The Truth About Ruth - Part 2 - Merge

[Lainey]

I agree with Morton Fan.

Also, does anyone else half expect to see a Dr. Suess-esque poem, upon reading the title of the thread? No? Just me? Alrighty then. *slinks away*

[church_of_dog]

I agree with Morton Fan.

Also, does anyone else half expect to see a Dr. Suess-esque poem, upon reading the title of the thread? No? Just me? Alrighty then. *slinks away*

Absoluth! :lol:

[tehfanglyfish]

Just give all the students A's, and get on with reading! :)

The fact that I am continuing to fairly evaluate their work clearly means that my priorities are not in order.

[Morton Fan]

I agree with Morton Fan.

Also, does anyone else half expect to see a Dr. Suess-esque poem, upon reading the title of the thread? No? Just me? Alrighty then. *slinks away*

The Truth About Ruth

is that she's never quite truthful -

she might be rueful

but seldom is she Ruthful.

I really doubt

that she even grew up quiverful.

I did doubt you, Untruthful Ruth;

though I do NOT doubt you hid the truth.

I do not doubt; we have much proof

that there is, most likely, No Such Ruth.

[Ex 2x2]

Someone mentioned identity theft, and now all I can think of when I picture RR is Melissa McCarthy's character in that movie! Can you imagine? "my milkshakes bring all the boys to the yard..." lol! Sorry that's my favorite scene in the movie when she's singing that song and others in the car.

ahem. As you were.

[Ex 2x2]

_JDpjGN3qNg

boo why didnt this work?? can anyone fix it?

Thx Lainey!

[church_of_dog]

The Truth About Ruth

is that she's never quite truthful -

she might be rueful

but seldom is she Ruthful.

I really doubt

that she even grew up quiverful.

I did doubt you, Untruthful Ruth;

though I do NOT doubt you hid the truth.

I do not doubt; we have much proof

that there is, most likely, No Such Ruth.

That is...

wait for it...

Ruthless!

[merrily]

Will she get her own entry in our dictionary now?

[Lainey]

boo why didnt this work?? can anyone fix it?

Just put the "_JDpjGN3qNg" inside the Youtube tags, I think.

There we go. Sorry, you have to put the _ in front, too.

Edited to remove video, since we got it sorted out. You're welcome! :)

[wild little fox]

I was out of town for a few weeks, so I just, finally, caught up :)

I gave RR $30. The one time was when she was living in her car and she said only two people gave her money. She claimed she spent the night in a motel. I gave her $20 that time and $10 another time.

I related to the story of her upbringing in a lot of ways. When she was "homeless" I gave it much thought before I sent the money. I read a lot about it over at yuku. I decided that it was worth the risk. If she was a fraud then it was bad on her, but I was going chance it, not being able to leave her sleeping in her car. Im a sucker, so what. Life goes on and I rarely give money online unless I'm sure.

I knew it would come out in the end, either way. I'm just sad that it turned this way.

I've had red flags go up, but I get caught up in caring for people. The adoption to the same sex couple sent up a flag. Also, wanting to go th Disneyland with Ellie and family (one does not take a child less than one year old to DL? Do they?)

Like others have stated her blog posts were sporadic, so the details and concerns escaped me.

[Ex 2x2]

Thx Lainey! I fixed it!

[Rachel333]

I've had red flags go up, but I get caught up in caring for people. The adoption to the same sex couple sent up a flag. Also, wanting to go th Disneyland with Ellie and family (one does not take a child less than one year old to DL? Do they?)

Not that this means anything, but the amount of involvement she seems to have had with Ellie since adoption seemed odd to me. I think that would be unusual for a birth parents, and she's just an aunt.

[church_of_dog]

This whole thing is so fascinating to me, in a way that has nothing to do with Ruth herself or her story.

I have had several situations in my life in recent months where something seemed "off" in a story presented by another person and I had to decide whether I believed them, or how strongly to question them, etc.

I've learned that I have *no* radar. I like to call myself the Queen of Ambiguity -- almost anything seems possible to me, even if I can perceive the improbability of it, and so I have a hard time interpreting what others say, if they don't elaborate on their meaning.

It also means I have a very hard time seeing through a scam (ie where the person's words are not unclear but the truth doesn't match their presentation).

I broke off a budding relationship last year where there were just too many "this doesn't add up" stories, that it [eventually] made me suspicious, without (to this day) knowing whether whatever the behind-the-scenes story was, was really such a big deal or not. Just the mystery of it was enough to rouse my suspicion and make me wonder why I didn't see the "red flags" sooner. Maybe I'm finally growing some radar in my middle age?

