Is this a really vicious thing to do?

[Auldspinster]

My best friend from school cut me off without an explanation just over a year ago after 30 years of friendship. I’ve been somewhat baffled by it but figured she had her reasons as she’s had a tough few years with a messy divorce and custody issues. I’ve sent a couple of texts and 1 email (this is relevant to what has happened) over the year just asking how she was and if I’d done something to upset her I was sorry.
Fast forward to last Saturday and I was chatting with my brother who mentioned he had an Instagram account but I forgot to get his alias to follow him and did a search through my contacts. I didn’t initially recognise one of the contacts who flashed up from the thumbnail so I clicked on the account and the penny only dropped as to who it was when there was a picture of concert tickets for a fairly obscure band we both like.
Against my better judgement i sent a message saying I wouldn’t follow her or message her again but I hoped she was doing ok. No response, which wasn’t a huge surprise.
I happened to click on my direct messages to respond to another person and noticed that the ‘friend’s’ alias had changed to ‘beingcyberstalkedby auldspinster’ and had put my full name and location in her bio claiming that I’d been continuously cyberstalking her and that I need psychiatric help. I immediately blocked her and reported the account to Instagram for bullying and harassment – they’ve been absolutely useless and say it doesn’t violate their standards. I tried another complaint to them that it’s slander and my personal details have been disclosed but they say it’s nothing they can help with.
I know that it’s her that has the problem but I can’t help being hurt by the vicious way she’s gone about it. All she needed to do was block and ignore. We have so much shared history and my memories feel tainted now. It annoys me at how much Its affected me.

Sorry this has happened to you. What a vicious way for her to behave when you came with good intentions. I don't have Instagram not if she is on your brother's contact list - can you ask him to post a request/demand for her to take it down?

I agree in 10 or 20 years time she could just as easily breeze back as though nothing has happened. DON'T LET HER.

She's a horrible person, sounds like you're well shot of her. Wouldn't give her another thought.

It was my phone contacts list that i'd synced with instagram to see if i could find my brother.

She sounds horrible. Personally, I would pass a screenshot on to the police. Her sharing your personal contact details is absolutely not okay.

The police really won't do anything about this.

I am really sorry for how she has treated you @AuldSpinster and you don't deserve it. But please don't waste police time with this. She hasn't done anything illegal. Why would the police need to be involved? Has she named you personally, and put compromising pics of you all over the internet? With your full name? Or libelled you in any way? From what you have said here, she is just a bitch, and to the best of my knowledge, being a bitch is not a crime!

For some reason, she has ghosted you, and I think as sad as it is, you need to let this go. Ignore her, (not that she is contacting you anyway!) and block her from everywhere online so you don't see her anywhere.

Yes she is 100% unreasonable. If she was bothered she should have just blocked you.

I have an ex who messages me every now and again (years can go by between messages). I just ignore the messages. I haven't blocked him as I find them quite amusing but would if they irritated me. I would never dream of publicising something like that. What a dick move.

Her loss. Don't go to the police, it's just prolonging it and they won't do anything.
There's a saying about the best revenge being to lead a happy life. Don't give her any more head space.

Ooops, I just noticed she put your full name and location on her posts.

SORRY. Didn't read the OP properly.

Hmmm, then yeah, I think it may be worth a chat with 101, but I don't know if they will do much.

What a horrible cow she sounds!

I'd go and see a lawyer and have them write a letter. In the letter list out all of the correspondence you've made in the last year, so that it is very clear that you have not been cyber-stalking, but that most importantly you want your personal details removed asap (your lawyer will think of some clause / law). Make sure the lawyer writes something in there that says that if she does this again (attempt at defamation) legal action will be taken.

As the letter will come from the lawyer it cannot be construed as any sort of cyber-stalking.
An hour with a lawyer will prob set you back about £250 but it will resolve current and potential future problems.

A friend dropped me with no explanation in 2006. I contacted her a few times in the weeks following, but then I left it. So I didn't do as you did and try for steam to contact her, but I do understand the hurt and confusion. I was honestly as heart broken as if a romantic relationship ended.

Anyway, your friend was nasty and vicious and you already know you have to leave it now.

I've been given closure, i've got the message loud and clear.

I definitely don't need toxic 'friends' like that.

Just want my full name and the slanderous accusations removed from her profile.

*Sorry "steam" was supposed to read "a year". No idea how that happpened.

As a pp said - don't be surprised if she tries to breeze back into your life in five years time, claiming to have been 'going through a bad time' when she did that. I've had a similar experience, someone got back in touch having messed things up very badly for me. "Going through a bad time" was casually thrown out as an excuse, as if my feelings didn't matter at all. I never bothered replying.

I'd ignore her now - she's not going to leave that as her instagram profile for long, unless she wants everyone to realise she's batshit. If someone I knew did that I'd think they were unhinged.

