Have you ever been wrongly accused of something?

[9livesin]

I am in my 40s now and I still remember the time I went into a popular clothes shop while my son was at playgroup 20+ years ago and I bought a nice cami top, the next week on the same day I popped back in on my way to collect him from play group wearing the new top I’d bought the week before and I tried a few bits on and then left, walked all the way through the precinct and was about to leave the other end, then suddenly two massive security guards frog marched me all the way back through the precinct of my home town in front of everyone at which point I had no idea why and only when I was back to the shop they accused me of trying on the top I was wearing and stealing it, there were no cameras I don’t think but I had to stay there while everyone stared while they checked the changing rooms for any tags, emptied my handbag out all over the check out desk and rummaged through my empty pushchair, turning all the covers out before telling me they were reluctantly giving me the benefit of the doubt as they couldn’t find the tag and letting me go, by this point I was running late collecting my son and had no mobile phone back then.
I was so embarrassed I have never been in the precinct since and don’t live in the town anymore it had such a big impact on me I already suffered with social anxiety as it was and as it was a hot day I had only worn that top so I guess they thought I walked in the shop topless.

I just think about that day all the time and know the staff member who made the error probably doesn’t even remember or have any idea how their mistake affected me.

I'm accused of crap every single day,even though I moved away 10 years ago

My mother is a narcissist,my father is her enabler,my brothers are a mix of golden children and (now) scapegoats and until I went nc,I was the scapegoat

I finally said 'enough is enough' and walked away over 17 years ago

The lies they've peddled!

I'm an unpaid sex worker (untrue)
Dp is my pimp (untrue)
I'm a drug user (laughable-its one of my brothers that does drugs-mother pays for themand im shit scared of needles!)
I'm an alcoholic (I don't drink)
I'll shag any man that moves (untrue)
I have a personality disorder (or a few depending on who's speaking)
I'll steal anything that's not pinned down (I wouldn't dream of it)
I claim benefits (nothing wrong with this if I did,but I dont-i work full time)
I get arrested about once a week (never been arrested in my life)
I got fired from the job I do for stealing out of the till (would be impossible as I'd be caught within seconds-the cameras are heavily monitored)

Many more,but the best laugh is,people believe this bollocks

Even people who know me well have turned on me since I moved away

Fuck em,they don't pay my rent so they don't matter

My 17 year old son came home from our local shop absolutely outraged that “the women in the shop followed me round like I was a common thief” 😂
We live in an area where sadly a lot of the youths are feral. Tries to explain to DS that unfortunately this is probably her experience of teens in this area!

I was in my early 20s and myself and bf went out as a group with my friend and her bf and other friends of theirs. I did not hear from her for ages after and someone told me she had said I had not paid my share of the bill. I had paid, I gave cash to her bf at the table, and if they were short on the bill it must have been someone else and pretty sure it was a waste of space they knew (who had conveniently said he did not see me pay). I was so hurt. I was the only one who brought her a birthday gift that night, I am really generous and thought she would know me better than that. I called her in tears and she apologised and we saw each other a few times more but over time it sank in, and I drifted away from her.

I teach creative writing. I want to give you so much encouragement to start again.

Let’s say I have a batshit crazy mum and enabling stepdad and people throw the narcissist term around too easily but trust me she is (nc for over twenty years). Someone posted a very similar experience to mine. Accusing me of not giving back enough change when I was about 7 (it was 10p) and saying I stole it (I hadn’t) going on about it until I cried. I did find the 10p later on and typically of a child of a narc went to tell her hoping she’d be proud. Well of course she wasn’t. This confirmed what she said of course. Also weird one. Left a note once at home and started the note with Hello mum. They accused me of making the H a swastika and showed my grandad who had been in a German camp during the war. It wasn’t that it didn’t even look like that. Also told people I had a low IQ. Got me tested. They didn’t know I got the results before them, was told I was above average intelligence by the assessment team, mum a SD told me that my score was just above well… a goldfish. I can go on. I know her life is miserable now and I’m thriving but my god was I a lonely and unloved kid. 47 and I still think about these things happening to me.

On a youth orchestra trip to Switzerland in 1997, I was falsely accused of placing a fake turd in the toilets of the hostel we were staying at.

