The Truth About Ruth - Part 3

[previously]

I haven't seen Scarlett75 either. Man! At this rate it's only 4 more days til I can read chatter.

Calladus seems to miss the forest for the trees, IMO. Possummomma is a real person. The possummomma blog is her (mostly) accurate "real" blog. She could, theoretically, even actually have Lupus, though I doubt that due to the UV screen stuff and the timing of the divorce. She just also engages in all these not real pursuits. She's clearly "out for" fundamentalist Christians, people who knowingly have high-order multiples, Catholics, and such. She also seems more inclined to target the "types" on TLC shows, which makes the predictions about looking out for ex-polygamists seem awfully smart.

One question I'd love to ask Calladus: is the hatred towards atheists is Fresno that bad? I'm an atheist in a red state and my kid goes to Catholic school and it's all good. I figure by the time she graduates she'll have more religious knowledge than her more fundy-leaning relatives and will be that much better equipped to discuss things with them.

[DarkAnts]

I kind of like that jacket. Where would one find something like that? I've never looked into special clothing, but that jacket is cute. (sorry for the derail)

REI had that king of jacket in the spring.

[Oddeverything]

This is more what someone with lupus looks like out hiking than hatless and short sleeved. That outfit is made of specially treated fabric that blocks 99% of the UV rays.

100% this! Factor in the sunscreen and you've got the "outside in the sun for longer than 5 minutes" auto-immune outfit!

[Curious]

REI had that king of jacket in the spring.

Thanks :)

[Coconut Flan]

If you want the UV protection, this one is by Sun Precautions.

http://www.sunprecautions.com/product/14400

[FiddleDD]

I'm going to have to look up the stuff about Vyckie and her daughter later. Sounds like some nice long threads of insanity for nighttime reading. I swear I have never heard a weirder reason for a falling out...

[Vex]

That's the sort of thing I need. I go bright red when I'm out in the sun for more than a few minutes.

Ugh, and to think I used to be able to TAN.

Could someone please be a doll and link me to the post that discredits PM's Lupus? I'm slogging through the second thread but I haven't seen it.

[DarkAnts]

If you want the UV protection, this one is by Sun Precautions.

http://www.sunprecautions.com/product/14400

REI carries a few brands that make clothing from UPF fabric. I have sentisivity to the sun and heat (hives and reashes) so I wear UPF clothing when I go outside. I get mine from REI when they are having a good sale.

[Coconut Flan]

For my lupus purposes, the REI stuff isn't quite good enough. At least what I tried wasn't. I gave mine to my daughter and it's great for her. Coolibar also makes sun protective clothing and it doesn't quite cut it for me either unless I double or triple layer.

[previously]

I don't think anything discredits the lupus, specifically. I think it's suspicious because she is such a scammer, and she picked a symptom of lupus (sun sensitivity) that led towards monetary donations and that seems easily disproved by her FB posts.

[DarkAnts]

For my lupus purposes, the REI stuff isn't quite good enough. At least what I tried wasn't. I gave mine to my daughter and it's great for her. Coolibar also makes sun protective clothing and it doesn't quite cut it for me either unless I double or triple layer.

For me, it depends on the rating. I have to have SPF 50 or higher. But I understand that other people need more protection.

[Oddeverything]

First real entry is up: http://www.truth-about-ruth.com/lets-ra ... d-for-all/

I hopefully will be able to write two more tonight, including an entry that will tie all the identities together. Be patient with me. I am middle-aged and my bifocals are steaming from over-use. But the ball is rolling. Share any link to any entry any place you like and my site is creative commons - use the material however you like, just link back to me.

[NotAFundieGrrrl]

Awesome 1st entry, Oddeverything, and I'm so happy to see another Central Texas woman on FJ! I'm looking forward to the rest of your blog updates--major kudos to you!

[Calladus]

You ever write a long and excellent posting consisting of several paragraphs of excellent words?

