There are likely things you have read in various forms of media about what this blog is. You will find those descriptions to be generally incorrect.
Additionally, as a heads up, it’s worth noting that in providing a concrete story and examples, this blog has apparently had the unintended side effect of helping a number of abuse survivors come to terms with their own relationships (and from what I understand, causing distress to some others who have not yet come to terms). I didn’t really know what emotional abuse was when I wrote this blog, and the comments from therapists and survivors who have since taken the time to inform me have been tremendously helpful to myself and a number of other commenters. I’m grateful to those of you who have reached out, and apologize to those who came expecting a light read and left feeling any significant measure of distress. If you’ve never dealt with emotional abuse before (as I hadn’t up until this point), it can be especially difficult to spot, as one of the most persistent patterns is being made to feel at fault for your partner’s behavior. Each situation is different, so I’m hesitant to offer general advice, but if things get bad enough that you fear for your wellbeing, and you feel safe enough to do so, please consider calling the National Domestic Violence Hotline.
Edit: There is now an ongoing educational series exploring the forms of control and abuse apparently highlighted in this blog. In the hopes that it may educate people on what to look out for, here is a link to the first video in that series.
thezoepost 
Good find!
Finally a group came out with this kind of information. Should have happened a long time ago, and put all this bullshit to an end. If someone would have just presented this before everybody weeks ago, they wouldn’t have given a chance for people like Fish and Anita to jump to her rescue and start this entire “war”.
Though the whole thing with Zoe is dying down. No one cares anymore (if they ever did in the first place). She had a spot in the lime-light which she will most likely never regain. Depression Quest got up on Steam despite the general majority voicing an opinion against it. But that was never the point. Even the #GamerGate hashtag has moved on from Zoe Quinn to challenging gaming journalism all together (like they should have done in the first place. Zoe Quinn is just one breadcrumb on a really long trail, and we have you to thank for exposing that trail).
Though I have to admit, this whole thing does make me want to delete my OkCupid profile.
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Thank you for this whole page. This is incredibly brave and important.
You are obviously a smart guy and obviously know you’ll take a certain amount of flak for being “that ex.” I admit that was my first thought when I saw the length of your coverage here.
But damn, the more I read it the more the pieces have clicked together in my own life. Without a doubt in my mind, you were the victim of a histrionic abuser.
I have been, also, and although I’ve know that for a while, it took me til now to see all of his manipulative ways. So thank you so much for having the bravery to value this information over harsh reactions. It has helped me immeasurably and I’m sure it has helped others (both in Zoe’s life, and in similar relationships.) And if there’s a chance you haven’t stumbled across that diagnosis yet maybe I can help you by mentioning it.
If you haven’t already, I suspect you may have the same sort of realization as me googling histrionic personality disorder. This is a very common disorder to develop in the children of borderline or narcissistic parents and it interpersonally devastating. Her cheating, and gaslighting (that’s the official name for what her husband did and what she then did to you) and hardcore emotional manipulation are all part and parcel of that diagnosis. Additionally, the weird comments about wanting to blueball people, needing to have a “backup” in any relationship (I think that’s what her cheating was anyway) may all make more sense in that light.
I suspect I know EXACTLY what you blurred out to help protect her privacy/vulnerability, and I gotta say I have to admit your restraint in protecting her feelings. I will respect yours and give no clues, but that too fits perfectly with this diagnosis (the claimed behavior and thoughts you blurred out.) Thanks again for your insight. I wish you the best.
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In general I don’t approve the comments doing armchair psychoanalysis, because I think they’re in poor taste. But, I’m reconsidering my view. All of the comments center around the cluster Bs, and regardless of their accuracy, letting people see some parallels between this and those might be valuable.
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Something has been naggling me about this situation, though I’m not sure if you’ve already addressed this issue:
What about the wife of Zoe’s boss? Did you speak to her? Ask her approval before airing her dirty laundry along with yours?
Cheating sucks, but I would say it is worse if you are married and then cheated on than if you are simply dating. Greater commitment and a messier breakup is required when married.
