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March 24, 2011 / Joyce

Last Post pt. 3

One of the most frustrating parts about this case is that every time I am just about to leave the courthouse from a trial, I get a few texts from friends who are concerned because they read a “tweet” from ben saying something about the case.  Like he’s live tweeting.  And then it gets back to me before I can even tell my friends myself.

My lawyer has been corresponding with me and letting me know that they’re working on getting my ex-parte order extended until I graduate, which is a huge relief.  So as of now, the order is still going on.  Unfortunately, I still have a court date at the end of this month against ben, so I don’t know how to deal with that.  I’ll post more about that as I find out myself/as it happens.

On another note, I finally made a new blog.

February 25, 2011 / Joyce

Last Post pt. 2

While working three jobs and being a full time student is stressful as it comes, getting my finances together for grad school, figuring out where to go/what to do next is also a huge aspect of my immediate life.  When it’s coupled by the ever growing stress of ben harassing me, a lot of things get unbearable and I end up performing a little less than perfect at one or more of my jobs.

If I don’t win an order of protection against ben, I think that I’ll be ok.  Just having this past month knowing that he couldn’t harass me online has been a Godsend.  I don’t think he really understands why I even applied for an order of protection. How many times can you ask someone to stop bothering you, only for them to retaliate and push you even further???  I just want him to completely leave me alone but he doesn’t seem to understand what I say to him and he twists and transforms it into something that didn’t need to be as dramatic as he is making it to be.

The terror surrounding the whole aspect of him publishing my password stems from two major places right now.

The first being that my password was very personal.  Of course all passwords are personal but the meaning behind mine was very personal. jahc67111–  ”JAHC” are all the first initials to members of my family.  The “67111″ part of the password was the password assigned to me (embarrassingly enough) from the Mest (as in the ‘punk’ band) discussion board.  I still had an account there, last time I checked, and ’67111′ was still my login password.  I combined two things that were extremely personal (one being extremely embarrassing) together to form that password when I was 15 and used it through college.

This password was the password that I protected my computer with.  It’s the password that ben learned when he helped set up my internet as an ITS consultant.  It’s the password that I used to sign into my online bank account and Truman email.  I felt completely violated when I saw it published on his Twitter.  I don’t think anyone will understand how violating it feels unless they see their password at all.  Just try it.  Usually when you type your password, it’s protected by asterisks  or bubbles, but try typing it straight up on a word document.  It’s daunting.  Now imagine seeing it on someone’s public Twitter.  Just typing it up there in my last paragraph was hard enough.  Ben contaminates everything.

I thought that I was already feeling violated when I saw all of this, but this past week in court, his lawyer had told my lawyer that it wasn’t a real problem because it had to have been a very common password because BEN WAS USING IT TOO. Since we had broken up, he had changed his password to mine and had been using it as his own.  That makes absolutely no sense to me.  If that’s the case, why would he publish his own password,too?  Even more creepy, why the hell is he using my password unless he’s a really deranged creeper.  It’s not a common password at all.  It’s a seemingly meaningless string of numbers and letters.  And it only meant something personal to me, and not him, other than the fact that I was using it.

Having an order of protection may keep ben from contacting me, and it might not.  I just had to take a chance.  I can’t live in fear of him trying to screw up my life or him trying to infiltrate it no matter where I am.  I mean that physically and emotionally.  I’m in a really great place right now.  I have a loving boyfriend.  I love the things that I do.  I love working everywhere I am working.  I love working with the people that I work with.  I love learning, and being young, and enjoying who I am.  In a few months, I’ll be at grad school, doing all of these same things.  I just want the reassurance that I can enjoy all of these things, but most importantly, enjoy all of these things without ben in my life.  If anything at all, hopefully by going through this court ordeal, he will leave me alone anyways, regardless if there’s a piece of paper protecting me or not.  I don’t know, but I can only hope.

 

February 22, 2011 / Joyce

Last Post pt 1.

Hello, to my closest friends and family.  I wanted to first let you know that I’ve enjoyed writing to you and  using the more private option of password protecting my journal entries on here.