And then have it all go *poof* because the forum software decided you weren't spending an hour composing your thoughts and making edits, and adding links to various items, but instead concluded that you had actually disappeared, and so dumped everything and told you to please log in again when you hit "enter"?

Yea... that happened. And I probably won't be able to re-write that thoughtful, respectful post, because this week is going to be a busy time for me with work and preparing a rental house to rent... and still trying to find time to fit in for family, friends, and all that lovely sawdust I should be making in my brand new garage woodshop - once I clear it of furniture and boxes of things that are either bound for a garage sale or for Goodwill, or most likely for my root cellar.

So here it is in a nutshell. I've been snowballed with religious nuts and conspiracy theorists in the past, and due to my position in the local atheist community I've had hateful communications sent to me from a few people from all over. So I have a knee jerk response to conspiracy theorists, because anything I've said to them in the past is usually taken to be part of the conspiracy.

I've taken the time to read some of what Ruth has posted on this site and on the Razing Ruth blog, and although her words seem heartfelt, they are poorly crafted - and not up to my friend [redacted] (aka Possummomma) standards. Unlike me, [redacted] writes very well, and effortlessly.

And [redacted] is finally getting a chance to see her kids, that were taken from her for a time by a husband who is, if not wealthy, then well off and willing to use his money and position to rake her over the coals.

The one thing missing in all these words is someone actually doing any real footwork. Even so much as a phone call.

So here's what I propose. I exist, I'm not a sock puppet. And I can confirm that with a phone call. You can find my number at the Calladus Blog. If you email me, and give me a Paypal address, I'll gladly donate $0.50 to you through my confirmed Paypal account with my full name and address in it.

Then I suggest that perhaps Ruth could call me. If she's my friend [redacted], I'll know. I'll blog about it too. If she doesn't want to call me (after all, I'm just a strange man from Fresno to her), she could allow me to do a credit check on her. Or, she could donate a penny through her own Paypal account to me, or to the moderator here. She doesn't even need a Paypal account if she has a credit card or a VISA debit card. There are lots of ways to verify identity. I'll be happy to be the middleman, and keep all personal information private, or arrange for a certified third party to do it.

If she's really a 20-something with no kids, and not a middle-age woman who lives in Bakersfield currently visiting her kids in Chicago, it would be easy to clear this up.

Finally, if she refuses to do this, it does NOT mean she is secretly someone else. It may mean instead that she's a somewhat frightened young lady in a difficult position who has trust issues.

I'll take this moment to say that my initial fears currently seem to be unfounded. What I've found here is a community of people who are smart and caring - not the viciousness that I saw in the Gosslin fan club. My hair trigger seems unwarranted in this situation. But the [redacted] that I know is very open about her life, and doesn't have the time or energy or poor morals to live two lives.

Oh, one more item. Lupus is a funny disease. It makes for some interesting and somewhat scary reading. And I've witnessed what it does to [redacted] when it is active. It's a little frightening. And I'm glad her efforts to control it have been paying off. And as someone who was married to a woman with a chronic illness, I know the, "but you don't look sick" mantra that is all too common. Sometimes you just run out of spoons.

[Vex]

Calladus, thank you for taking the time to post. I'm sorry your original thoughts were eaten by the site, I would have liked to read them. I have a couple of thoughts-slash-questions for you.

I don't think anyone here is suggesting you're a sock, or if they are, they are in the minority.

You say that you would know if [redacted] were the person you were speaking to on the phone. How?

People who perpetrate these kinds of scams are often very good at changing their inflection/accent/vocabulary to fit with each persona. It's also very easy to get voice-changing software that completely masks a person's real voice and can make them sound like a person of a different gender and age.

Additionally, I very much doubt 'Ruth' will take you up on your offer. Her MO seems to be ignoring offers of help, even (or perhaps especially) when they could verify her identity, such as meeting up with people from this site or naming her family members.