In humiliating Zoe and her boss, you also did so to the wife. She is an innocent party in this matter, and I feel so so terrible for her. Now everyone knows that her husband cheated on her. All her colleagues, friends, family know that her husband was unfaithful, and I wonder if she would have wanted to deal with this matter privately. Her choice, however, had been taken from her.
Please correct me if I’m wrong. I hope I am.
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No. You’re right. It was definitely one of the worst ways for her to find out. And I feel bad about that.
I made best efforts to inform her before publishing, but was unable to find her. I don’t think that’s sufficient reason to keep her from ever finding out though.
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Thanks for being honest about that.
She needed to find out her husband cheated, but my heart wrenches for the additional humiliation she must be going through.
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Yeah. Well, presuming she’s found out. There’s no info about that either.
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Perhaps you may find this of interest: http://growlingducktoo.wordpress.com/2014/10/07/on-the-zoe-quinn-drama/
It’s not so much arm-chair psychoanalysis as “I’ve been living through this for almost 20 years”.
I, unlike you, can not seem to escape it. I’m sorry you had to go through it, but be happy you’re out.
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You’re pathetic. I’ve been cheated on before by several partners, but I have NEVER even considered stooping as low as writing a butt-hurt blog and inciting an internet witch hunt against an ex. You should be ashamed of yourself. Take this blog down, you’re not helping anyone by keeping it online for the world to see (except for people to confirm how awful you are).
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Actually, I’ve gotten a lot of comments from abuse survivors about how much this blog has helped them.
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I’m one of them. Kudos to you, what you went through, and this entire blog. My first relationship ended on a note similar to this. I’ve been in a healthy relationship now for almost three months, and for once I feel at ease. I’m sorry you had to go through with something like this. Know you are NOT awful, and that you deserve as much happiness as any other goddamn person on this earth! You are supported by a lot of people, including me. Keep your head up!
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Yeah, except one of the express purposes of this blog is to name and shame someone. That’s really fucking low. If this is purely about working through issues, you could’ve done it without identifying the people involved and screeching, “AHHH DON’T TRUST THEM!” Christ. If I did that to the last ex that I have confirmed to cheating on me, I would have denied her the chance to get married, have two beautiful boys, and would’ve made it harder for her to kick her substance abuse issues. Just the thought of an alternate reality where those things are destroyed — all because of my actions — sends a chill down my spine. Seriously. Stop.
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I was in a relationship with a borderline female, and I sure as shit empathise with you and thankyou for writing this blog. These types of Cluster B females can destroy lives, so be happy you got out, and rest easy knowing you are not alone!
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You’re missing the point. It’s not about the cheating; they actually tried to work through that — which you would have known if you had read the blog. Before attacking a blog, perhaps read it first?
And you’re so wrong about this blog not being helpful that it’s not even funny. It sparked me to write about an abuser in my family.
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Yea point out in his blog where he calls for a witch hunt and a mob to harass this terrible person he dumped. It’s not there. The guy couldn’t have even known if one person would read this long ass thing let alone that it would blow up. Your post is stupid, plainly stupid and uses all the classic bad thought processes stupid people use. First you try to caveat your indignation by (most likely lying) claiming you’ve experienced the same thing this guy has, while only saying you’ve been cheated on not that you experienced a person like this. So the caveat doesn’t even work. Secondly you go on to straw man the entire blog by putting forward a main premise that this guy is wanting to seek vengeance and unleash a mob, which is completely unfounded and nowhere in the blog and why you didn’t quote it. Lastly, you beg the question by condemning this guy for committing an action that you assumed was true, when it is in fact untrue and there is no evidence of it at all in the blog. Most importantly you have rationalized yourself into a position where you are attacking someone who wrote a benign blog post about his experience that contains no aggressive behavior, hate, or desire for vengeance, while simultaneously defending a blatantly horrible, unethical person that has been convicted by the sheer amount of hard evidence this guy provides. So congratulations on the last one you have demonstrated you are just a simple minded tribalist, and can rationalize excusing the patently immoral mistreatment of a person because she’s on your team in some media game you think you know everything about.
