The Truth About Ruth - Part 2 - Merge

[Rachel333]

We do not believe that the C family is involved in this in anyway and we will be redacting their information out of the thread.

Really happy to hear this.

[Cran]

The Admin note makes the speculation possummomma or how it is spelled is involved suddenly much more credible to me... :think:

[Mustang Sally]

Wow, good job admin team on figuring out who she is and confirming the Razing Ruth tale is fictitious. I am also glad to hear the [redacted] family is not involved.

[Sobeknofret]

I donated money ages ago, and I don't really regret it. I genuinely believed that she was telling the truth. :( I'm a little bit sad that this appears as a scam.

[Dev83]

Ok, after reading the Admin note I take back my guess lol

[nokidsmom]

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?)

As someone who been on planes headed to or from Disney World with some pretty young babies on board, yes, it happens but it's been with families who have some older kids. It wasn't just a one kid family. Never saw that.

[Lainey]

The Admin note makes the speculation possummomma or how it is spelled is involved suddenly much more credible to me... :think:

Me too!

[Palimpsest]

Me too!

Make that three. :(

Actually, Lainey had already convinced me by pointing out the weird punctuation that was consistent among the lot of them. It pisses me off royally, even though I did not donate to Possum or Ruth.

[Love]

This person had done a serious disservice to the people trying to leave this cult. What a total asshole.

And wow, FJ'ers. If I ever need some internet sleuthing done, I'm asking for help here, first! WAY TO GO IN OUTING A COMPLETE SCAM ARTIST!!!!!

[Cran]

But I also have to say that I'm not satisfied with the way it was handled by the Admin team. Scamming is a criminal act, so protecting this person through a TOU does not seem right to me, and even somewhat sanctimonious ("Go and expose her if you like, but elsewhere, WE do not get our hands dirty!"). Sorry to be the grinch.

[church_of_dog]

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.

Nope, finally found it on Josh's instagram -- it was someone with the name of "imstilljessica" and looking at her profile they look not very fundy at all, so that was apparently just a reach too far on my part...

Bummed to hear the admins say pretty conclusively that RR is a fake, but I guess not all that surprising...

[nolongerIFBx]

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.

In my experience in IFB, people watch their kids like a hawk in public, but church is considered "safe". I can't believe how the parents let even their young children run around with no adult supervision. For a teen, there's plenty of opportunity to sneak off. I knew a girl who got pregnant at the Christian school. Somehow they both managed to be out of class at the same time and did the deed. Again, it was assumed that this would be a safe place with plenty of adults to keep them out of trouble. If either the boy or the girl had been at the other's house, their parents would have been chaperoning because it would be considered a date, but they assume that at school they are doing schoolwork and a teacher was watching them. So Rachel tells her parents that she is going to this session and Isaiah(?) says he is going to that session. Once the parents see them heading in the appropriate directions, they head to their own choice of sessions. Rachel leaves session to go the the bathroom. Isaiah leaves session to check on his siblings. Find an empty room, car in the parking lot, who knows, but if you want to avoid the protections put in place, it's possible. As long as they're back before anyone starts to realize that they haven't seen them, they're good. Throw in a fellow teen who might be willing to say, "Oh, I just saw them" and they have even more time.

[OkToBeTakei]

Well I think good job admin. It's a fine line which I think they have negotiated well.

Also great sleuthing folks.

[nokidsmom]

As the discussion about RR went on, plus with Oddeverything's summary and reports of RR's online responses (or lack of them) to people here offering their assistance around her "move", I was becoming more convinced that she was a fake and not a former ATI member who started off with good intentions and then things went wrong.

[Clementine]

Since the admins more or less have confirmed that RR is fake, I think we all should remember what has happened today and stop having pet fundies, or pet ex-fundies, who are above criticism on this board.

RR was intouchable for several years and anybody who openly questioned her were met with rather harsh words. I never understood why.

This is the Internet, nobody knows who is behind the names or what their real story is. I think it's healthy to keep that in mind and have an open discussion when we doubt anonymous bloggers, rather than to try to quiet or bash people who have questions.

[TrueRebel1]

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.

