u/AffectionateLow1110

I am expecting the answer will be no, and I can make peace with that. I will try to briefly explain the situation:

In April of 2023, I had a fallout with an online "friend" who lives in WI with whom I had shared intimate photos and messages several years prior. This fallout resulted in him posting every single photo I had sent him into the Discord of our shared online community (at the time). There was no question that it was me in the photos. This was meant to humiliate me and ostensibly clear himself of wrongdoing. These were very explicit nude photos. We are both adults, and I had shared those photos with him consensually.

My partner at the time convinced me to attempt to file a police report, which I didn't want to do, but did at his behest. This meant filing a non-emergency report and having two local police officers show up to my door to talk more with me about the situation. I effectively spent an hour explaining this really ludicrously embarrassing situation to the officers, they were fine but ultimately, they just told me "I guess you've learned not to share photos like that again." I was told somebody would follow up with me with more information about the process of filing report against someone in the US. I of course, never got a call back.

In early 2024 I did some research on possible avenues for justice and was advised to contact somebody from the ICCC (Internet Crime Complaint Center), explain my situation, and see if this is a case where I could reasonably expect some follow-through. The lady I spoke with was not sure what to suggest and told me I would have to physically be located in the United States in order to file a complaint against a US citizen. She was also unfathomably rude and suggested I was wasting their time, but I digress.

I gave up on pursuing any kind of justice from a legal perspective, and I don't even think that I would want money or even to see that person in jail, and I don't need to get "vengeance" to move on from what happened, but it was a felony crime and I do sometimes wonder if I should have fought harder for myself. (for what it's worth I have documented tons of evidence and screenshots to prove all of this)

I am assuming that the fact that this is an online crime committed by somebody in the US against somebody in Canada, PLUS it was now over 3 years ago, would make it impossible to do anything about it now, I'd probably have to explain myself quite a bit including why I waited over 3 years.

I am not looking for judgment or advice on how to understand or feel about the situation, I am very much aware this whole thing was borne from my poor judgment in my early 20s. Just curious how this situation works from a legal perspective. Thank you

EDIT: I really appreciate the helpful comments and insight. I don't think that it would reasonable for me to do anything about this at this point in time. Even without any statute of limitations, I don't know that any potential monetary recourse or prosecution would be worth the time, money, and thorough rehashing of very shitty memories required. But it's good to know the laws around this in the future, should someone be in a similar situation as me. It's been quite difficult to speak about this without feeling like it will only warrant ridicule, so thank you for taking it seriously.

I allow myself to be angry and upset at the things that happened to me constantly throughout my childhood because of my mom with undiagnosed BPD and ADHD and narcissistic traits

I wish she never had me.

I wish I didn't end up being so neurotic and fucked up because she was my mother.

I second-guess constantly whether I want to have children of my own, not only because I am still healing from a narcissistic parent with BPD, but because I don't want my mother or my equally narcissistic abusive stepfather anywhere near my children but I would have absolutely no choice but to endure

I fucking hate that I have to be in her life. I hate her constant drama-seeking, constantly trying to rile me up by saying obviously insulting outrageous stuff and then scapegoating me as the hyper-sensitive problem child for not liking it. All my life she has thrived on pushing and tesrting my boundaries and seeing how far she can go to make me uncomfortable in this innocuous insidious way and I KNOW it's because she gets some kind of supply from this dynamic with me. I've often felt like I'm the only one who's been able to 'put her in her place' so to speak, aka be absolutely vocally explicit about her abuse in a way she CAN'T ignore or deflect or find an excuse for. That was when I was younger and I've since given up.

Recently on Mother's Day she absolutely lambasted her own mother for all of the abusive things her mom did when she was a kid (which is very true, my mom and her brothers had an abusive dysfunctional upbringing marked by alcoholism but she got it the worst as the only girl.)

But holy shit God forbid anyone ever bring up ANY of the countless horrible things she said and did to me and my sister throughout my youth. How her own alcoholism has been a source of fear and anxiety my whole life and the denial/gaslighting when confronted with that. How she routinely subjected us to her explosive vicious borderline-vs.-narcissist insane fights with her new boo thing who she very obviously cheated on my dad with, who she ALWAYS sided with over her kids, and this was BEFORE they got married...

And never mind the Mother's Day when I was 12 and she viciously split on my sister (10) and I because she didn't like her Mother's Day gift and felt insecure as a mom, so she left us both alone in the parking lot, and walked away and told us not to call her "mom" because she didn't want to be our mom anymore. Many incidents like that through my childhood + the constant sweeping of everything under the rug the next day. Bringing it up again later would only cause more reactivity and anger. There is never closure and you are expected to ignore it. She is literally mentally incapable of dealing with shame or feelings of being "bad" hence any time she is faced with having hurt someone else she simply DARVOs or uses cruel jokes as a way to get out of it or otherwise just has a tantrum. It's getting more and more erosive day by day having to employ cognitive dissonance just to pretend we have a good relationship and keep her ego assuaged to avoid the inevitable wrath. never mind constantly being reminded that my childhood was so much better than hers and that my generation has it so good and blah blah blah blah blah, as if I'm not allowed to have my own feelings about how I was raised or anything like that. Everything that I experience or feel is always a reflection back to her in some way and so it has to be fucking policed. It's fucking exhausting.

All my fucking life, me and everyone around including my enabler father (even long after they divorced when I was 7) had to walk on eggshells around this bitch. Always being told to keep secrets or not tell her things to avoid setting off her rage and insecurity. There are so many fucking ways I had to shrink myself for her or to protect myself. No wonder I developed such shitty fucking coping skills. I had absolutely zero positive models for emotional regulation and conflict resolution skills. I was constantly exposed to horrifically, emotionally, abusive behavior, and certain extremely disgusting and horrific behaviours were normalized in a way that I am still having to unlearn and deal with. It is still normalized in my family because of her that you know, all families fight, and treat each other like shit, and that's what it means to love each other. And it continues to this day and will never end until she dies.

I absolutely hate her personality. I hate how complicated it is. I hate that at the same time that all of the above is true, she has also done amazing things for me, and she has given me opportunities and experiences that I never would have been able to have otherwise, and has shown me a certain kind of love that many people do not get to have. It's really complicated and navigating my feelings around it is honestly exhausting. I continue to feel extremely jealous of other people's relationships with their moms.

I honestly wish she never had me. I know that if she had to go back in time and redo her life over again, she wouldn't have married my dad. and if she was forced to choose between having me or meeting my stepdad, I know which one she'd pick. And they could live their sad, dysfunctional volatile disordered lives together.

Also here's a poem since this is my first post on this sub:

Kitty cats are cute.
I love them so very much.
Meow meow, meow meow meow. :3