This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/panickchimken on 2024-09-17 05:53:24+00:00.

Forgive me, I don’t know how to format a reddit post and I’m sort of frazzled.

I don’t know what to do.

For context, I was born 16 years ago, when my mom and sperm donor were still in college. My mom had met him at a party, and conceived me there. She didn’t know he was a registered sex offender until she was 6 months pregnant with me, and this sort of marked the beginning of the end for their relationship.

For the next two years after I was born, he kept trying to hurt my mom through me for breaking up with him. He told the police she and my grandparents were abusing me right before my grandparents wedding so that I would miss it. Once he even sent drug dealers knocking at my mom’s door because he told them she had their money for his marijuana.

That was the final straw for her, and she got my grandparents help for us to move states and start a new life without them. She’s been a single parent since then, surviving one day at a time in a whole new state with nobody to back her up.

We ended up moving back to the state I was born in to be closer to my grandparents and now I’m enrolled in a high-school here. I had no idea about any of the things before we moved beyond some foggy memories until about two years ago, when my mom started acting weird and I asked her what was wrong.

She finally told me everything, and told me the reason for her being distant was that his sister, my aunt, had contacted her on Facebook, and asked to get in touch with me, telling my mom my sperm donor was on his deathbed and he wanted to see me. My mom said no, and deleted her account entirely, but not before my “aunt” warned her to not be surprised when she and my “grandma” were going to pop up on my 18th birthday, whatever that means.

I finally understood so much after that conversation, and I had and still hold so much more respect for my mom for going through the things she did, even if we’ve never really seen eye to eye. Especially on phone and wifi things. I’ve never had an actual smartphone until a few years ago, and I just got wifi access less than a year ago. My mom’s always been suspicious and iffy about social media, and I understood way more after that conversation, but I understand very well now.

A while ago I signed up for a LinkedIn account, as I’ve been looking for a job casually, and I’ve been filling out little bits of info here and there. I didn’t even think twice about putting my information on there, and now I regret it and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t scared.

I got a text about two hours ago from a man saying he was my father, he missed me and he wanted to get in contact, and then his number. I’ve been panicking and scrambling and working myself into a frenzy trying to do a background check and find out if its actually him or a scammer or some sort of prank, but none of the sites take gift cards and they’re all pay walled.

Like I said, I dont know what to do. I don’t want to get in touch with this man. He’s a drug addict, done terrible things and hasn’t paid a dime of child support in my life. My account has to have my school on it, and I already don’t like that much. I don’t want to delete it, but I also don’t want him knowing anything about me. I’m posting this here since it’s definitely my fault for ignoring the possible repercussions of posting my information to an account with the knowledge that his family likes to stalk people online.

Thoughts?

TL;DR: Someone who could be my deadbeat, drug addicted, sex offender “dad” messaged me on my very public LinkedIn account, and now I don’t know what to do.