is boggled all over again at the thought of there being so many. Although, I did wonder if it's a syndrome with a name.

Ha ha, I too had a small press back in those days, but everyone knew it was just me. I was quite proud of achieving so much on my own. But I think that is obviously the difference between something entered into without thinking it through properly, and something which has been planned in every particular. We thoughtless hoaxers are quick to rectify the situation when the ramifications begin.

[snaky_poet]

I found the fake deaths site, thank you. Which led me to Munchausen by Internet, see my new postscript to this post. Interestingly, I had already started to have the words 'Munchausen syndrome' floating in the back of my mind, but I didn't know the half of it.

[snaky_poet]

Dear, I was so very, very upset about her illness and death - sobbing for days, and arranging counselling to help me through it - that even this nasty story has to be an improvement.

She convinced other intelligent people besides me, so I don't feel like too much of an idiot. What it says about all of us is that we have tender hearts - not a bad thing. Anyone who loves accepts the possibility of pain.

What is disconcerting is how quickly all that grief has gone! Perhaps, between sobs, blogs and poems, I released it well.

[snaky_poet]

Thank you.

I am surprised I don't feel anger. Maybe I'm just numb.

[snaky_poet]

Well, the funny part is that the real girl of that name has put a lot of energy into doing good works for and on behalf of her school, as a sort of team leader, according to the records - as well as being a high achiever academically. And the one whose photos were used has achievements of her own and is a very pretty girl, moreover. It is hard to fathom why either woud be so insecure as this. Perhaps it was someone else. But the other group thinks it was the girl of the name, and that her writings and life details were real, only the illness and death false - which fits with what asakiyume says, in her comment above. A mystery - but not worth wasting more time over