How do you explain the IPs matching up to identical locations throughout 'Ruth's' 'roadtrip'?

For the record, I haven't made my mind up about the RR = PM theory. I just have questions/observations. I dislike conspiracy theories too, but this one isn't especially farfetched.

[lilith]

Thank you for taking the time to look about and get a feel for our community Calladus. We aren't on a witch hunt and regarding your friend we don't have an agenda outside of seeking truth regarding Razing Ruth and her identity.

[Calladus]

You say that you would know if [redacted] were the person you were speaking to on the phone. How?

Excellent question. At the moment I don't know if I can tell the difference if the two do speak to me. But running that experiment would be useful, wouldn't it?

How do you explain the IPs matching up to identical locations throughout 'Ruth's' 'roadtrip'?

Compared to what? A series of locations, or compared to [redacted] timetable and locations. And if they are compared to Possummomma, how did you do so? I want to know how you got Possummomma's IPs during this period to match them to Ruths.

Let's assume that both Ruth and [redacted] are poor, and traveling by car, from the West Coast to the East Coast. Money is tight. The best route to take from Southern California is 15 to Utah, 70 to Denver, then 76 and 80 to Chicago. Both stopped at a KOA camp, maybe more than one. Was it the same KOA camp? That may be suspicious.

And as you point out, Ruth may not want to contact anyone. That still is not good enough evidence to say she's actually Possummomma.

I can be suspicious, but I won't be sure without damning evidence. [redacted] is a friend.

[Burris]

A blogger responded which is basically a giant fuck you get a life FJ

calulu.blogspot.com/2013/07/razing-ruth-and-free-jinger.html?m=1

I haven’t been following Ruth’s saga that carefully.

I neither believed nor disbelieved Ruth’s claim until she wrote about how her sister, raised in the same extremist environment as Ruth herself, had borne a child out of wedlock and given this child in adoption to a lesbian couple. Extremism is hard to escape. Such an act as Ruth describes, while not impossible, is unlikely.

Ruth set out a tip jar and I did not donate. Others did, on the assumption their money – money they worked to earn, which they could have spent on their own families – was being used to help Ruth start a new life. There is now a considerable body of evidence the money was used in some other way – and those who donated, while it’s unlikely they’ll ever get a straight story, are entitled at least to ask how their good will was used.

That’s one of several reasons why I find Calulu’s post ever so patronizing and wrong-headed.

Yes folks, I am aware that the gals of Free Jinger have been talking about how they outed Ruth of Razing Ruth as a lying liar and scammer.

Yes, people have requested we remove Ruth from the lists of writers at No Longer Quivering.

Calulu could simply announce that she and Vyckie have decided to leave RR’s posts up in part because they don’t see compelling evidence that would justify doing otherwise. That Calulu would add anything else to that announcement, and in such a condescending manner, suggests she's a far bigger fan of drama than she pretends.

And really, Calulu deserves to be called out on this:

Here's the deal. We're not taking down Ruth's writings. For a couple of good reasons.

1. I haven't seen any compelling evidence either way to indicate Ruth is or isn't who she says she is. Vyckie has talked to Ruth on the phone more than once and is satisfied Ruth is who she says she is. We're not going to 'dig' as we both have better things to do.

Wrong. You do not have anything better to do than this: You and Vyckie have developed a website specifically to help people who have been victimized. It is you’re job, when the need arises, to try making sure vulnerable readers aren’t victimized again – this time, by a contributor to your site who is using that site to garner hits and money.

It’s one thing to argue in favour of keeping Ruth’s posts up because you are not satisfied with the quality of the evidence against her. It’s quite another thing to adopt an offensive posture against those who question your wisdom merely because you’re too lazy to do any vetting.

2. Ruth's series was a good one that others were helped by so it really doesn't matter who Ruth really is. Not my business and it really shouldn't be anyone elses.