I've pm'ed you. I think you can get her post removed by Instagram.

@AuldSpinster

I rarely say this, but I would actually log it with 101.

This person has put your personal information on the frigging internet. She has no right to do this.

My friend had a similar situation with her daughter... She was being badly bullied online by three 15 y.o. girls at school. They had been making her life a misery for about 6 months with cyber bullying and hounding her, and nasty comments, and vicious texts, and the school did NOTHING, except make her feel she was at fault for being 'too sensitive.' They also got her in a room with these 3 bitches so they could 'talk it out.' Just made things worse!

These girls made a facebook account called 'the ugly fat slag' with photos of her pasted over the page. (She wasn't even fat, she was a size 14!) They also put her address, date of birth, the school she went to, and her home phone number. All 'public' posts too.

Within a day of them creating it, the page had 100 'friends' (mostly other kids from the school,) although some people were posting that they should be ashamed and were disgusted with them. My friend reported it to facebook but they did nothing (this was circa 2014.) She went to see the parents, but they told her to piss off and stop 'harassing them their own house.'

At this point, my friend went straight to the police in town, with screenshots of the page (in case they deleted it,) and reported it all. She also reported everything else, and showed them the texts, and more screenshots from facebook and twitter, of things they had said, bullying and threatening her.

The police were at all 3 girls house within 2 to 4 hours, and arrested them for 'malicious communications' and harassment. The mothers were also charged with something too - can't quite remember now. Upshot is, they knew the girls were doing it, as two of them even LOLd on the fucking nasty page mocking the girl, and said 'ha ha this page is so funny LOL!' And another woman said 'I know, it's brilliant!' These women who put this were 38 and 40 years old! Pathetic, childish cows. No wonder their girls were such cunts.

But yeah, they all had a police caution - so an official caution, which they would have to declare on anything official/a job application etc...

So yeah, report this to the police. And yeah, your 'friend' sounds unhinged! As advised by other; BLOCK her. Never speak to her again.

Don't involve the police, this will just make things worse. She doesn't intend any harm to you, she has been unpleasant to you but that isn't really a crime. TBH taking it further is going to look (to her and perhaps to other friends of hers) that you are determined to force some sort of response from her and that you can't let go.

I don't know Instagram, but is there any HQ/admin that you can report to , and have the post with your personal details in it removed? If so, I'd do that.

I would agree normally with the poster above (reanimatedgb) ^ but she has put personal info on the internet, and it is still there as the internet site it's on won't remove it. Defo call 101 IMO. I would.

She's insane. I would let this go, at least for a while - she'll probably get bored in a week or so and change her bio.

Wait a bit, and if she doesn't change it contact Instagram again and the Police.

Instagram make it really difficult to report outwith their own specific templates.

I just want my name taken down and nothing else to do with her. She's 43 ffs!

Wow isnt this called doxxing? Do sorry to hear about this op she sounds unhinged. Ive just been ghosted by a boyfriend/best friend and its nasty and bizarre. You sound really nice.

I'll screencap it and hang on for a week or so.

Maybe she genuinely does feel harassed by you?
I'm not suggesting at all that your messages have been anything less than friendly, but we're only getting your side here not both, and what you might genuinely perceive as a nice or polite message might not come across that way to her.
I've sort of been in a position where i was the one who didn't want to continue a friendship and was being contacted on multiple social media platforms by the person i was trying to go no contact with. I chose not to be confrontational as its not my personality to do so, and tried to just tail off contact rather than an abrupt stop, but they wouldn't get the hint. Eventually i was forced into being abrupt by their hounding and had to bluntly tell them i found them a really offensive person, and things they were saying kept overstepping boundaries i had tried multiple times to enforce but they kept ignoring and making me very uncomfortable. Ended in a tirade of abuse from them which is what i had been trying to avoid. i'm sure if you asked him though, he'd think he'd done nothing wrong and "doesn't understand" why i stopped talking to him.

For whatever reason she wanted to end contact with you, and chose to do it without an up front explanation. You don't say how many a "couple" of texts is, could be 2, could be 10+, but by text and email you'd contacted her 2 different ways and gotten no reply, and yet didn't take the hint she didn't want to reply.

Coming across her on a platform you've never interacted on, and would have to actually explore the account of to identify her, does seem like you've expressly gone looking, and ignored her apparent obvious desire to not be in contact and have messaged her again. She may well feel like you have deliberately gone checking social media platforms to find her, while that isn't actually what you did, it could look that way.

Yes, it is rude of her to put your name and town on there and claim you're stalking her, but you did apparently need the message to leave her alone and weren't getting it any other way.

I only clicked on the profile because I didn't know who it was.

It was the silence that was baffling and the out of the blue ghosting after so many years of friendship.

She had a history of going incommunicado when things were bad so I only ever expressed concern and texted 3 times max and searched my sent emails and had only sent one after she stopped speaking.