Ⓥ Heather 🌸🌿 #BLM · @WhiskurMew
21st Jun 2020 from TwitLonger
TW // Ab*se from a partnered Twitch Streamer. 😞
Not just any abuse, I mean Psychological Abuse, Sexual Assault, Stalking. This is about to get rather lengthy, so please bare with me as this is has been really hard for me to even write about.
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Back in June of 2014, I had been streaming on a more regular basis than I do now. I recall one day I was really tired, but, decided to stream anyways. I was just getting used to being on the platform regularly and growing at a somewhat steady pace. I was super grateful for raising over $2000USD for St Jude Play Live and being one of many who raised enough to get a custom Purple St Jude Twitch Hoodie.
It was shortly after that I raised that money that I met someone named RenInsane. He had ended up whispering me because I had hung out in one of his closest friends stream at the time (not sure if they're still close). 'You are so bad at modded Minecraft LOL.' I whispered, 'Yea, I am learning, I was also tired, I guess I will just stick to vanilla. :P' his reply back to me was, 'Or I could teach you? I stream and maybe you'll learn a thing or two. ;)' I laughed replying, 'Oh? Okay! That sounds awesome, I followed you!'
It was a few months later until I saw him streaming with his friend at the time, for privacy reasons, we will call this person 'X'. I put a smile in his chat along with, 'Oh hey you! ;P Also, HI X!' X was on my other tab and so I had his tab muted so I could hear him coming from Ren's channel (from here forward, we will call Ren 'R'). X and R both said, 'Hey Whiskur! Good to see you!' R was smiling and he seemed very approachable.
November of 2014. I recall watching and eating my 'breakfast' (I was still in Oregon at the time and that breakfast for me was pizza). I remember saying I had to go get my breakfast which R had asked me, 'Ooh! What you eating today?!' my reply was, 'Pizza. It's leftovers.' and R said, 'Hey, it works, it's Pizza Friday!' (which I didn't know was a thing). I devoured my pizza so fast I recall my stomach hurt and I said I needed to lay down.
Mid-stream, he whispered to me, 'Do you need your belly rubbed? ;P Feel better soon babe.' I ignored it and just shook my head. Later after a food coma nap, I woke up to stream Minecraft again, this time, just vanilla. I recall 'X' had followed me at this point and I felt flattered as I was small and he was doing very well with his own channel. R however, whispered to me, 'Oh, you didn't say back, but, that's fine. Enjoy your stream.' I whispered back as my starting soon screen was on, 'Oh, sorry! I wasn't aware I had to say when I woke up LOL!'
He didn't reply until later saying, 'Well, I could've raided you, you seem pretty chill babe. So, how old are you?' I quickly replied (as I wanted to stream), 'I turned 24 in July. :P' so his reply was, 'Dammit, I could've said happy birthday to you! :(' I didn't reply as I switched scenes to my game screen and I am not sure if he lurked, but, he started to whisper me saying things such as:
'Hey, if you want to add me on skype, my username is (username)! We should collab sometime babe!', 'Your voice is so sexy damn.', 'Don't forget to add me on skype babe!' which started to make me uncomfortable (the whole rubbing my belly comment didn't help either, so, red flag).
He was not involved in abusing me in any way, but, once I started dating someone many of you know as Orician, R decided to step up his flirting a lot more. We will call Orician 'O' for short. (At this time, I was also close friends to consider my now husband my best friend I could talk to about anything and he still very much is till today). O and I wouldn't get to talk daily and so I appreciated any time I had with him (we broke up on mutual terms and I still consider him a friend even if we barely hear from each other).
It was at this time he (O) switched to another platform that R really took interest in me and wanted me to ask O if he could have all his music for free. - In O's channel is where my now husband and I reconnected to start talking daily as we both got busy with our lives.
Since I didn't reply to R, on the side, R started whispering or skyping me letting me know how beautiful I was, how he wondered what my boobs looked like, I told him firmly, 'Okay, look, I don't feel comfortable talking about sexual things. I've never even had consensual sex. - Plus, I am in a relationship with O.'
His response was, 'Oh it's a shame he doesn't talk to you as much as I do.' completely skipping over the fact I just said, 'I don't want this discussion, I'm not interested.' (Keep in mind, if the answer is anything other than 'yes' it means 'no'!)
He changed the subject briefly and this was around the time that one of my husband and my mutual friends (at the time) decided to block me and ignore me anytime I said hello to them on a person's channel. Apparently -I- had said something very negative about them. Which I responded with, 'I would never do that. I'm sorry if you feel it was me, but, if I didn't like something about you, I would let you know..?'