You believe – and I cannot even begin to fathom why – that the fiction (?) someone else wrote about escaping domestic abuse is somehow helpful to people who are really stuck it it; that the salacious sensationalism of Ruth’s story is helping people.

The people who read your site are looking for real hope and for real and tested and useful advice on how to leave a potentially lethal situation.

It would be bad enough if Ruth were merely taking money under false pretences. It’s only money. But the questions surrounding the validity of her tale actually damage the credibility of your site and taint the information offered by NLQ.

And you don’t care. You don’t even think it’s your readers’ business.

What the fuck is the matter with you?

No, Vyckie is not Razing Ruth regardless of what fetid fantasy world some of the Free Jinger people live in.

No, Vyckie is not someone else or a sock puppet connected to Razing Ruth.

No, Vyckie did not give out Razing Ruth's real name, address or contact information. Nor is she a backstabber, child-abuser or drama queen.

No, Vyckie did not ask Princess Jo to start a thread at FJ asking if Ruth was fake.

FJ has thousands of members, most of whom don’t care very much, if at all, whether Ruth is what she claims to be or not. There may be a handful of them pelting you with the wild conspiracy theories you posted, but most people have their heads screwed on just a bit tighter than to believe any of that nonsense.

Your time is better spent ensuring the integrity of the site you help to run supposedly for the benefit of battered and abused members of vulnerable populations. Why you’d dignify any of the stupid crap in your list above is beyond me. It does show, however, just how invested you yourself are in this drama.

We at NLQ refuse to be drug into this silly self-made drama that does not concern us.

Oh, so it’s the royal “we†now. I wonder how many long-time readers of NLQ – you know, the people that keep the lights on over there – would be surprised to learn what “we†think about how the ends justify the means in a case like this.

GET A LIFE!!!!

It isn’t even about Ruth at this point. It’s about you – about your cavalier attitude towards the legitimate concerns of other people, mixed in with the kind of hypocrisy that would allow you to address, at length, those stupid conspiracy theories you mention even while claiming it's too time-consuming, and beneath your dignity anyway, to vet a questionable source.

Frankly, I wonder about the whole lot of you – whether any of you can be trusted to deal with people in crisis.

[Mama Mia]

Hi Calladus,

Thank you for coming here, I think it's great you are open to questions.

My main concern about Possum Momma was how extreme her sun reaction was, compared with her ability to go outside with minimal covering and to engage in outdoor activities. I understand about lupus having flares, and all about spoons and about how many illnesses are often invisible to outsiders. I think I used up today's spoons last week!

It is the contrast with such a very severe sun reaction with the later sun exposed photos that makes me think "scammer". ...has she had a change of medication, or some other factor that accounts for such an extreme variance?

As far as the IP addresses, my understanding is that when "Ruth" was posting on her trip, some of the IP locations that showed up to the admin here did not match up with where she said she was. But did match up with locations that your friend was posting on her Facebook or blog that she visiting. The most notable being Virginia, when Ruth was saying she was somewhere in the Midwest.

I think people are very concerned about Ruth's truthfulness for two reasons, the amount of money she has collected and that if she is lying it discredits statements by other young women who have left fundamentalist cults.

Eta: to Burris regarding the "speculation" that Vyckie is Ruth. I was one person who said that was a possibility, but in the same post I said Ruth could also possibly be Princess Kate or a 15 year old boy. My point was that whoever Ruth is, she also has a real life. I was just wondering why people would think that because someone had a real identity and had been seen in person it would mean they couldn't also have a completely fictional online persona. I don't know a thing about Vyckie except what I've read here, the point was it could be anybody.

[Curious]

You ever write a long and excellent posting consisting of several paragraphs of excellent words?

And then have it all go *poof* because the forum software decided you weren't spending an hour composing your thoughts and making edits, and adding links to various items, but instead concluded that you had actually disappeared, and so dumped everything and told you to please log in again when you hit "enter"?