Anyway, for me, the Ruth story is more of a psychological mystery where I ponder my brain's *strong* desire to believe her story, even while I recognize intellectually that it must be fake, given all the oddnesses and given everyone else's fakedar screaming at them.

I still really want it to be true (and just like many others have mentioned, I am well aware that truth is often stranger than fiction. I've known plenty of folks IRL who have had a series of crises back to back as Ruth seemed to, so that doesn't seem farfetched to me at all) but I accept that it most likely isn't.

The part of the story that really started to seem odd to me was, as has been mentioned, when Darth Daddy's death didn't get any notice out in the world. I was sure that would out her just by the various Gothard folks mentioning the death in their own blogs etc. Which brought me to this memory --

About the time that Ruth was saying her dad was ill, there was someone posting on Smuggar's instagram asking for prayers for their dad who was very ill. I remember looking into that person's profile and whatever I found didn't seem to be a match to Ruth's story (which I wasn't especially questioning at that point). I'm looking back into Josh's instagram now to see if I can find it, but others might remember or have faster searching skills than I do.

I have no idea whether this might be interpreted as a piece of Ruth's true identity, or inversely, perhaps as a real story that Ruth used as "inspiration" for her fiction, but I wanted to mention it.

Anyone remember this?

[treemom]

I started to doubt Ruth, or whoever is behind the blog, in 2010.

In late 2009 or early 2010, Ruth wrote that she had $30 per month to cover everything (food, phone cards, hygiene articles, clothes). I felt really sorry for her, even more so since I just had gotten out of a really rotten financial situation, the kind where I almost cried of happiness when I accidently found coins in a jar at home, because that meant that I could have food on the table for one more week.

I thought that I could at least double her monthly allowance, so I sent her $30 and wrote an encouraging note to go with it. I never heard a word from her, but the money was claimed from my PayPal account. She wrote on her blog that she was stressed and busy with school and I just thought that she eventually would send a reply.

The next month, I sent her another $30. The money was claimed, didn't hear from her. Figured she was busy.

Third month (yes, I am persistent or extremely stupid), I sent her $10 and then thought: I will not send more money until I hear something from her. A simple "thank you" will do. Maybe she is busy and will reply to three months of e-mails at once efter the school semester. I know that I have postponed answering to a lot of e-mails when my life has been crazy.

Summer came, I never heard a word from her. And that really made me suspicious. The "Ruth" person I had gotten to know on her blog and on FJ seemed to be an old-fashioned, well-mannered and polite young woman, afraid to put one foot wrong or offend anybody. Not even saying "thank you" to a stranger on the Internet who sends her money just didn't seem like her. Or anybody who has been brought up as a fundie - their main thing seems to be THANKFUL for all the blessings in life, blah, blah, blah.

Something was off.

A few months later Ruth wrote on her blog, in response to somebody asking about the tip jar, "besides, I don't make that much money from it". And I thought... right, that's it. I may have given her very small donations, but at least I doubled her spending money two months in a row and that should make some kind of difference to her. I know it would to me, if somebody just doubled my monthly food money. Even more so when I was broke.

That's my RR story. It's the first and the last time I will ever send money to a person on the Internet and I'll just bank it as learning money. I hope that whoever got them needed them better than I did or used them for something useful like a cocktail or two or a trip to the Mac cosmetics counter. :D

This is similar to how I gave money and was never acknowledged.

I also made a really generous donation...so at least one other month it was like that too.

[Morton Fan]

[snip]

About the time that Ruth was saying her dad was ill, there was someone posting on Smuggar's instagram asking for prayers for their dad who was very ill. I remember looking into that person's profile and whatever I found didn't seem to be a match to Ruth's story (which I wasn't especially questioning at that point). I'm looking back into Josh's instagram now to see if I can find it, but others might remember or have faster searching skills than I do.

I have no idea whether this might be interpreted as a piece of Ruth's true identity, or inversely, perhaps as a real story that Ruth used as "inspiration" for her fiction, but I wanted to mention it.

Anyone remember this?

This is a shot in the dark, but would it have been Rebecca from hiswayserves-hiswayserves.blogspot.com? Her dad had some sort of major illness recently - I think it was a heart attack.

[ILoveJellybeans]

How does someone get pregnant while unmarried at an ATI event? Its the least sexiest place in the world, full of people who will condemn you to hell for even talking to someone of the opposite sex who you are not married to or related to. Theres too many watchful eyes and looks of judgement for anyone to even consider it.

[Oddeverything]

I'm going to wait to see what the admin/mod announcement/post is going to be before I do too much more work. Once that is posted and if it doesn't prohibit anything we've been discussing, I'll start adding to the master list.

