Not sure how many people were around four years ago for the original drama, but @[email protected] was a banned user from early on the site's history, and I've seen quite a bit of speculation recently that a current frequent poster in c/mutualaid is an alt of hers due to having a similar MO and personal details (such as them both living in the same city)
For context, u/storyofrachel was an unhoused trans woman, who frequently solicited money from the community and had problems with substance abuse. She eventually made a post bragging about scamming money from users here (I myself was one of the users who sent her money) and blowing it on drugs (with a picture of the drugs in question) and a
bunch of homophobic slurs (TW: homophobia, self harm).
If there's any truth to this, it is deeply fucked that this person is still here, evading her ban and scamming people four years later. As one of the people who was taken advantage of previously (and, possibly, again with this current user!), people should at least be able to make an informed decision with all available context. If we want this community to function, and I say this as someone who has sent hundreds of dollars to people over the years through this community, we should be able to guard against bad actors who are trying to take advantage of the compassion and generosity of our user base.
Edit: There's an Instagram with both usernames on it, publicly available. It's 100% the same person. Not going to post it because I don't want anyone to get doxxed but yeah.
Edit edit: I'm going to go touch grass now. Anyone who is being willfully obtuse about why I made this post can read it again or any of my other comments in this thread
lol, i always wondered what happened to her. i can’t believe A) its been 4 years and b) i never heard the story of how she got banned
her posts always irked me. even taking them at face value and not being skeptical of her intentions, i was confused at why the community kept rallying around someone who constantly sabotaged herself so much. she’s not someone who is ever going to stop using, because deep down she doesn’t have the desire to.
"Getting someone to stop using" shouldn't be the goal of anyone here looking to do mutual aid online. There are specialized services that help with that and if you want to help people stop using go work with or volunteer at those services.
The goal here should be to keep people alive long enough to make the choice for themselves to seek the help they need. Assuming they even have access to those services, which many unhoused folks with addictions do not or cannot access those services for various reasons.
You aren't going to get someone to stop an addiction by posting at them. All you can do is help them stay alive long enough to hopefully choose to find help
It's so gross and protestant brained when people look at mutual aid and direct giving like they're somehow morally responsible for trying to fix or control a person's behavior. Like yeah they might spend the money you give on shit that won't directly benefit them, sorry we live in such a sad, fascist society that one more good feeling seems more productive than attempting to get out of a bad situation. We're just trying to keep people alive, not perform rehab.
I don't ask for receipts when I give someone cash, but them not coming on here bragging about scamming me, calling me slurs, and then asking for more money is a reasonable ask, I think
yeah i'm not really commenting about your post, just that other poster's attitude about mutual aid. obviously people who are bigoted opportunists that take all the air away are not welcome.
to clarify to you in particular, i was commenting in agreement with this point by infamousbit and nothing else, i generally stay out of something as messy as a user that has abused the mutual aid system that i know for a fact has benefited some of our most well-known and kindest people here.
i'm really not talking about the particular user who abused it. but if their abuse leads to reactionary attitudes from others, we still have to work out those reactionary attitudes, no?
i didn’t ‘post at’ her. i politely ignored her and hoped others would wisen up and do the same. i only started passing judgement out loud when i found out 4 years later that my gut instinct was more or less correct, and she’d gone down in flames because of it
I have a hard time wrapping my head around this issue. addiction really alters your neurochemistry such that you behave and think in ways you otherwise might not. Some people say your "true self" is revealed when you're on substances, i.e. if you become an asshole you were really just an asshole all along, unlikely to ever change, and not deserving of additional chances, while other people say you "become someone else" on substances, not liable for your actions, and fundamentally absent from reality for the duration of the substance's effects, and I think neither of those ways of thinking is exactly correct for substance abuse, anymore than it is for medication, especially given the variety of substances and the different interactions they have with our brains and bodies, which aren't even consistent each time we use them, but highly dependent on stuff like mood, food intake, etc... Fundamentally, it's a shame that someone took advantage of a mutual aid community, thereby decreasing its effectiveness. That's really the heart of it. Whether she's capable of change is more of a philosophical issue. u/happybadger made a good post in this thread about the pitfalls anonymous online mutual aid. You either sacrifice privacy or you sacrifice stability. You either make your users vulnerable to doxxing, or you make your community vulnerable to sabotage by bad actors. I'm wondering if there's a way to engineer a resolution to this so you can get the best of both options?
ooooohhh i get it she was one of the bad ungrateful addicts see that's why i always give to my local church because then i know they're good people who deserve it