I haven't read all your post yet, but I wanted to address this part before I forget and for your future reference to hopefully save you some pain.

If you tick the keep me logged in box, you won't time out when composing a long post. I've had posts sit for days before hitting submit and not lost them. You *will* get a message that your post couldn't be submitted or didn't go through or something like that, but just hit submit again and it will go through just fine.

Also, if you run into a situation where you get something like a server timeout (which are pretty rare here, but they do happen once in a while) or some other glitch like that. If you just hit the back button on your browser, 95% of the time, your post will still be there and you can submit. You may get the error message about not being able to post it, but again just hit submit once more and the post should go through just fine.

I'm sorry you lost your post and I do want to say again (in case you didn't see my previous post) that I appreciate that you registered under your real information.

Now I'm off to read the rest of your post :)

[Vex]

Caladus I'm not sure of the details regarding the IP addresses. As I said, I'm not one of the people who is convinced PP and RR are the same person, I haven't been following the arguments too closely. Other posters, such as Mrs S2004 can provide more details than I can.

I am really disgusted by the attitude NLQ's management is apparently taking.

I can understand them keeping the content up until Ruth has had the opportunity to respond. I can understand them keeping it up because they're not convinced by the evidence against Ruth.

But it is already so difficult to convince people that religious abuse takes place in ATIQ families, and fakers are inflicting terrible injury upon the genuine survivors. Perhaps the worst part is that it gives the ATIQ crowd ammunition in their arguments that people who decry their religion are horrible people who are wrongly persecuting them. This lets them cast doubt upon every story of abuse, upon every survivor.

No Longer Quivering is supposed to advocate for this community, to protect them. I am disgusted.

[Curious]

You ever write a long and excellent posting consisting of several paragraphs of excellent words?

So here's what I propose. I exist, I'm not a sock puppet. And I can confirm that with a phone call. You can find my number at the Calladus Blog. If you email me, and give me a Paypal address, I'll gladly donate $0.50 to you through my confirmed Paypal account with my full name and address in it.

I think that, initially, some people may have casually wondered if you were a sock, but it only took 1 quick google search to tell you were not. I think that maybe originated from reading the Gosselin stuff.

Gosselin fans are notorious for being the worst fans out there, so I'm not surprised that you did not have a pleasant experience with them.

I'm not sure if you saw it or not, but when I activated your registration, I did post that you were on site and that I had verified that you were actually the Atheist blogger that claimed to have met PM. So hopefully no one will have further questions about your non-sockiness.

I'm curious about one thing. Since PM (I'm using this to refer to Possummomma not Penn Mommy, just so that is clear, btw) admitted that she has used jhawksgril and scarlett75, how are you able to so easily write off everything that was said during the Penn Mommy issue and now during the RR issue as not being her?

Make that two things. You seem to be addressing the lupus from an energy stand point (ie: good days and bad days) and not addressing the rather extreme sun sensitivity at all. There are pictures of her on her facebook that show her in full sunlight in a swimming suit, short sleeved shirts and IIRC almost a tank top (I might be wrong on that and it's just another short sleeve shirt). How do you reconcile that with someone that couldn't even go out for moments at dusk without having to rush to the ER?

I want to say that I understand chronic illness, btw. My mom had MS and I, myself, am disabled. So I get the whole "good days/bad days" thing. I also have an allergy to the sun. You will never see me out in full sun in a swim suit even on my best day.

Thank you for coming here to address these issues and I appreciate that you offered some options rather than just screaming at us and telling us to fuck off.

[Mama Mia]

If you have doubts about the fiction element of Ruth's story, read through both her NLQ series and her blog.

On NLQ she relates how when she was ten and starting to develop her entire family went bra shopping at the thrift store with her, and how humiliated she was by having her entire family searching for bras on the racks. But on her blog, she and her sister are remembering their childhood and talking about how their brothers weren't allowed to see bras, and didn't even know what they were, and how she wasn't allowed to wear a bra for a long time.