I was accused of stealing money when I worked in a shop many years ago. The actual thief was married to a gambling addict, and was trying to make ends meet. I found out later she was seeing the boss as well, so she'd never be accused. They had no proof so couldnt sack me for it, but they still got rid of me. Still bothers me now, that anyone could think that of me.

Two that still really piss me off:

When I was around 17 an ex of mine went into my (then bf, now DH)'s work and said I'd harassed his new girlfriend by saying he owed me money - i wouldn't have said boo to a goose never mind accosted someone in the street!

And a girl I vaguely knew through another friend had a picture taken with my bf on a night out, and later told him I'd messaged her to give her abuse for it. I barely knew her so no idea why she lied!

At primary school I was wrongly accused of talking to someone on another table at dinner time which was a heinous crime. I was made to stand at the edge of the playground for the rest of lunch. I cried so hard I was sick, I was so upset. The dinner lady blamed me still lives in my parents hometown and I see her around sometimes and I still hold a grudge.

Was also accused of dropping a pencil in class when they were supposed to be on the tables. The pencil wasn’t even mine, it was on the table and rolled off when someone jolted the table with their leg. I tried to explain to the teacher and was then screamed at for backchatting. 9yr old me was horrified and never trusted a teacher again

Yes! Having an affair with an old friend of mine. His girlfriend messaged me and my husband basically outing me (or so she thought )
turns out he was indeed having an affair just not with me! She had seem some recent message and that we had arrange to meet for a coffee. I tried to explain that it was definitely not me but she had none of it. My friend called and apologised to me and my husband for any trouble and said he had ended it and she took it badly jumping to conclusions. I always felt kinda bad for her.

I fell off a bench in PE when I was 6. My ankle immediately swelled up and I was struggling to walk so I went and told the teacher. She didn’t look at my ankle and just sort of brushed me off with “you’ll be fine”.
I was quite stoic as a child so just assumed I must be fine, even though my ankle was so painful all day. I just walked on it, despite the pain, because the teacher had said it would be fine.
By the time my mum collected me after school, it was enormously swollen and totally black and blue. She took me straight to A+E and it turned out I had badly damaged it and needed crutches for 6 weeks (fracture and bad sprain).
I insisted on going to school a couple of days later, with my crutches, and mum went in to talk to the teacher to explain about my injury and the plan for the recovery. The teacher looked shocked when mum told her I’d fallen off the bench in PE and she insisted to my mum that “she never said a thing or I’d have rung you straight away!” While she said it, she glanced at me and I just KNEW she knew dam well I’d told her. I could tell by her look that she was basically warning me not to say anything.
I remember being quite sad that adults would lie to save their own skin. Up until that point I’d just always assumed that adults were truthful and could be relied on.
An early lesson in human behaviour!

A colleague of mine could have lost his job over this one.
A girl in his class had a painful arm, not followed up at home, but school arranged an X-ray. It turned out to be broken. She accused her class teacher of breaking the bone by savagely twisting her arm. Uproar, teacher suspended, but luckily somebody smelled a rat and checked the X-ray again. There was a break all right, but it was partially healed as it was not as recent an injury as she claimed.
Eventually, we got to the bottom of the story; there was a demolition site nearby, which the children were strictly forbidden from entering, but she and her wild little gang had gone in there to play at the end of the school holidays, she had fallen and broken her arm, As she knew she would be in trouble for going into the site, she tried to conceal her injury until it became too painful.
As luck would have it, he had been back to his home country during the holidays to visit his family, so his alibi was solid.

I grew up in a Roman Catholic family steeped heavily in tradition (and misogyny) where old fashioned values about dating are held dear - my family over in Italy still chaperone young people on dates and ensure no sex before marriage. There was a huge fall out a few years ago when it was found my cousin was pregnant by her fiancé. Very scandalous. you get the picture - dating was forbidden for me . And I was too scared to disobey until I was about 17 when I hid the fact I had a boyfriend, and only became truly free in Uni.

Anyway, when I was 15 my older siblings had moved out and my parents downsized us into a new build home. On site there was one of those homes that act as a sales office until all the homes sell. A sales woman, Linda, used to work there who kind of became the resident kiss arse/busybody. She was very pally with my mum.

Anyway when I was in year 11 I got dragged into the living room where my parents demanded I tell them who the boy was I had in the house the other day. I hadn’t at all and had no idea what they were talking about. They shouted and demanded and called me a liar. They told family members I was a liar and a tramp, I was ostracised for a long time and my parents gave me months long silent treatment/low level neglect where I wasn’t included in things like meals, trips to family and they’d walk out a room when I walked in. Without my siblings I had no one in the house who spoke to me.