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Thanks for writing this. I’m sorry for what you are going through but hopefully you’ll be stronger and wiser by the end of it. It would be easy to become what abused you, as Zoe did. Never turn hateful.
For what it’s worth, I too speculated cluster B while reading your experiences.
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Jeez, you’re a fucking freak. Like is this the only person to have ever given you positive attention in your life, or fucking what?
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http://growlingducktoo.wordpress.com/2014/10/07/on-the-zoe-quinn-drama/comment-page-1/
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I’d like to say thank you for this entire page! I could sit here and tell you that you should have never posted any of this about your ex, but who am I to judge you. I can’t and I won’t. I’m actually incredibly glad you did and that I happened to come across this. My ex-husband treated me the same way and for the longest time, I felt insane. His constant lies and lies to cover up lies and lies to throw me off from thinking my own thoughts and lies to convince me I was wrong would drive any one to believing they are crazy. I thought I was alone in my feelings, alone in dealing with a pathological/compulsive liar. I begged him to seek counselling when our marriage ended and I broke through all the lies. I don’t think he ever as or ever will.
But thank you for putting your story out there for the world to see. For letting others know they are not alone and that they are being abused.
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I am one of the people who thinks you should not have done this – with all the names etc. It seems pretty clear that you have wanted to damage ZQ’s career, as well as any venting you feel the need to do about the way she treated you. This reminds me of a therapist that I knew who told me that it is now rare for therapists to take notes during sessions because a client can demand to have them and this has resulted in blogs full of unbalanced people putting all the notes out there, naming the therapist etc. NOT a healthy thing to do in any circumstance. Obviously ZQ was a partner, not a therapist (which BTW you could benefit from), but it is a similar thing – you seeking to damage her professional reputation.
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Of course. Her professional reputation is based on a lie. I am bringing it back to the truth.
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Professional reputation? Chances are that most hadn’t heard of her until you made this blog outing her. I don’t read Kotaku because their layout is just terrible, never heard of her or Depression Quest before hearing about this blog through media. I think you are doing her more good than harm. Sure your blog has spawned misguided haters, but some of my friends have actually asked if I would think less of them (because they have seen my previous discussions with you) if they contacted Zoe to talk about doing a project with her (don’t know if they had or not). At most, people will be weary of being in a relationship with her and will be weary of trying to get any endorsements from her. Just shows I was wrong, this isn’t appearing to hurt her career in the least.
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She had twice as many twitter followers as the creator of the critically acclaimed game “The Stanley Parable.”
Plenty of people had heard of her.
But yes. Like I said, this wasn’t intended or expected to hurt her career. It was only intended to inform people of the truth.
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“Like I said, this wasn’t intended or expected to hurt her career. It was only intended to inform people of the truth.”
Glad to hear it, but be careful because comments like this make it appear otherwise:
“you seeking to damage her professional reputation.”
“Of course. Her professional reputation is based on a lie. I am bringing it back to the truth.”
A developer and programmer’s career is based on their reputation and if you ruin one you ruin the other.
Twitter followers isn’t the best gauge of popularity thanks to all the spam accounts. If you went on that then you definitely increased her popularity (back in March 2014 she had 11, 789 followers [via Web Archive]) and now, under her new account she has 38.6k followers (38,643 to be exact). So far, I’ve not seen anything to indicate her professional reputation has been proven a lie, but you did 100% prove that her personal reputation is a lie. 1 out of 2 isn’t bad. Just be safe, please, with the weirdos in this world, you never know what wackjobs will come out of the woodwork wanting to defend her by attacking you.
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I think it’s about time this stopped now.
Weigh her infidelities towards you against the absolute shit-storm that Zoe now finds herself in the middle of, which you caused. Look at the fall-out and try to ascertain whether or not your actions towards her (and countless others) are more or less severe than hers. If the person that’s caused the most damage could be deemed the winner, who has “won”?
You have. You’re the winner. Be gracious in this victory and shit-can this post as a statement. You can stand by your post, as it was indicative of how you felt at a time. But can you stand by everything that has happened since? When all is done and dusted, Zoe Quinn will be a name forever tarnished just by doing a quick Google search.