I'm sorry I can't participate in too many conversations - I've got a bunch of my own blog stuff to do and an exterminator is coming shortly. All I can add at the moment is to simply restate how peaceful and calm this conversation about Ruth has been. Conversations of this sort always seem to get very tense and nasty at some point. It's pretty remarkable we've all been able to be this level-headed and respectful. :)

[Lainey]

All I can add at the moment is to simply restate how peaceful and calm this conversation about Ruth has been. Conversations of this sort always seem to get very tense and nasty at some point. It's pretty remarkable we've all been able to be this level-headed and respectful. :)

Right? That's why I had to laugh at the admonition to put down our "pitchforks and torches" earlier on. I don't think we've even reached the level of sending her a strongly-worded letter yet. :lol:

[NDC22]

I'm going to wait to see what the admin/mod announcement/post is going to be before I do too much more work. Once that is posted and if it doesn't prohibit anything we've been discussing, I'll start adding to the master list.

I'm sorry I can't participate in too many conversations - I've got a bunch of my own blog stuff to do and an exterminator is coming shortly. All I can add at the moment is to simply restate how peaceful and calm this conversation about Ruth has been. Conversations of this sort always seem to get very tense and nasty at some point. It's pretty remarkable we've all been able to be this level-headed and respectful. :)

Odds, you are amazing. Thank you for really taking the info and making it user friendly...you must type like the wind. I gave Ruth a three figure amount, it was so long ago, but I'm now starting to think I didn't get a thank you either, which makes me a thousand times more pathetic for my outreach to her last month...but frankly I have a super busy life, I read and post as a mind break, I just never focused on no thank you years ago.

But thanks again Odds, great work.....wanna be a lawyer? :wink-kitty:

[Buzzard]

I'm going to wait to see what the admin/mod announcement/post is going to be before I do too much more work. Once that is posted and if it doesn't prohibit anything we've been discussing, I'll start adding to the master list.

I'm sorry I can't participate in too many conversations - I've got a bunch of my own blog stuff to do and an exterminator is coming shortly. All I can add at the moment is to simply restate how peaceful and calm this conversation about Ruth has been. Conversations of this sort always seem to get very tense and nasty at some point. It's pretty remarkable we've all been able to be this level-headed and respectful. :)

We're working on it :)

[library_youth]

This may be of possible interest; it's a post by Ruth on the Yuku board where she clearly states she's not a mom, but has "mothered a lot of kids" (presumably her siblings). It's from one of the epic Emily threads, right after poor little Dna was in the hospital.

http://freejinger.yuku.com/sreply/15041 ... and-snippy

[Lainey]

Goodness, the admin note is cryptic. :lol:

[LucySnowe]

Right? That's why I had to laugh at the admonition to put down our "pitchforks and torches" earlier on. I don't think we've even reached the level of sending her a strongly-worded letter yet. :lol:

And I think that if Ruth did turn up, the tone would be "why did you do it?" and "which parts are true?" rather than outrage and gunning for revenge.

I don't even get much sense that donors would demand their money back, necessarily.

[Dev83]

I wonder if her blog started out as the truth, or some semblance of it. She could have still changed some identifying details, but the basics were correct. But then the "tip jar" came along. The first donations came in, and maybe she thinks "hmmm, this extra money is really nice" but when she goes some time without any trouble in her life, realizes that the tips dry up. Realizing that the money only comes when bad things happen, she goes about fabricating more and more outrageous stories in order to bring in more $$.

I absolutely think that "Rachel" either does not exist, or that Ruth IS Rachel, in the sense that she got pregnant and gave a baby up for adoption. Many birth moms will still refer to themselves as mothers (because they are), so her comment does not mean she chose to parent. Maybe she has an open adoption and did see "Ellie" often, because Ellie is actually her bio daughter. She makes up the Rachel angle because she knew she could make money off it, and because she didnt want to out that part of her own life.

Of course it is possible she was a faker from the beginning, but something just tells me that isnt the case. That somehow it spiraled out of control, and got to the point that she could no longer keep her stories straight.

[Dev83]

Not that this means anything, but the amount of involvement she seems to have had with Ellie since adoption seemed odd to me. I think that would be unusual for a birth parents, and she's just an aunt.

I actually know a few adoptive parents that have relationships with the birth mom or dads extended family, so honestly that part never struck me as that weird. If it was the truth (which I don tthink it was...at least not entirely) it is completely possible that the adoptive parents wanted Ruth in Ellies life because they knew her birthmother would never be, and they wanted her to have that family connection.