It turns out Linda had lied to them that I’d brought a boy back one day. She said she saw me walking across the courtyard where her offices look out and we went in the house.

It was a total lie, and my mum still doesn’t believe me nearly aged 40 when I have no reason to lie and I’ve told her I’ve had ONSs and have participated in all manner of scandalous (by her standards) sexual behaviour. I have no idea why Linda did that and I’m frustrated that she’ll never know the true extent of her lies. It affected my GCSE performance because I was still so upset and that makes me angry.

In secondary school someone wrote about me on the toilet door( I have a surname that rhymes with fanny, so it was mxxxxx cxxxxx has a big fat fanny!) I got accused of doing it and was made to scrub it off. I did say at the time if I'd of written it I'd of put tight little! Unbelievable

my mil was having some work done on her house and was paying a family friend in cash to do the work. She had a large amount if money in cash on her dinner table ready to pay him. It was in an envelope.

dh and I had popped round to mow her lawns and clean windows like we regularly did at that time and then we ate lunch together. Left to fetch our dc from school and arrived home to the house phone ringing, and then a very irate mil accusing ME of taking the money. Not dh it had to be me. Because I’d grown up poor lol. I thought she’d if just misplaced it, I wasn’t even that miffed at being accused. I thought she’d ring back in a bit to apologise and say she had found it. She’s quite scatty and forgetful. dh went over to help her look for it.

money was no where to be seen. Mil started ringing around the whole family and told them I was the only one who could have taken it. So I had very angry family members coming round to have a go at me. Mil told neighbours, her friends, wider family. I was so upset. Dh was livid. We went NC but that just made everyone think I must be guilty.

a month later bil came to visit with the kids. He’d last visited the day before I had been accused. Mil gets the kids toy box out. And lo and behold there inside a game box was the envelope and money.

she actually asked bil to not mention she’d found it. But he rang dh immediately to tell him it’d been found.

it was a horrible time and I certainly found out how dh family view me. Not one stuck up for me. They all thought I’d took it.

An ex boss’s wife accused me of having an affair with her husband

I was in my early 20’s he was in his 50’s and to me an old man. She would come in and ask me lots of questions about my life I was so naive I thought she was just being nice. Then started getting calls and the person would hang up then one day a screaming ranting women called screaming leave him alone. Then a letter (at this point my boss admitted it was his wife) and then she called saying she was coming up to have a chat with me and I left early and got a taxi to the station.

I received an apology from her and a gift (can’t remember what it was) I left soon after. Apparently had happened to the ‘young girl’ before and I do wonder if they got some sort of kick out of it or my boss did. No one at work said anything until it was very obviously his wife. . It was only a part time job a few hours a week and paid really well.

Im 52 and this happened yesterday.

Was accused of stealing from WH Smith Apparently i have been seen in there shoving magazines up my top and according to the woman who accused me they have CCTV footage of this. And the manager told her i was banned. First id heard of it. So i asked to see this "footage" and not surprisingly was told i have to apply to see it but as i was not told the date and time this was supposed to have happened how am i supposed to apply for this non existant footage. Well i dont like being accused of things i havent done so WILL be taking this further. Oh and quite how im supposed to be able to fit a magazine up my top when my boobs are a HH cup size is quite laughable!!!!! And since i was accused publicly in front of other customers that makes it slander!

ExH spent seven years accusing me of having multiple affairs. According to him, I was bonking my boss, about a dozen guys I worked with, all his friends and most of his family. Also some stranger who happened to drive out of our road just as he was coming home. Apparently the guy looked at him, and he "just knew"....... Oh and the window cleaner 🙄
I definitely wasn't...

Christ what a fucking idiot. Glad you arent with him anymore

That one is very normal, unfortunately. I had two coworkers who were in a relationship. I barely knew either of them and have never said more than one or two sentences to either of them. Suddenly, she decided that I was a danger to their relationship and started giving me the evil eye.

At some point during a lunch some of the others talked about how jealous she was ( I as not the only victim ) and I complained to them about being dragged into two strangers relationship and how sick and twisted I found it to be. Apparently this got back to her and she either realized that she was being ridiculous or she worried that I would take it to HR for she stopped engaging with me.