I had been waiting for a long time to make this post.  This is my last post/series of posts that I will have on this website, www.hefloats.com.  The reason being is that I am in a messy court case against Benjamin Andrew Sells because he had been time and time again harassing me.  In his passive aggressive ways, he would barrage me with facebook and linkedin friendship requests on a bi-weekly basis, flooding my inbox.  Occasionally he would also accompany these requests with emails asking me why I’m not responding to his texts, responding to him, how messed up his life is, etc.  For a while, I thought that he really needed help and didn’t see his actions as a manipulative or malicious thread–until I realized that he was actually trolling me and intentionally trying to force his presence back into my life, something I’m constantly trying to eradicate because he is so insistent.

In person, I would avoid him like the plague.  Online, I tried to delete everything immediately as I was receiving it and suppressed all of the anxieties he was causing me.

Even though I had told him countless times to leave me alone (all of the evidence I have against him, I will be “scanning in”–as my lawyer likes to call it, as I bring them up) and have also done so in a very nice manner, especially because I know how terrible of a place he was in (because he would email me about how suicidal he was).

This was the last real correspondence we had, if you don’t count how he continued to flood my email boxes (I had forwarded the whole thing to Jessica because I was worried that he would go into my email and delete our correspondences) (For your convenience, I will Underline all of my responses, and highlight the extra disturbing pieces):

 

Joyce Wong

to jessica.endaya

show details Jan 21
Jessica, 

I’m forwarding all of these emails to you in case he tries to get on my account and delete them. 

Forwarded conversation
Subject:  

(no subject)

Benjamin Sells

to me

show details 11/1/10
are you leaving after this semester?
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Joyce Wong

to Benjamin

show details 11/1/10
sorry, no. not yet. 

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Benjamin Sells

to me

show details 11/1/10
why are you sorry? I just want to be sure to get to talk to you before you leave forever.
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Joyce Wong

to Benjamin

show details 11/1/10
oh, I thought this was one of those questions where you’re asking me when I’m leaving so that you can be free or something.  Anyways, I’m finishing out my minor and saving up money for grad school. 

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Benjamin Sells

to me

show details 11/1/10
Cool! I just changed my major, so I’m going to be here a minimum of three more years.
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Joyce Wong

to Benjamin

show details 11/1/10
why’d you change your major? 

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Benjamin Sells

to me

show details 11/1/10
I got kicked out of school last semester, so to get back into school they made me change my major. Now I’m biology! 

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Benjamin Sells

to me

show details 11/1/10
why the interest? I thought you didn’t want to talk to me. I’m surprised you replied, really.
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Joyce Wong

to Benjamin

show details 11/1/10
I didn’t want to be rude and just ignore your email. 

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Benjamin Sells

to me

show details 11/2/10
Still, it seems like you’re acting different. Did something change?
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Joyce Wong

to Benjamin

show details 11/3/10
no, nothing has changed. 

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Benjamin Sells

to me

show details 11/3/10
well, guess there’s no reason for me to change anything either. :)
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Joyce Wong

to Benjamin

show details 11/4/10
I think that I don’t understand any of this thread of emails.  People change all of the time.  I was under the impression that you were asking me if anything had changed in my life.  I am only replying to this last email because I am interpreting it as a cryptic, dubious one. 

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Benjamin Sells

to me

show details 11/4/10
I think we should have a conversation at some point. By saying “nothing had changed” I interpreted that as “I’m going to continue ignoring you in real life” and so for me not to change, I meant that “I’ll continue ignoring you too because apparently nothing is changing.” Ignoring you is harder on me then it is to talk to you in real life. Every time I see you, see how you react to me, and specifically don’t talk to me, I want to die on the spot. I feel utterly hated, and extremely uncomfortable. Besides just wanting to die constantly, I’d really like to do something about it, since this is something I might be able to control since it’s real life versus my out of control brain. Maybe we can find a better alternative.
Also, do you have my three disk set of back to the future?
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Joyce Wong

to Benjamin

show details 11/4/10
I’m sorry if my gut reaction is making you feel like you want to die.  I honestly just don’t know how to react if I see you on campus, etc.  The way that I see it is that I don’t really know you/who you are anymore, and I guess that I am treating you in that way.  What alternative are you looking at? 

On Nov 4, 2010, at 11:32 AM, Benjamin Sells wrote: 

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Benjamin Sells

to me

show details 11/4/10
The easiest alternative seems like communication. If you don’t know me, and you don’t know who I am, wouldn’t the option here be to ask? I contact you because I want to open communication, not keep it closed to where we both feel uncomfortable in real life. If you want to know about me, all you have to do is ask.
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Benjamin Sells

to me

show details 11/4/10
Or, better yet, ask OTHER people about me. If you don’t want to interact with me, ask other people about their recent interactions with me. I spend a lot of time with jeni graves, jessica crouch, and nicci warner, to name some bobs who I frequently talk to, along with ashley long, jessica endaya, and abby neidig, who I think you still talk to. Since it seems like you also don’t trust me, maybe you’d feel more comfortable talking with them about me than myself. 

