I know this is vague,

[4oak]

I don't want to give too much information away.

I did something stupid on someone. It's not on a partner or close family or friends. It's a distant family member.

It may have legal consequences.

I didn't do a physical assault or target their home or threaten them or their family I don't want to say what I did in case it's recognisable.

This person came to confront me a few weeks ago and I was caught off guard and denied it. Since then this person has called to my house twice but I was out. I got some missed calls and one message too requiring to talk to me.

The thing is I was genuinely busy and now I also have a lot of anxiety and I don't want to face this.

I think I need to get some legal advice. I don't know what the position is from this person and I don't know what if anything the police may do. It's possible the police may have a file and just put it on the back burner with not enough evidence type of thing. I don't know.

I am afraid to talk to this person in case of what I say may be taking as evidence to charge. I don't know.

AI is recommending me to seek legal advice and not to talk to anyone about it and not to admit anything to any family until after I get legal advice.

The calls and message and calling to my home has filled me with dread.

I was actually honestly busy too. I am in work now. I find it hard to carve time out for myself never mind for making calls I don't want.

It's really hard to comment OP without knowing what it is, although I understand your reluctance to share!

You might be better off asking AI, bearing in mind that you should double-check any answers you get with your own Google searches.

Edited to add: Sorry, see you've already asked AI and were told to seek legal advice. Maybe do that??? Good luck!

My work have been very busy and intense too for the whole entire summer and often going above and beyond and not only that it's been hard from my family too. It is so hard to get any breather space from work or family. My last free day to myself was back in June.

I don't like how this person is calling to my home now often unannounced. I also have some missed calls and a message. I usually always have my phone on silent for my own reasons so calls often are missed.

I feel like I am not in a position to really address this issue when I am likely approaching burn out from my work and stress.

I am afraid to talk to this person too. AI says to deny everything until I speak to a solicitor because anything I say could be an admission.

I don't like what this person is doing either. S/he has called to my door and discussed this with other members of my family too nearly trying to expose me or humiliate.

I denied because there is no direct proof.

OK. So you did something wrong, probably something illegal, and now the victim wants to confront you but you don't want to admit what you've done you don't want to apologise, you're too busy to seek legal advice but not too busy to sit around asking AI (lol) or posting on mumsnet.

Personally if I'd wronged someone I'd do whatever I could to admit it and make a sincere apology, then accept the consequences of my own stupid actions.

The thing is, you did do it and that will eventually come out. Surely a full and frank discussion about what happened and why coupled with a heartfelt apology would be the best option. Lying and hiding hardly seems like a reasonable way forward.

Duplicate post.

Thank you so much for this.

I am finding it hard to carve time out from my family and from my work to get some peace and privacy to book a solicitors appointment. I plucked up the courage last week to phone three solicitors in the city but I got no where regarding an appointment.

One solicitor was unavailable, another solicitor was on annual leave, another was unavailable but recommended another solicitor. When I rang that office the receptionist sounded very familiar and I know one of my cousins works for a solicitor as a receptionist so I hung up.

Now I am back to square one being full of anxiety for making more calls to solicitors.

'now you don't want to apologise'

• that's not true.

AI is telling me not to admit anything until I get legal advice because as it stands it's possible the police may not take this any further due to no direct proof that it's me. So far the person has an opinion that it's me. I don't want to talk right now in case it's viewed as an admission and then it could be taken further. Basically I do need further advice.

I was anxious making phone calls last week to solicitor offices and I made some calls but I didn't get very far regarding getting an appointment. I am nervous again about plucking up the courage to make another appointments.

I find it hard to get peace and quiet away from my family and also from my work to get enough privacy to make calls too.

So you have clearly found time to either defame/slander this person or report them to somewhere or something but you do not have enough time to apologise? You clearly know what you have done is wrong so the right thing to do is own up. Admit what you did and take the consequences of your actions.

This is not true.

What I did, I did a few months ago back in June but it's only really coming to light now. Since then, from the start of July onwards, everything was just crazy for me in relation to my work and the demands from my family. I am not going into my work and family issues here but it's been really crazy. Everyone else had time off and I was over worked.