I've been thinking along the same lines. Perhaps "Ruth" actually started the blog as a fictional journal and was going to present it as pure fiction, but then realized readers were assuming it was a real person, and realized the financial benefit she could get from it. In this scenario, I think "Ruth" is a person who's been done wrongly by ATI/fundies (perhaps raised in it, perhaps had friends in it), and the blog was a way to reveal the disgusting truth behind Gothardism, and/or get revenge at the people who wronged her.

Anyone else think this?

[Mustang Sally]

I've been thinking along the same lines. Perhaps "Ruth" actually started the blog as a fictional journal and was going to present it as pure fiction, but then realized readers were assuming it was a real person, and realized the financial benefit she could get from it. In this scenario, I think "Ruth" is a person who's been done wrongly by ATI/fundies (perhaps raised in it, perhaps had friends in it), and the blog was a way to reveal the disgusting truth behind Gothardism, and/or get revenge at the people who wronged her.

Anyone else think this?

I don't think so, given her origins on the TWoP forum, where she literally said "If you have questions, you can read my blog" and offered to answer people's questions about her life. I think she was lying from the start, though she may actually have some background in fundiehood that made it easy for her to write about. But I don't think this was an "intended-to-be-fictional" story that went off the rails, not when she was doing Q&As from the beginning.

I do kind of think, though, that she did it mainly for the attention and the Tip Jar was just icing on the cake. I'm sure she made some money from it, but not a regular salary or anything.

[Lainey]

So, for anyone who wants to continue to look into this, I've compiled a list of links from the first Ruth thread. I was going to do both, but I am tired and I have a headache. Anyone else want to do it?

This is the link to the first thread: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=17372

These are links from the first thread. I think this is all of them, although I left one about the Sherlock TV show out. ;)

forums.televisionwithoutpity.com/topic/3186246-16-and-pregnant/page-5

forums.televisionwithoutpity.com/topic/3146312-19-kids-and-counting-and-other-duggar-family-programs/?p=12141699

http://freejinger.yuku.com/topic/954#.Uditm9iU9Rw

http://gosselinsdonotneedourpity.blogsp ... h.html?m=1

razingruth.blogspot.com/2011/01/again-with-drama.html

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=4807&start=20&sid=5b40e4f74cf15387bb4500f9a2fb9be3

freejinger.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=4807&start=20

http://freejinger.yuku.com/topic/1453/k ... eal?page=1

getoffmyinternets.net/forums/lifestyle-bloggers/razing-ruth

http://www.flickr.com/photos/deadandali ... 7/sizes/l/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/deadandalive/9236689744/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/deadandali ... 8/sizes/o/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/deadandali ... 6/sizes/o/

rrwithoutpity.blogspot.com/

http://razingruth.blogspot.com/2009/06/who-is-ruth.html

http://razingruth.blogspot.com/2010/01/ ... -ruth.html

razingruth.blogspot.com/2009/10/pregnant.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gothard

http://articles.exchristian.net/2008/10 ... ed-by.html

http://freejinger.org/forums/viewtopic. ... 6&start=60

stargazers-observatory.blogspot.ca/2008/10/sad-sad-day-for-atheist-blogosphere.html

refugees.bratfree.com/read.php?2,96239,page=2

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... port-sites

razingruth.blogspot.com/2013/02/interesting-developments-and-questions.html

http://brokendaughters.wordpress.com/ge ... ife-story/

http://freejinger.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=8&p=563147

razingruth.blogspot.com/robots.txt

http://freejinger.org/forums/viewtopic. ... 89#p583153

http://www.theindependent.com/news/stat ... mment-area

http://pieceofcakey.blogspot.com/

freedomtomarry.org/blog/entry/my-two-moms-how-12-awesome-families-are-celebrating-mothers-day-this-year

http://freejinger.yuku.com/topic/1248/W ... dzuM_nVCSo

[Pretzel]

Just chiming in to say that for me the point I finally started doubting her was the twisted ovary. Something about that seemed so absolutely off that I felt something was not true about the whole shebang. Before that she mentioned the allegedly catty co-workers but then a co-worker notices how bad she looks and takes full care of her? Then her ovary gets fixed like magic and a week later she's at work again. Yet, 1-2-3 woe is me she cannot pay the hospital bill but refuses to answer anyone who suggested where she go in order to get help on paying off her debt but then her boss helps her out because said boss has a sick husband? Then she mentions she has been exempted from half of the costs when others here and on her blog mentioned it was possible that she get exempt from all the costs. Last but not least, the bureaucratic part of it finally convinced me that RR was either a liar or American bureaucracy was the quickest, fastest, bestes in the whole wide world because she needed what time for it? 2-3 days? As if an application for debt cancellation could be handled and approved in such a short time.