Is that what you had really intended to happen? Because it seems you’re quite happy to sit and spectate on the sidelines whilst this all goes down. I’m sure whilst she was fucking her boss, she didn’t in her wildest dreams expect you or anybody else to personally and professional ravage her like this.
I’m sorry she fucked you over man, but you’re figuratively murdering her.
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Deleting this post would be an absurdly bad idea.
Like, holy shit three thousand JPEG conspiracy theories level of bad idea.
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How pathetic do you have to be to air your dirty, filthy laundry out for everyone to read.
You caused so much hate and violence towards women over nothing.
Her cheating on you has nothing to do with us, little child. Most people cheat on each other. We have had great leaders that do it and not one of you men bats an eye at that.
Gaming journalism is a joke. It’s nothing but opinion. You put many people in harms way over such petty bs you should truly be ashamed of yourself.
You act like a young little boy. Grow up. Learn how to handle adult situations like an adult or stop having adult relationships.
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What part of this relationship seemed adult to you. I think her behavior was pretty childish.
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You really can’t have it both ways, Vanessa. Either cheating is a big deal or it is not. And if it isn’t, and is just a “normal thing adults do,” then Zoe should have no problem with her cheating behavior being exposed. If the behavior is not “dirty and filthy,” then what dirty and filthy laundry is there for Eron to expose?
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Amazing read. So sorry to know all this blame has been shifted to you. ZQ can do all she wants to silence your freedom of speech but she will not silence the rest of us who will not put up with her bullying. Let this be a testament for all the wrongdoing that you’ve received. Please do not take this down. It pains to see how much they hate victim blaming but destroy your name in the process. Things will get better for yourself if you look ahead. I sent you a FB message into more detail if you want to read. No matter what anyone says just remember that you are the one who suffered abuse and she is the bully.
God Bless
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I don’t know how many people this is truly helping, but I’m glad to see you saying it is. Are you aware that media is now crediting you and your actions as the catalyst that spawned GamerGate?
“The Gamergate controversy was sparked this August after a video game developer was accused by an ex-boyfriend of trading sexual favors for positive media coverage.”
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Having read through this whole thing, it’s helped me to understand some of my past relationships and how they worked and why they failed. Apparently I’ve been a doormat for much of my life romantically, I just didn’t realize it till now.
From “You don’t love me anymore because you don’t do this for me anymore” to “I feel like shit because you keep doing this thing”, and all of the lies and deceit… It’s amazing. I had never thought myself the target of any kind of abuse such as this, but looking back, I can only imagine what the “normal” dating scene looks like when you don’t find crazies all day.
I also can’t blame you for putting her actual name out there. In the same way one may consider another a socio/psychopath, Zoe seems to have quite a few sociopathic tendencies. This isn’t for her career, this is for the people she interacts with. That future bosses may not want to interact with her, and she doesn’t get hired, is her own doing.
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I’m almost embarrassed to admit how much I enjoyed reading this. Its horrible what you were (and still are) put through. It read like a plot summary of a fucked up novel on how to have a toxic relationship. It is such an accurate description of unhealthy relationships that happen in real life. I’m not a gamer, I came upon this by accident. But chrism really pissed me off. HE DID THIS? sounds like you are an enabler. SHE did this. Those were her actions and decisions. This is his reaction. Did she really think she could treat people like that and never have any consequences? I’m glad that someone stood up to her. “grow up and deal with real life relationships.” wow, thank you people for saying “its ok to be abused and your a pussy for wanting to be treated with love, dignity and respect.” how about quit letting Zoe manipulate you into defending her and making excuses? Your all her victims and don’t even realize it. DONT TAKE THIS BLOG DOWN!
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I have never been in any relationship as destructive as yours. But I feel that what you have done here is incredibly brave. Fuck all those people that tell you that you should not have posted this. That woman wronged you in so many ways, and this is both her comeuppance as well as your therapy. You have every right to air your grievances, and have your side of the story told. I know you will find a woman deserving of the love and devotion that you lavished on Zoe. I wish the all the best you and her when you do.
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