'I was being bullied anonymously online. I couldn't believe who was behind it'

By Alice Hampson

Brooke was on her lunch break. She'd been flat out all morning and the temptation was to heat up the leftovers she'd brought in and eat them at her desk while she powered on through. But she knew she needed a break. The leftovers would keep another day.

She got in line at her favourite café near to her office. She already knew she'd be ordering their famous mushroom eggs benedict, so she pulled out her phone and started scrolling Instagram.

Watch the video above.

Which is when she discovered she had a direct message from someone she didn't know – @truth78dude – but who was following her: 'Wow. You have really let yourself go. Used to be so sexy.'

It felt like a kick to the guts.

"I felt so embarrassed, even though no one else could see it," says Brooke. "I went bright red. I had to leave the queue and go to the bathroom. It feels embarrassing to say, but I started crying."

READ MORE: 'Help. Should I tell my friend her husband might be having an affair?!'

READ MORE: Melissa Leong recalls the invaluable lesson she learned on MasterChef

READ MORE: Pip Edwards reveals the conversation she wants all women to have

For the rest of the day – in fact, the whole week – the message seems to haunt Brooke's thoughts.

"I was actually feeling pretty good about the way I look," she says. "Y'know, I definitely don't look the way I did when I was in my 20s, but who does? I had just turned 39 and felt like when I want to put the effort in, I could look pretty good! But I also can't be bothered – and don't have the time – to spend ages getting ready, and I have other priorities than buying new clothes and shoes, so yeah, sometimes I probably didn't look well put together!"

Brooke didn't tell a soul about the message – she felt to embarrassed, so she just tried to put it out of her mind as best she could.

"I know I did spend more time getting ready that week though," she says. "What I should have done though, was block that person."

Because three weeks later, another message popped up.

'Yuck. Look at that double chin'

As bizarre as it was to receive these messages, they also weren't in response to anything. Brooke hadn't posted anything in months. They were just out of the blue.

She was at home when she read that one – and again, found herself bursting into tears. This time, her husband Doug was nearby, so she told him about it.

"God, I was embarrassed," she says. "But he was quite angry and reassured me that I didn't have a double chin and I was beautiful and it was probably some sicko who I'd never even met."

Brooke decided it was time to block this creep. But before she did, when she opened up Instagram again, the first post that popped up was from a young woman she followed who was now uber-famous after being on a reality TV show.

"She is, like, beautiful," says Brooke. "She's young, outspoken, but gorgeous."

What Brooke immediately noticed was the comment underneath her post.

'Yuck. When are you going to fix your teeth?'

It was posted by @truth78dude. The same person who had sent her the disparaging messages. The same profile that had no details about who was behind it – there was no photo, no name, and the account had no followers.

Brooke found herself going back through the account of this young woman she followed. @truth78dude was a prolific commenter. And none of it was good.

"He attacked every single part of this woman's appearance in some way or another," she says. "It was vile."

Then Brooke snooped a bit further and looked at the Instagram accounts of some of the other women who had been on the same reality TV show. Again, @truth78dude was everywhere, telling them how they looked cross-eyed, or should get botox, or get less botox or get to the gym, or whatever hideous insult he decided to throw at them.

"It was a pretty gross discovery," says Brooke, "but at that same time, unfortunately, it did make me feel better. The women he was insulting are attractive. It made me take it less personally. This was obviously just some disturbed person."

Brooke blocked @truth78dude and that was really the last she thought of the whole thing.

Until, around five months later.

Brooke was in the kitchen – it was a lazy weekend afternoon and she was starting a pasta sauce. Out the window, Doug was playing with their two young boys. Her phone buzzed – it was her sister calling.

Brooke's sister was quite a few years old than her, but also had two boys, although hers' were now pre-teens.

She was calling in a panic – asking if Brooke had seen what the eldest son had posted on Instagram.

"I didn't even think twice about it," says Brooke. "Doug's phone was right on the bench – I knew his passcode, we had no secrets. I opened his phone, so I could stay on the call with my sister and look at it. I pulled up Instagram and got to our nephew's account and saw – yup, what was a pretty risqué picture."

Her sister needed a non-judgmental, safe place to vent her emotions – to calm down and regulate her emotions before she sat down to discuss the post with her son.

As the phone call was wrapping up, Brooke took another look at the picture.

"I must have held my thumb down on the wrong spot – the icon in the bottom right corner," she says. "Because immediately, up popped a little box of options."

If you have more than one Instagram account, this is a quick way to jump to one of those other accounts.

"I only have one account," she says. "So, at first I was confused."

But there were three accounts to choose from in her husband's Instagram. The one she knew about – plus two others. They were @kitesandskites23… and @truth78dude.

"I told my sister I had to go," says Brooke. "Then I was just trying to work it out. I clicked on the @truth78dude option and immediately found myself inside the account that had, essentially, bullied me online and all these other women. It took a while to sink in, but yes, my husband was the troll."

Brooke confronted the situation almost immediately – calling the boys in to watch a movie in the lounge, while she got her husband to join her in their bedroom with the door shut while she confronted him about the account.

"Initially he denied it," she says. "But it's obviously impossible to deny, because I was holding the truth right in my hand. He had no explanation for it. He's never given me a good explanation for it."

Brooke says the decision to leave the marriage happened right there in that moment.

"It's truly bizarre," she says. "Earlier in that day, I would never have left him, would have never dreamed of leaving him, would have never thought there would anything I would leave him over. But, in seeing that. Everything tipped on its head. I was so repulsed."

Doug left to stay with his parents that night, and, by the next morning, Brooke was wondering if she'd been too harsh.

"Maybe he had some sort of psychological disorder," she says. "What if he had a brain tumour or something that was making him act strangely."

She suggested they see a therapist. He wasn't so keen. And he still wasn't offering any explanation, or anything more than a 'I'm sorry about what you saw'.

"That's the bit that really clinched it for me," she says. "It wasn't a direct, true apology – he didn't even seem to be sorry for what he did, just sorry that I saw it and was offended. I thought back to some of the snide things he'd said in recent years. In hindsight, some of it felt misogynistic. There were little things I'd swept under the rug – like some of the podcasts he was listening to. I knew I had to leave him."

It was a hellish time, going through the separation, Brooke says.

Friends rallied, but it was also a very lonely time.

"I snapped at a few friends and I regret that," she says, "But a few of them said the same thing – like, tried to gloss over it a bit and pushed me to give him another go. Another thing people said – quite a few – that really pissed me off was they said, 'at least you don't have daughters if he feels like this'. That drives me wild. We have sons. The last thing I want is for them to grow up being degrading and disgusting to women. I think I feel an even greater responsibility raising boys now."

It's been two years now, and Brooke says she has moments where she still can't quite believe what's happened.

"It's crazy that a moment can just change your life completely," she says. "What if I never saw that message? I think about it a lot. There are times when I miss my old life, of course, but I know I made the right decision and I hope, whatever happens, I can make sure that my sons never make the same mistakes."

*names have been changed to protect the identities of the people involved.

This article was reproduced with permission from Capsule. To read the original article, click here.

FOLLOW US ON WHATSAPP HERE: Stay across all the latest in celebrity, lifestyle and opinion via our WhatsApp channel. No comments, no algorithm and nobody can see your private details.