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Joyce Wong

to Benjamin

show details 11/4/10
Ben, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but I rarely talk/think about you anymore.  I stopped asking about you last year in Seattle.  Sometimes I am curious about how you are or what you’ve been up to, but I see you as a completely different person, a person that has no ties to me and so I don’t pursue it any further.  I also don’t want to revert back to who I used to be.  Even if I asked other people how you were doing, etc., that wouldn’t change the way that I interact with you now.  Simply knowing about a person doesn’t make it easier/more reasonable to talk to that person (ie. knowing a lot about a celebrity doesn’t allow you to go up and talk to them, etc. not quite the same analogy, but whatever).  I’m not going to seek out my friends to ask about you.  That’s kind of creepy and very unnecessary.  If you want to talk about where we are in life, that’s fine.  But I can’t just be friends with you again.  My friendship isn’t that flexible, it has to be earned. ( I know that sounds really bitchy, but I’ve just become more cautious about everything)  

Why are you so curious about me now, and why do you want me to know what you’re up to so badly?  Is everything ok?  Are you alright?
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Benjamin Sells

to me

show details 11/4/10
Uh, no. I got kicked out of school last semester after I tried to drink an entire bottle of whiskey and a whole box of sleeping pills. I started cutting myself last semester and have scars up and down my arms. I hate myself. I don’t want to live anymore. However, I’ve been doing what I can to try to prove to myself that staying alive is important, since it seems that dying right now isn’t something everyone else wants me to do. I’m on celexa, adderall, and I self-medicate about every other day. I see a counselor once a week, and a doctor every month. Many people have helped me out a lot in my path to no longer causing myself harm, except you’re one of the biggest reminders of how terrible of a person I am. If I could change that situation, maybe I wouldn’t feel driven to go home and stick a paper cutter in myself every time I see you in public. I’d rather be on speaking, friendly terms instead of what’s going on now. What do I have to do to “prove” myself to you? It all seems relatively vague on what you expect. Do you want me to show you my scars? Journal entries? I’m pretty ready to do whatever it takes, because I’m sick of feeling this way. 

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Joyce Wong

to Benjamin

show details 11/4/10
I guess what I mostly don’t understand is why you’re doing this to yourself.  You don’t have to prove anything to me, and you shouldn’t feel bad or anything when you see me.  I’ve moved on, and I don’t hold any animosity towards you, (other than when I hear from other people things that you’ve said about me since I came back last year–and even that isn’t really anything I get upset about.)  You really should just let go of these feelings about me that are making you cause self harm.  What about us is making you do/feel this?  In my opinion, I don’t think that talking to me will help you here.  It seems mostly like an internal problem that you aren’t able to let go of.  However, I really don’t like hearing that you’ve nearly given up on life–I don’t want that for you.  If you would like to meet up and talk about it, I’m willing to do it if it’ll help you on your journey.  But I want to make it clear that I feel really uncomfortable about it, because I honestly don’t feel like I know you.  I am available today from 3:30-4:30 and then after I get off of work, which will be around 9:15.  I am also available tomorrow from 3:30 until 4:30, and then after I get off of work, which will be around 9:30.  Let me know if these times will work for you or not. 

-j 

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Benjamin Sells

to me

show details 11/4/10
If you really don’t feel any discomfort or hatred towards me when you see me in real life, then there’s no reason we need to meet. My problem is solved.
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Benjamin Sells

to me

show details 11/5/10
Also, I still expect you to give me the Back to the Future trilogy back. I know you have it. 

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Joyce Wong

to Benjamin

show details 11/5/10
I haven’t seen it for at least 2 years.  First of all, chill out.  Why do you even think that I have it? 

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Benjamin Sells

to me

show details 11/5/10
I saw it in the house you lived in last year.  <–(WHAT THE HELL?????)
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Joyce Wong

to Benjamin

show details 11/5/10
well, I’m going to ask around and see if it’s anyone else’s first before I do that–if/when I find it.  I’ll get back to you about it after that. 