I found it off-putting because I had noticed not only this friend, but few others were ignoring me. R continued to push his flirting on me and one day, he said he was really feeling in the mood, wondered if I wanted to join him in his 'play-time'. I said no again and you would assume I'd block him, nope, I didn't. (I gave him MANY chances, along with others at that time).
I personally considered R a good friend at the time before all of these remarks came about. He would send them when he was streaming when he was offline and I was streaming. Messaging me about how 'big' he was, along with if I wanted to see it on camera, he would show me. He also said, 'I can show you the tattoos and piercings I have.'
One day, one of his 'girlfriends' (I say this because I had a girl come up to me along with another later on) said I should leave him alone, that me flirting is completely uncalled for considering she was his 'girlfriend' and I should be considered a 'homewrecker'. I let her know, 'Look, you're the only person who I've spoken to who called me a homewrecker, I didn't know he had a girlfriend, I had some people tell me that they were dating him and he would dismiss it if I brought it up.'
She said, 'I can send a photo of us to show proof we're together. We've been together for years after he got divorced.' This was the first time I ever heard of him ever have been married prior. 'No, that's okay. I believe you. I'm sorry if you feel I am being a homewrecker, but, I never flirt with him, if anything, I tell him I am not interested.'
It was the first time I ever shared screenshots with anyone of what he said to me. She got upset, saw our messages on Skype, and called him out on it when he ended his stream day (he even went as far as going on be right back, forgot to mute, and I heard them fighting, but no one could tell what it was about). He whispered to me saying, 'Hey babe. I can't talk much, an ex-girlfriend is giving me issues, but, you want to play? ;)' I felt sick to my stomach and said no (again).
He said, 'You're no fun.' ignoring me for a short period of time (few days) and later came back to flirt sexually again, I didn't feel comfortable and so finally I said, 'Listen, I am not interested. I know you have a girlfriend and I don't feel comfortable. I blocked him (FINALLY).
I got so many spam whispers from him on Twitch and I didn't have him blocked there as I was out with my family. One, in particular from an account I didn't know said, 'I found your address you slut, you're so fucked now.'
I got scared, could barely eat my dinner, messaged my husband asking how he was to distract from my upset stomach. My parents asked how streaming was going, all I could do was nod and say, 'it's fine..' my dad asked, 'so, how's it dating that O guy?' I smiled and said, 'we're good. Not talking too much, but, we're good.'
I sipped my wine (at the time I was drinking lightly in front of my parents and excessively in secret). Another message came in, this time it was from R himself, 'Oops, I drunk texted my friend your phone number.' (which I never even gave him). I received a text message from his friend, 'You better watch yourself kitty cat, you're fucking with the wrong people.' so I played along with, 'Sorry? Who is this?'
A reply came in, 'Whiskur, don't play dumb. You're a skank and a whore. I know what you did with R and soon, the whole site of Twitch will know.' (Even though I didn't do anything), 'I know how you've been harassing other members too so you can say goodbye to your followers. You've been reported.'
At this time, I was told R was partnered and if I did anything stupid, Twitch would take his word over mine. I took my leftovers home from dinner and for a few days, I didn't feel like eating, so I ate far less than what I was used to, started drinking heavily, and ended up losing 15lbs in 4 days as alcohol was all I had consumed.
I called the local police hotline to ask a general 'question' to see what I could do. They told me, 'Have they got ahold of your phone number?' Me: "Yes" / 'Address?' / "I mean maybe...? They got my phone number and they threatened to have my address.." / 'Well Ma'am, unless something/someone is coming to attack you, we can't do too much, we can suggest taking a break from social media, or making an account under a new name.' / Me: "Thank you."
My mother overheard me crying in my room and asked me what was wrong. I told her and I told my husband (at time best friend) everything. My relationship was falling apart with O and we both ended on mutual terms. He was going to go to a music event with two people, one ended up being a catfish and decided to not attend or they would get caught, as for the other, they couldn't afford it at the time.
Remember how I mentioned an old mutual friend between my husband and I said I called them negative names? It turned out that someone else I am close to said that this person wanted to talk to me. They let me know, 'Hey, I am sorry if you felt I was rude. I just didn't appreciate you talking bad about me.' so I again stated, 'look, I never said anything negative, can you tell me what username this came through, on what platform too?'
They responded with, 'Whiskur on Discord..' so I said, 'Okay, numbers..?' they confirmed it was MY account, but now I wonder, with you being able to add any numbers you want (if you pay for Discords Perks) if someone used a different letter, like instead of W using two V's. I never had any prior chat history to show this and they said, 'you were in -'s server when you said it.'
I was just at the time getting used to Discord and only messaging close friends on there, which was my Husband, O, and few others. There wasn't any way it was me because of the fact I wasn't in any Discord servers at the time. I told the person, 'Okay, I never said that because I've never been in a server except my own which I haven't set up yet.'