Literally no idea what you want from this thread

But it does not matter when you did what you did you still did it, you still need to own up to it and you still need to be held accountable for it no matter how busy you are. The fact remains you have done something you clearly should not have and you are now citing being busy as an excuse to weasel out of things. As they say don't do the crime if you cannot do the time.

Actions have consequences and you need to deal with those, you can't use work as an excuse. Everybody is busy at work. If it's bad enough that the police could potentially be taking action it's definitely best to address it head on. I was thinking you'd hit someone's car but as it's a family member I wonder if it's something more egregious to be honest.

I’m guessing this was a poisonous pen letter. If you want this to come to an end I’d report myself to the police. Pointless spending thousands on legal fees.

OP, get off AI - it isn't always correct!

Just make it right. Apologise, give back the money, do whatever you need to do to make this right.

And stop complaining about the anxiety YOU caused by acting illegally.

'you are now citing being busy to weasel your way out...'

This is wrong.

Nobody here on this forum knows the amount of bullshit I had to put up with throughout July and August. This was from my work and also my family. I can tell you, the amount of days I had off on one hand. Do the maths there. Most workers would get 2 days off a week. I never got that. I was working 2 or 3 weeks solid before even getting one day off.

I went from having migraines once a month to about two a week that I had to just keep on working through.

I am not getting proper time off from my work. When I do get time off my family is dumping their kids on me to babysit.

I have no quality free time. Everything is just work and I am likely approaching a place of burnout.

The problem is that you're still trying to figure out how you get away with it. Time to grow up, admit what you've done, and accept the consequences.

Yet you still found time to do a crappy and presumably horrible thing to someone. Not sure what you want from this thread apart from someone to say "aww you poor thing".

Stop spending time typing essays about how little free time you've got. That's beside the point.

You want this person to stop calling. The quickest way to do that is to speak to them.

We can't tell you whether you can get away with permanent denial of this bad deed or not. If it's something really awful I'd suggest not. If it's something fairly minor, ie no major damage to someone psychologically or financially, then maybe you can just deny it.

But it would be better for you to give a better idea of the nature of the thing.

Trying to be kind and helpful here, I appreciate the crippling anxiety re: phoning solicitors but putting your head in the sand won’t help. And no one here can help without knowing details.
It is impossible to ‘work through’ genuine migraines, as they are completely debilitating but I suspect that your severe headaches are largely due to stress and worry (and possibly guilt over what you’ve done?). You need to tackle this problem head on.
If you have trouble finding time to make a phone call, then send an email to a couple of solicitors to request appointments. You can also get advice from online solicitors.

But regarding no time - if you had an accident and ended up in hospital, you would be forced to stop work, or not be available for childcare. This is a similar crisis, and is obviously not going to go away. You must MAKE time to deal with it.

It would help then, if you don't tell your family when you have time off. Then they won't call on you to babysit, will they?

Clearly what you have done is illegal, and you are scared of the repercussions. Your distant relative suspects you, and their suspicion is not going to go away any time soon.

Is whatever you have done reversible - for instance if you took something from their home, can you replace it?

“would help then, if you don't tell your family when you have time off. Then they won't call on you to babysit, will they?”

this ⬆️ or take time off work sick. Quite believable if you’ve been doing long hours.

Avoiding your relative who could turn up at any time is only going to make your anxiety worse.

Perhaps speaking with them about it would actually help resolve the problem. Is what you’ve done out of character? Most friends or acquaintances would want to speak to somebody in their life who’d done something odd and potentially illegal and was behaving in such a bizarre way as to a) do it in the first place and b) was refusing to engage with them about it in any way. They (presumably) haven’t reported it to the police yet, but instead have tried to contact you for an explanation, which would indicate wanting to be reasonable.

If you’re not willing to talk to them then legal advice is really your best bet. I’d get it quickly, before whoever you’ve wronged does decide to escalate to the police.

Your sounding a little unhinged....

Thank you. The headaches I have are definitely work and family related. I can count on one hand the amount of time I had off since July. I took other days off due to being ill. I am down and off with migraines about once every two weeks. They can last days and I try and power throught the end of them. They feel like hangovers without drinking. They are definitely work and family related. Work was so intense and family were so demanding too.

I will look for more solicitors tonight and maybe ones with an online contact form.