As I discuss many times in my memoir, Fine…ly, I’ve been a creep-magnet far too often in my life.  I share a lot of stories in regard to this odd phenomenon in my book, but I couldn’t possibly share them all or my book would have lost its focus. There have been several instances of people wanting to possess me.  I don’t know why.  

As I look back, I can see a pattern.  The “Undesirables” always managed to worm their way into my life at the most vulnerable times in my life.  If I knew then what I know now that might have never happened.  The difference is that now I listen to and absolutely trust my inner voice.  And one thing’s for sure, shining my spiritual inner light always overpowers the darkness of others.

The story I’m about to tell is not in my book but it is a doozy! 

When my daughter was in Elementary School, the mother of one of her classmates befriended me.  At the time, my best girlfriend of ten years was succumbing to a drug addiction.  The friendship had become one sided, trying, and she was sucking all the life out of me.  She was no longer the same wonderful person I knew.  She was ruining her life and taking her children down with her.  I just couldn’t watch her demise anymore.  After having gone through the same thing with my first husband, who was a hopeless drug addict, and having the gift of this friendship to support me through the pain and heartbreak of my divorce,  her decline dealt me a crushing emotional blow.  I felt empty and lost without my dearest friend.

This other woman came along and befriended me at this very vulnerable time in my life.  When we had our first lunch “date” she told me that she was giving herself the gift of my friendship for the holidays.  Nobody had ever referred to me as a gift before–how could I say no to that?  Besides, I really needed a friend…and unbeknownst to me, she set out to capitalize on that weakness. 

We were both stay at home moms.  We both liked antiquing and shopping.  Before long we were spending every afternoon that our children were in school, together.  She’d often invite my husband, my daughter and I to do things on the weekends with her, her husband, and her daughter. 

Something about her always made me uncomfortable, I felt crowded, but I overlooked it.  She tended to touch me a lot; that was kind of strange.  But even with all the attention she was giving me, her life seemed well structured.  She was married, had one child, and had lots of long-time close friends.  On the surface I couldn’t spot any telltale signs that indicated I had anything to be on-guard about.  With trust, I shared my feelings of grief and loneliness in regard to my best friend’s decline with her.  She tried to take my focus off the emptiness I felt inside by designing outings for us almost every day. 

The new friendship was fun at first.  She knew that I was a spiritual seeker so she shared pages and pages of excerpts with me from the stacks of books that she had read in that genre.  She would write many excerpts from these books out in long-hand, and then give me the papers–several each day.  Knowing I was interested in spiritual growth, she began scheduling time with me each day to do what she referred to as, “our (spiritual) work.”  The seriousness of the “work” took all the lightness out of our friendship, but she insisted that it had to be done. 

Considering me a someone she could trust, she gradually began opening up and revealing the details of her horrifying childhood.  I also learned the truth about her sterile relationship with her husband; that they were never initimate and didn’t even share a bedroom.  The friendship began to take a major downward turn; it was often depressive, weighty, and laborious. 

She loved to write poetry.  But her poems were either dark and gloomy, or they were about her deep-seated feelings for me as her cherished friend.  I had shared some of the uplifting, spiritually based music I had composed, so she asked me to turn her  poems into song lyrics.  It was hard to do,  but I managed to convert them into songs that were a bit less gloomy.  This only provoked her to crank out more poems at a fast and furious rate.   With the mutual goal of getting the songs recorded and published, we formed a partnership.  She had managed to convince me that we had a spiritual mission to fulfill together through the music. 

But things continued to get worse; she began hero worshiping me like she was a groupie and I was a rock star.   If I dropped something, she would insist on picking it up for me.  She said it was practice for how it would be when I was famous. She tried to encourage me on by telling me about the  psychic messages she received from a particular entity in regard to our musical endeavor.  She named the entity “Nem,” short for Nemesis.  I later learned that the messages she heard were actually voices in her head.

She became very possessive of me.  If I got sick, she insisted on coming over to sit with me.  She’d field my telephone calls so no one would bother me.  She was so protective over me, she wouldn’t even let my parents speak to me.  I couldn’t seem to loosen her grip without her going into a major depression.  My mother called her a Svengali.

She bought me many gifts, “just because.”  And when my birthday rolled around, she  gave me a meticulously put together notebook filled with writings, pictures, and cut-outs that were all about our friendship.   As I turned the pages and read what she had written, my skin began to crawl.  She had remembered and quoted everything I ever said to her.   And then I was horrified and nauseated when I got to the page that showed the dates of “my cycles.”   She had been keeping records.  She was beaming with joy, so proud of the wonderful gift she had given me.  I thought it was the creepiest thing I’d ever seen.

After that I tried to gradually distance myself from her.  I made excuses to get out of seeing her, but not seeing me every day caused her to have violent, psychotic episodes.  One day she called me while she was hurling everything in her house at the wall, all because I said I didn’t want to see her that day.  Another day she called me from the highway on her car phone to tell me that she was chasing sixteen wheelers at high speeds because she couldn’t see me.  She was very disturbed and I wanted her out of my life.  I called her husband that day to tell him that I was severing my friendship with her immediately.  I told him that she was suffering from mental illness,  and what I was about to do would surely push her off the deep-end.  He listened, then did nothing about it.

She began relentlessly calling me, showing up at my house, and writing pleading letters.  Frightened, I changed the code to the mechanical deadbolt locks on all the doors; she knew the codes and had once come over in the midst of her madness, unlocked the door, and walked right into my house.  When she realized that I was ignoring all her attempts to contact me, the stalking began.  No matter where I was driving, I’d look into my rear-view mirror and see her following me in her car.  I felt like I was being hunted down.  I’d park my car at a shopping center and when I later returned to my car, her car would be parked next to mine or nose to nose with it.  Every time I went to the grocery store, she’d be heading towards me down the aisle.  She hadn’t threatened me or broken the law so there was nothing I could do to stop her.  But her obsessive stalking made me a nervous wreck.

One day I was in the aisle of a Payless shoe store when out of nowhere she came walking toward me,  screaming like a lunatic.  She had just had her hair cut at the Hair Cuttery next door and she looked more mannish than usual. She was never very feminine looking to begin with.  Pretending not to know her, I went up to the manager, informed her that this crazy lady wouldn’t leave me alone, and asked her to please call the police immediately.  My stalker heard me say that and hurried out the door. 

When the police officer arrived, I told him what had happened; that I knew who the crazy lady was and where she lived.  After he prepared a police report, I gave him her address and he drove straight to her house in his squad car.  He later reported back to me to tell me what happened.  He said that he had knocked on the door of her house and she opened it with her young daughter standing next to her.  The officer told her why he was there, and then threatened that if she bothers me again, in any way, he will arrest her on the spot.  That’s when the stalking finally stopped.

I eventually moved out of the state.  The experience traumatized me so, I swore off of the friendship of girlfriends for over ten years.  I’m better now, but I’ll always be wary! 

The only explanation I’ve been able to come up with for the attraction that wolves in sheep’s clothing  have to me is that people of light are very attractive to dark entities.  The lighter one gets, the more evil they seem to attract.  But it is difficult do discern who they are because often they will first appear as spiritually light.   With that awareness,  I know that I have to be especially careful in all new relationships.  I may still attract the wolves, but for the most part I have learned to see through their clothing.   

In closing I offer a warning…Wolves beware!  Even when up against the most forceful resistance, I will always shine my light on the world.

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