In addition to what has already been said elsewhere...
Dear all, the following is an additional statement regarding the ongoing conflict with LJ member wirral_bagpuss (WB).
Due to recent events I see myself forced to state the following, and to do it publically, something which I usually quite loathe to do.
Thus having said, if you prefer to not be bothered with this, please skip this entry. Otherwise, please proceed to read
There are two recent public posts, done by my dear friends rjdoll2 and brighter2, who have already summed up the situation. I have much reason to thank them, especially as both of them, together with dear rebeccawilde, have been the target of various forms of derogatory accusations, stalking behaviour and harrassments. (Yes, we are the people that WB is referring to when she is mentioning the "Musketeers".)
The four of us became "LJ friends" with WB, somewhere around the end of 2008. Our admiration for Jeremy Brett and our activities on Youtube had been the foundation for this kind of contact, and when in September 2008 I read on WB's LJ about something that seemed like an acute personal crisis, I contacted her to offer her consolation. So we got into some kind of closer contact, and due to my travels to England I got to meet WB in person as well, until, in March 2009, she invited me to her house in order to stay with her for a few days. These are some simple facts.
A remark of hers about a planned walking vacation shortly after that inspired in me the idea to organise the "Jeremy Brett Memorial Walk", in order to remember him on the anniversary of his passing and to do some fundraising for UK Cancer Research and the MDF. I therefore asked her to join me.
I then got into circumstances that left me quite overworked, overwraught and burnt out. I needed urgent rest and was also facing the additional pressure of preparing the Walk, doing Public Relations etc. WB's constant need for my attention and that of my friends, especially her overreactions due to several incidents that left all of us concerned, got too much for me. Her phone calls, e-mails, chats, text and audio message, her constant claim of being comforted got more than I could handle. I did not want to let her down, but I finally saw the need to put some distance between us. When my first hesitant mentionings of needing a bit of rest did not get the result, my friends finally directly advised her to leave me alone for a while, or to otherwise lose me.
Needless to say, they all, especially rebeccawilde, already had developed some issues of their own with this situation, but that is a different story.
The main point for me is though that her, let's say, constant neediness for care, attentention and I dare almost say maintenance by far overstepped the lines, even the ones of friendship. I will not explain those incidents in detail in order to not further broach the privacy of the involved parties, but suffice it to say that some of her messages or requests were so out of bounds that she received several fair warnings regarding this - and in spite of recurring apologies from her side it only got worse in time. So we felt driven away from her even more. And the more distant we got, the more obsessive she seemed to behave.
It proved that WB did not see the necessity to heed my friend's admonishing on my behalf. And yes, it made me edgy. I daresay, this is more or less what had happened to all of us.
The closer the date of the Walk approached, the more I dreaded that prospect, because personal space seemed to get rather unavailable under such circumstances, and that became more and more obvious, when she out of the blue declared that she had booked a three-bed-hotel-room for herself, me and my friend Nicole who was to accompany us as well. The situation became rather impossible, and finally she apologised for having gone over the top, wondering if I would still welcome her to walk with me/us. I agreed to do the Walk with her, in spite of the prior conflict, and stated that in a comment to one of her posts.
Anyway, I regret to say that had I commented in this way located at a post of hers that had only been dealing on the side with these questions, but was mainly about a topic that I knew to be disturbing to basically all of the Musketeers. I considered it a rather thoughtless act of mine to comment especially there, and I did not want to upset my friends. So I deleted the comment there and planned to let WB know about my consent in a different way. Due to several circumstances my alternative reply to her got delayed by what I assume to be the duration of about an hour, and the next thing I knew was her ranting and storming on LJ about how I had rejected her. Well, let's say her choice of words was a bit more colourful.
So, this is how it all began. I will not go too much into details here, but all of the Musketeers got their share of the problem, until we all declared to NOT wanting to have anything to do with her anymore and demanded to NOT being contacted by her anymore, in which way whatsoever. No room for misunderstanding THIS!
Needless to say, she did not respect these wishes in the least, and rebeccawilde especially was put under immense pressure due to her constant contacting. I myself am again and again alternatively accused of being responsible for her supposed repeated suicidal thoughts... - or being begged to talk to her again and reconcile with her. There have been and are other things happening, and if necessary, I will state them, but not here and now. (Oh, yes, of course I am in possession of written evidence for all of this, make no mistake!)
It is hard to maintain angelic patience under such circumstances, believe me. The four of us tried the best we could. Sometimes, I assume, we partly lost it, but there has never been anything to warrant this form of constant harrassment that is still going on. Constantly defending one's reputation, nerve, personal space and (figuratively) watching one's back does take it's toll.
There is one undeniable mistake, for which I herewith apologise. I should have known WB well enough to understand that my thoughtless removing my comment from her post without making sure that she got the alternative message ON THE SPOT might cause a misunderstanding and subsequent overreaction. Yes, I should have known better. But I had not expected such a verbal avalanche.
I herewith request again not to be contacted anymore by you, wirral_bagpuss. There will be NO reconciliation between us. Go on and live your life, and leave the Musketeers to theirs.