I bought a lot of her stories and I felt truly sorry for her. One time I was close to leaving something in the tip jar but I didn't have any money on PP and transferring money from my account to PP is a pain in the @$$ so I decided the hassle wasn't worth it. I am surprised that there are quite a few people on here who were willing to donate 2, or 3 figure amounts of money to her. I am probably too greedy in general, but I felt that 2-4 $ was a big amount to donate to a stranger on the internet.

[apple1]

RR was intouchable for several years and anybody who openly questioned her were met with rather harsh words. I never understood why.

As one who originally believed RR, but came to the conclusion she was a fake/scam/whatever quite some time ago, I realized quickly that to give voice to the skepticism would cause a pile-on. (And yes, I have some "feelings" about that...) So I made a point of just not posting on the topic.

Edited to add: Nobody who was generous with either money or offers of help or good thoughts/prayers should feel bad; kindness is to be commended. It's not the generosity I have an issue with. It's the shutting up of a differing opinion that bothered me.

[NDC22]

I've been thinking along the same lines. Perhaps "Ruth" actually started the blog as a fictional journal and was going to present it as pure fiction, but then realized readers were assuming it was a real person, and realized the financial benefit she could get from it. In this scenario, I think "Ruth" is a person who's been done wrongly by ATI/fundies (perhaps raised in it, perhaps had friends in it), and the blog was a way to reveal the disgusting truth behind Gothardism, and/or get revenge at the people who wronged her.

Anyone else think this?

If we all take a step back, even re-read her blogs, how much truly insider information did she give? I think she/he read other blogs, did some research and created a story and just expanded on things already out there. It's not like she gave some huge secret Gothie type info, did she? There is a lot about Bill and his flying monkeys already floating around on the net. Her big lapses in posting was due to living her life and researching for her big informational posts.

But I can promise you that faux-Ruth is gone and this person will be back with another scam in the future....they always think they are smarter than the average person.

Hey Ruthie, in case you pop in to read, I've got a question for you. Should I tell my SO's DIL about your scam, since she is an Assistant DA in IL? Not to mention that Lisa Madigan's mobile number happens to be on my SO's contact file.

[Curious]

But I also have to say that I'm not satisfied with the way it was handled by the Admin team. Scamming is a criminal act, so protecting this person through a TOU does not seem right to me, and even somewhat sanctimonious ("Go and expose her if you like, but elsewhere, WE do not get our hands dirty!"). Sorry to be the grinch.

Well you are welcome to open a blog (I'll even help you set it up) and you can post whatever you would like there, including naming names, based on circumstantial evidence. Then it's YOUR butt on the line.

Until then, I will keep my butt as safe as possible, while still doing what I can to keep the membership, the forum and the public safe from problems like these if/when they arise :)

[Irishy]

I can't keep up. Is RR Alecto?

[AKay]

I never followed her story very closely once I spent some time reading her blog as I was always fairly certain, especially lately, that she was a faker. Anytime one of her threads got a decent amount of traffic lately I'd open it and wonder if this was the time she finally got outed. That said, I hope those who believed/donated don't feel too down about all of this. Your kind hearts are nothing to feel bad about and the only person who did anything wrong here is the loser behind the scam.

[library_youth]

Just chiming in to say that for me the point I finally started doubting her was the twisted ovary. Something about that seemed so absolutely off that I felt something was not true about the whole shebang.

It sounded off to me, too. Last year, a coworker of mine had same ovary issue, and she was out for nearly three weeks after having emergency surgery to remove it. So Ruth's quick recovery definitely gave me pause.