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Joyce Wong

to Benjamin

show details 11/6/10
I didn’t say that I don’t feel discomfort or don’t hate you.  I just don’t care about you anymore. 

On Nov 4, 2010, at 3:52 PM, Benjamin Sells wrote:
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Benjamin Sells

to me

show details 11/6/10
Sentences with double negatives are hard for me to understand. Mind rephrasing? 

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Benjamin Sells

to me

show details 11/9/10
what, don’t care to elaborate? 

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At this point, I stopped responding because of how crazy he was being and how uncomfortable I was getting from corresponding with him.
Even though I was definitely bothered and felt victimized because here he is, trying to win sympathy from me and I was up to a point (and it always happens) giving him sympathy, only for him to turn around, talk shit behind my back, and continue to tell everyone how crazy I am/was when I’ve been completely happy and haven’t been depressed since I’ve been in Seattle.
Anywho, what finally made me realized how taken advantaged I was and how he was still harassing me after more than 2 years since we’ve broken up, begins with this past winter break:
I was at visiting very briefly at Jessica’s house in KC, and we were up all night talking and we were both on our computers, completely tuckered out.  At some point, Ben had started ichating her, letting her know that he had been kicked out of school, again. I was only aware of one prior time of him being kicked out, but apparently it’s happened so many times now that he’s permanently kicked out of school.  Well, I was concerned for him that night because of what self harm he might inflict on himself (as evidenced in the above email thread) but soon forgot about it, because I was so tired.
Eventually, school had already started and I was already a week in when I remembered about ben being kicked out.  I wanted to know if he made it public that he had been permanently kicked out of school so I checked his twitter (it wasn’t very hard to find since he religiously facebook friended me every other week).  I had gotten two pages in, when I saw the UNTHINKABLE.
He had POSTED THE PASSWORD TO MY BANK ACCOUNT AND EMAIL ACCOUNTS ON HIS TWITTER:
My password, which was once jahc67111, was a password that I had been using since my sophomore year of high school.
I wasn’t sure what to do, but knew I needed to do something, so that Friday, I filed for a restraining order against him.  I was immediately granted an ex-parte order, a type of document that acts as a restraining order without being on a record.  Most people don’t get issued one of these unless there’s an immediate threat or danger.
There are SOOOO many things that I need to post and talk about in my next updates, but I’m out of time for the internet today.
However, Here’s a quick timeline of what has happened since I’ve filed a restraining order (I’ll put scanned documents in later):
  • Order of Protection filed Friday, January 21st against Benjamin Andrew Sells with an ex-parte order issued.
  • Received massive amounts of hits on my blog.  Notably, images were documented to be viewed and taken from my blog of my carabiner knife and images of Colin and I at a shooting range two Novembers ago.
  • Tuesday January 25th, I was served with papers from Ben that he was also filing an order of protection against me (like I have a hard time avoiding him at most costs).  This did not include an ex-parte order. Evidence against me is that I carry a concealed weapon (my carabiner climbing knife) and a photo of me holding up a poster at the shooting range, smiling.
  • Trial on Tuesday, February 15th @ 1:30 pm.  I have a lawyer who is representing me.  Ben supposedly had asked for one of his family members to represent him–lawyer for ben never shows up.  Judge allows one continuum for Ben to find legal representation.  He gloats.  The officer residing in the courtroom tells me as I leave the court that he had taken Ben out of the court to pat him down because he looked suspicious.  He also checked his briefcase for concealed weapons only to find that Ben had brought a huge briefcase with nothing in it.
  • Today’s trial, Tuesday, February 22nd @ 1:30 pm.  Ben hired a lawyer yesterday.  His lawyer wants to bargain with my lawyer that ben is going to drop his case because his lawyer refuses to represent him on it because there isn’t any real evidence against me.  His case against me is dismissed by Judge Swaim, but mine gets postponed yet again, because the defense is asking for a different judge.  The reason ben’s lawyer is still representing him in my case against him is because all of his harassing is done online, and Missouri’s stalking/harassing statute requires a physical presence.  Additionally, he says that Ben is exercising his first amendment rights, which is true, so I’m exercising my first amendment rights.
Since Ben has been going around for the last two years telling everyone about my used-to-be-depression, self harm, rape, and recovery, I felt that I should defend myself for the first time in this whole matter.
Stay tuned for my next update–if you thought this post was ridiculous, wait til you see my next one.

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