Paris Hilton stole my quote!

You might be flattered if someone famous tweeted your quote, after all they have a lot of followers. But when they actually steal your quote from you (plagiarising), meaning they used your quote so that everyone would think it was theirs, by leaving off your name, well speechless!

 This week I saw that someone had tweeted my quote without my name, someone from the survivor community who is a so called therapist, not the first time it has happened. So I put in that particular quote on twitter and google to see what else is happening to it that I am not aware of. I know that several people have used my quote but, as would be expected, used my name alongside it, often very small I may add! People seem to like and resonate this particular one. And what do I find when I start to explore online but Paris Hilton quoting my tweet as if it were hers, along with her picture.

 She wears my words like a designer dress.

        Paris Hilton tweet 

Together with her followers saying how deep it is etc etc. I don't know whether to laugh or cry it's so ridiculous. 

So you might wonder why does it matter. After all it's only words. Well it matters a lot and it is not only words, it is my words, from my head, my pen, my thoughts, my ideas. 

This was done by someone who appears to have everything but still wants to take something that belongs to someone else. 

On further invesigation I see that there are at least 30 other people using that quote as if it were their own. This is what people do, they cut out your name.

As a survivor of narcissistic abuse it rings red flags for me. You see I have had everything taken from me, absolutely everything from meetings with narcissists. It has happened a few times and each time I have had to pick myself up and start again. There is nothing that I have not lost to narcissists. You see narcissists feel entiltled to take from you. They feel they own the world. That what is yours is theirs, they have no idea of boundaries. I don't know if Paris is a narcissist, maybe not. But she certainly felt that it was ok to take my quote. To pretend it was hers.

Look I am not the greatest writer. But I write books to help others, self help books. So in this case it would have helped me, my work and other survivors if she had just added my name. Now what has happened is that other people feel they also have ownership of my quote and other quotes.

When I first began writing several years ago I tweeted a quote and a therapist of narcissistic abuse took that quote and even added her companies name to it together with a picture. It was then that someone told me you need to start owning them. So now I add my name to them. I didn't find it easy at first it seemed a bit egotistical but after more of my writing was being stolen I kept it up.

It made me realise that those of us who lived with or raise with narcissists often felt nothing belonged to them. So we gave everything away freely. Or we didn't make a fuss if it was taken. But there comes a point where you realise that it is important to speak out about injustice. As an Indie writer I make hardly any money from my books, that's not why I write. I write because I can't stop. It heals me and resolves things from my past. I write because I saw that others identified with my writing, my experiences and it helped them. So I keep going. 

So if you see a quote without a name, it has been stolen, someone wrote it. Plagiarism is serious. Please if you use quotes, if they really help you, inspire you, heal you, make you laugh...please quote the author

And Paris if you read this you need to take down that quote on instagram, twitter and facebook, apologise and in future add my name if you use my quotes. After all, aren't we just all survivors helping each other.