Fast forward to September 2015 when this finally all ended.
I had my number changed at least 3 times at this point due to harassment. Thankfully however no letters or no one came to my parents home to kill me (like they had threatened, and yes, I did tell the cops this, they did nothing because, 'Unless your life is at risk by a person nearby, there isn't much we can do').
I always had panic attacks and would sleep talking with my husband over skype (and sometimes Discord) out of fear my computer was hacked, that I was going to be stalked and killed in my parent's home, and worse case scenarios would play out. My husband (keep in mind, best friend at the time) would talk me down, help me sleep peacefully and keep the call on as he went to work and would end the call when he got there, call me when he got home.
I felt so protected and I fell in love with him. I never heard from R or the Catfish ever again.
UNTIL!
One of my good friends one day saw a few hurtful tweets directed at me from the catfish account. It was someone who had said something negative, which I did respond with something back and their reply was, 'You're lucky I am not there in person to curb stomp your face on the street bitch!'
Another close friend chimed in to contact my other close friend who is a fellow Twitch partner, we will call this friend W and the other one D had enough. W was streaming with someone at the time when they saw me being attacked. I broke down in another anxiety attack, tuned into their stream after D messaged me saying, 'You may wanna see this.' as they linked to W's stream. Keep in mind, there were more tweets about me, but, I was blocked so I couldn't see them.
I was getting threats on AskFM, the person had accidentally a few times sent me a message on anonymous and found out they used the username V V h i s k u r (and): W h (L) s k u r. The 'i' in the second one was an L in lower case. I sent it to W as they opened their DMs to me on Twitter.
W was calling this person out ON THEIR OWN STREAM! They couldn't sit by any longer (they are the type that doesn't tolerate bullshit and will call anyone out on their bluff, etc). I was sobbing and typed in their chat, 'My relationship ended because of this bullshit.' which it didn't, but, it did push O and me further apart (the music event of them wanting to go together never made me comfortable and with good reason, guess we could call it that my gut knew before I even knew in my 1st brain aka, what's in my head).
W said, 'Oh I know! It was this person's tweets to you that made me come forward today.' I cried a lot while messaging D and they were so supportive and just being there for me. It took a few hours, but, finally, W got a video of the REAL girl who had her photos taken, videos as well, and art she had worked on. The real girl had made a short video saying her name, that she didn't own a Twitch account (she did after this happened), she never went by any of the usernames the catfish went by to use multiple people (some of which I had spoken to briefly).
W was so excited and said, 'I am gonna post this on Twitter and you all better retweet the fuck out of that! -- DAMN it feels so GOOD!' I cried so much, I felt grateful to have this person in my life, I felt an overwhelming sense of calm. The person who catfished was now out of the bag.
People started to type in W's channel things like: 'R won't listen to me about this. He believes she's real, dude!' and W said, 'Well.. we have proof she isn't. If he needs more proof? I have the video. I know the real girl.' R never came into the chat and I don't know what was said behind the scenes, I just knew I wasn't being attacked anymore.
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So, to wrap this all up?
- The catfish did come forward eventually, apologized to some people from what I've heard, never to me, and I never expected it either, would've been nice though I suppose.
- I have nothing anymore held against R, but, when it happened, I was very angry and hurt.
- There was so much he talked about meeting up in person someday, saving money to come to see me and be with me.
- I had people telling me not to talk to him as he did this to few people in the past when I said, 'I feel uncomfortable with how 'cozy' he is feeling around me'.
- How he wanted a 'wife like you' (me) because, 'You are nice, caring, you love to cook, be a housewife.' and, 'You would make a great mom someday, you should have my kids.'
But, I will say that all of this had hurt me along with the catfish using my username, photos, along with many people I learned that were close to me for so many years, I was afraid to ever return to Twitch.
To be honest? It's one reason I am even STILL semi-afraid to return to streaming.
(I even type THIS out of fear of being hurt or dealing with everything all over again).
It led me into a downward spiral where my mental health hasn't been the same since. I get bad anxiety about being doxxed or stalked again. No words can express the fear I have had of streaming every day again. I also break down from prior trauma easier and this is one of those things that added more stress, causing me to dissociate during a stream and everyday events.
HOWEVER!
I am a lot stronger and I've learned who I am as a person and know I deserve better. I have a few great friends I trust (which took a while to regain trust). I also have a wonderful husband who I now live with that supports me and has my back through everything.
I personally hope this helps others come forward with their own experiences even if it wasn't from R, but, someone else. Just remember you're all loved and important. Remember to stay safe and take care of yourselves as well as each other (within each other's limitations).