Those aren't the kind of inconsistencies you would have if you were just changing details for privacy, or misremembered a particular childhood incident. Those are two entirely different stories.

I'm sure there are more, but these definitely read like a novel, with different revisions as she edits.

[Oddeverything]

Second entry up on truth-about-ruth.com: http://www.truth-about-ruth.com/whats-in-a-name/

This entry presents the bare bones of the proof that links Our Lady of the Many Identities to Razing Ruth, Possummomma and others, so for everyone who has been asking for PMs and explanations, this entry will go a long way toward getting all the information that clears things up in one place. There will be a big expansion on most of this information in later entries.

Calladus, I don't call people. It's not you - I answer the phone only if it's my husband, my mother, my doctor or my vet. I sympathize deeply with the position you are in but as a fellow-sufferer of a photosensitive autoimmune disorder, an atheist and a person who runs a site debunking conspiracy theories, I would never have launched truth-about-ruth if I did not have my ducks in a row. I'm only too happy to communicate with you about anything you want, but I don't see how calling you, having you run a credit check on your friend, etc. can prove she was not behind all these scams. How does a credit check provide information about her IP addresses and online history? We already have plenty of people who have sent her money via Razing Ruth and it's not like she couldn't set up a separate PayPal account linked to a different credit card or bank account, a variation of her real name, and a new e-mail address.

By your own words it doesn't seem like you know this woman very well. You know her online well-enough, it seems, but your friendship with her is so tenuous that she might be afraid if you went to her house? And she's not a young lady - she's a middle-aged woman with four kids who routinely travels alone. I appreciate that you have tender feelings for her, but short of going to her home, videotaping her as she logs onto the computer she normally uses on the internet connections she normally uses and filming as she creates an account for this site and leaves a comment so the mods can compare it to previous IPs used by Razing Ruth, there is no way for you to exonerate her. You'd also need to verify that she had not switched Internet services recently and document that somehow.

I am so sorry she put you in this position. But once you have the totality of information in front of you, it is inescapable - your friend has been engaging in Munchausen by Internet and malingering for years.

And please pay attention to what many of us are saying about her auto-immune disease. In an entry in January of 2008 she describes what sounds like a sun allergy but attributes it to her SLE. She said she was outside at dusk for less than four minutes and began to blister before she even made it back inside and shortly was in so much pain she could not bear it. I've never heard of anyone having that fast of a reaction, let alone at dusk. It's also been my own unfortunate personal experience that discoid lesions/plaques/erythema nodosums simply do not form that quickly and one certainly would not call them blisters.

But let's assume she does suffer from attacks that severe. You realize that is the biochemistry of the disease - she is claiming she has a severe case of SLE with photosensitivity. That reaction is going to happen more or less the same way for her every time she is in sunlight regardless of whether or not she is feeling good that day or has spoons to spare. There is no way anyone who has a reaction to UV rays so severe that she "blisters" within minutes of exposure to sun at dusk will ever let herself be in direct sunlight unprotected again, no matter how good she feels. She will not be walking the Appalachian Trail in short sleeves and she definitely will not be in the afternoon sun in the pool in a bathing suit.

She also has remarkably clear skin for someone who has such a severe case of SLE she "blisters" after 4 minutes of exposure at dusk. I'm not even as close to being as sick as she claims to be but I have scars from plaques all over my arms, shoulders and one on my face. I would love to have skin as clear as your friend's.

Again, I am so sorry you are having to deal with this. It's clear you care about her. But she has been lying to you like she has been lying to everyone else.

[Justme]

Calladus sounds like Steve Maxwell's ultra-ego. We have "good Stevie" who is portrayed on his site, and "bad Stevie" who drinks pepsi's with shots of rum while trolling the 'net when his "children" are scrubbing cabinets and teaching oneTonRamp..... :nenner: