Farhad's Attempts to Escape Farah Rahmani's Wrath

Farhad usually tried to escape as soon as Farah Rahmani started screaming, attacking him, throwing things, breaking dishes, etc. but sometimes, she would block the door, put the chain on, and threaten to harm herself or someone else if he left.

It took a while but he learned he could distract her from throwing things and hitting him if he said something shocking. It was like an on-off switch! Instead of continuing her physical attacks, she would hang onto that shocking thing and harp on about it but that stratagem only worked for just a few weeks.

At times, he tried to run to the bathroom and lock the door but that too was a challenge because she usually ran, shoved him aside, and stood between where he was and the doorway.

Sometimes Farah Rahmani got angry as she drove. She would speed and go over curbs or into oncoming traffic while punching him on his shoulder or pushing him against the side panel. Or she would lean sideways toward him to backslap and punch him. Or she would reach over and grab and squeeze his body parts.

Farhad jumped out of the moving car a number of times but that was not always practical. For example, when she attacked him as they were on a bridge or on a major highway. Also, he tried to use the opportunity of 4-way stop signs and traffic lights to get out but Farah Rahmani often anticipated that and accelerated instead of stopping.

From December 2015 to when the family became the wiser and he started going to Baba's house or his friends' to keep away from her rage-filled outbursts, he spent many cold nights in the streets without his wallet, IDs or home and car keys.

Farah Rahmani always followed him. If she could not force him to return, she either locked the door and left for the night or stayed inside but did not answer the door "to punish him for leaving her". Then, to get him to return the next day, she hounded, begged, and emotionally blackmailed him by threatening to harm herself and others.

Separation

Farhad is an idealist! He has always been kind, generous, and too trusting a man. He entered into the marriage in good faith and regarded his vows as a lifelong commitment.

His decision to separate from Farah Rahmani and ultimately divorce her was more contemplative than his decision to marry her. For a long while, he expected Ms. Rahmani’s outbursts and emotional challenges to subside as she transitioned to a Western way of life. He suffered quietly to protect us and because he felt responsible for bringing her to Canada but despite all of his efforts, it ultimately became impossible for the marriage to continue.

Farah Rahmani was clearly unraveling but got overly reactive whenever Farhad suggested she sees a counselor. I also suggested to her to seek professional counseling on several occasions but she refused. Farhad tried to hint at Ms. Rahmani's inconsistent behavior during several of her doctor visits but Farah Rahmani is quite astute at manipulating people and situations to her benefit.

After a number of attacks by Farah Rahmani, Farhad, who had spent many nights on the streets to keep away from her, concluded that the marriage was irreparable.

By then he was physically weary and psychologically exhausted but was still committed to ensuring Ms. Rahmani’s continued wellbeing after separating from her.

His plan to leave the marriage with minimal fallout fell apart and the proverbial 'hell' broke loose when, as is expected from sponsors, he contacted immigration to apprise them of his plans and Ms. Rahmani discovered that he had consulted with immigration authorities.

She regularly monitored his incoming and outgoing calls and found immigration’s number among his outgoing calls.

Farah Rahmani became progressively more ferocious as of Thursday, June 23, 2016 when she learned Farhad had contacted immigration.

Then, on the Following Tuesday, as she drove at excessive speed and crossing over to incoming traffic, she hit, backslapped, pinched, and pushed Farhad against the inner door panel. She threatened, "God willing, you will be at my father’s side on Friday night." Her father is dead and the declaration that someone will be with a dead person is very similar to Mafioso kiss of death and taken very seriously in Iranian culture.

On Wednesday, Farhad called the police for help to calm her because again, she started yelling, screaming, and hitting him as soon as he got home from work. She went after him each time he left and pleaded with him to return only to again open the windows and cause ruckus for the neighbors' benefit.

That evening, Farhad decided it best to separate from her right away.

On Thursday, Farah Rahmani pushed and yelled at Farhad and a coworker who had given him a ride home to pick up a change of clothes and some personal items. She blocked their exit and they ended up calling the police for help.

On that Friday afternoon - the day Farah Rahmani had foretold Farhad would be dead - she was even more imbalanced. She attacked Farhad when he went back to pick up the clothes and personal items that he could not get the previous night and, yet again he had to call the police for help.

Ultimately, Farhad prearranged his next visit to the apartment with the police and later in July, they helped ensure his safety when he finally managed to retrieve some of his personal items. Even then, the officers had to call for backup to control Farah Rahmani.

After the Separation

Farhad walked away from the home he shared with Ms. Rahmani in June 2016, eight months after her arrival to Canada. For him it was the decisive and definitive end to the marriage but of course, Farah Rahmani did not make things easy. She took it as rejection rather than the logical consequence of what she had put him through.

Her tirades went into overdrive. In one breath, she pleaded with Farhad to return and expected the family to intercede on her behalf, and in another, she harassed the family, posted numerous rabid messages, threatened him in person and via intermediaries, and did everything she could possibly think of to discredit him and the family as we remained silent.

Even then, if you asked Farhad, he would have said, he still "cared for her wellbeing and wanted the best for her", and he meant it.

After separating from Farah Rahmani, although he knew the marriage was irredeemable, Farhad still believed she could overcome her challenges and have a normal life. So he continued to support her financially. He did not have to support her because her violence had forced him into separating from her. In fact, the divorce attorney with whom he consulted told him not to but he did.

During that time, according to her representative in the divorce court, Farah Rahmani tried to defraud the Canadian Government by claiming social assistance all the while Farhad was fully supporting her. From the public policy perspective, countries such as the U.S. and Canada do not concern themselves with the possibility of sponsored foreign spouses becoming 'public charges' who depend on government money because they can recover their costs from sponsors. Fortunately, the Government recognized her deception in this case.

On April 3, 2017, after enduring several more months of getting maligned publicly and being stalked, taunted, harassed, and attacked by Farah Rahmani at his workplace and home as well as in stores and on the streets, Farhad filed for divorce on the grounds of physical and emotional cruelty and the Supreme Court of British Columbia obliged and granted him the divorce on February 21, 2018.

Through it all, Farah Rahmani attempted to prolong the divorce process with an assortment of frivolous excuses. In conjunction, she begged and pleaded with Farhad and when that did not work, she harassed and attacked him, followed him everywhere, and circled his workplace as well as Baba’s house over and over, day and night.

If she was unable to find him, Farah Rahmani pumped Farhad’s coworkers, our relatives and friends, and 'community members' for information about his whereabouts, activities, and schedule while disparaging him and the family.

We knew some were obliging her – thereby endangering Farhad and Baba further. So we decided to keep everyone 'in the dark' – One the reasons why this has waited until now.

Farah Rahmani’s Original Plan

With respect to her plan for the family, in a nutshell, Farah Rahmani initially set out to orchestrate a chain of events to misrepresent Farhad under false light and establish herself as a devoted wife to his neighbors and closest friends.

This was toward embarrassing Farhad and by extension his immediate family and compelling them to give her money to back off and leave them alone in order to save face - just as she had done in her previous marriages.

Reportedly, such techniques (strong-arming and blackmailing unsuspecting spouses and/or families into wanting to 'save face' in front of their neighbors and friends by paying off the culprit to 'go away') are quite prevalent in Iran. In fact, per certain official records, Farah Rahmani got away with precisely the same thing in at least a couple of her prior marriages.

Many who, like Farah Rahmani, finagle their way into the U.S. and Canada further the approach and posture for additional payoff by way of disability benefits.

Some of these individuals up their ante yet further by claiming domestic abuse and/or getting pregnant and having ‘anchor babies’ soon after they arrive in the new country. In this instance, whether or not they take off with their children depends on the higher payoff between what they could get if they leave those children behind and how much child support they could collect if they take them.

Being recognized as a 'victim' and/or having an ‘anchor baby’ also yields a higher payoff when one aspires to collect social assistance and tap into other government-funded programs.

In fact, this is an organized racket with information exchange and 'how to' instructions on different ploys including but not limited to using makeup to fake bruises, scripting stories, and the ways and means of acting like victims.

For example, this video, currently circulating on the Telegram messaging platform, is designed to inspire those who like Farah Rahmani aspire to abuse the system:

In a number of 'before', 'during', and 'after' videos, Farah Rahmani undergoes a similar transformation on the fly as she dishevels herself, switches to, and adopts exactly the same poses to catch the neighbors' attention.

Farah Rahmani began expressing the desire to "give [her] 'Baba joon' a grandchild" even before she entered Canada. She neither acknowledges the offspring she already has nor communicates with him. Whether she actually planned to get pregnant or that statement was just another ruse with which to underscore her purported "commitment" and "devotion" to Farhad and the family, unfortunately for her, one of the doctors with whom she consulted within the first couple of weeks after her arrival nixed that notion when he pointed out in Farhad's presence that she was menopausal.

As of almost immediately upon her arrival to Canada, Farah Rahmani proceeded to abuse Farhad physically and emotionally while setting the stage to portray him as an irresponsible husband, son, neighbor, friend, etc.

For example, she would open the apartment’s doors and windows, create scenes, and raise her voice at strategic moments in order to catch the neighbors' attention. As is often done in Iran, families willingly 'pay' to hush up cries of indiscretion in order to “save face” before neighbors and the community.

As she harmed, belittled, humiliated, and intimidated Farhad in private, and orchestrated scenes with hopes of embarrassing him and his immediate family, Farah Rahmani actively ingratiated herself and denigrated him to us as well as his close friends. In addition, to embarrass Farhad further, she made the rounds and solicited thousands of dollars from his relatives and friends under varying pretenses.

Abusers tend to isolate and dehumanize their victims anyway but, given Farah Rahmani's narcissism and some of what she has said and done, she may have started thinking at some point that she could not only get us to turn our back on Farhad but also get us to take her 'under our wings' instead.

Some suggest, she may have thought she could alienate him from us and 'charm' us into embracing his 'new bride' / widow irrespective of him. They say she aimed to get Farhad’s family to support her as she freely pursued her interests such as gambling and spending time with her "friends" without him around as a deterrent. (She has unabashedly acknowledged her affinity for those interests on several occasions and in videos.)

If that is the case and she veered off the course she originally intended because she thought she could persuade us to shun Farhad and keep her around, then that was her biggest mistake.

Plausibly, Farah Rahmani's distorted mind could adopt such a strategy for the sort term but everything she said and did indicate that her ultimate plan was to do away with all of us one way or another.

Attempts to Create Rifts Between Farhad and Other Members of his Immediate Family

Farhad is a man of integrity, whose character has never been in question, except by those who do not know him.

Ms. Rahmani’s biggest mistake was picking this particular family! She misjudged Farhad and his family’s affinity for one another and tugged on the wrong lion’s tail.

We know Farhad very well and Farhad knows us just as well. Nothing she made up could cast doubt in our minds about him, affect our understanding of his character, and undermine our love for him. If anything, the more she fabricated and fed either Farhad or the rest of the family, the more we wondered about her.

Farah Rahmani would often invoke scenarios and situations to get us to talk about a specific topic. She then recorded each of us and played tidbits out of context for others.

In particular, toward humiliating Farhad and distancing him from us, many of her questions and stories were designed to extract “juicy” tidbits from us.

For example, When Farah Rahmani claimed a cashier had humiliated her, she recorded my reaction, “ ... he is despicable. That just shows his vile nature. I’m so sorry you had to experience that ...”.

Then, to “prove” to Farhad that his sister “also agrees” that he is a terrible person, she replayed that portion the next time she was humiliating him.

Just imagine! This was happening as Farhad was being beaten and tortured yet trying to protect us from her. She wanted him to think he had no one to turn to.

Unsavory Plan for Baba

Baba's glucose level and blood pressure have been under control for years. As Farah Rahmani persisted on sharing upsetting scenarios and stories to unsettle Baba and indulged him with fatty foods and sugar, both his blood pressure and glucose levels fluctuated from extremely dangerous highs to extremely dangerous lows.

Baba did not have such problems before Ms. Rahmani’s advent and his BP and glucose level have been under control since she ceased to have access to him.

Even when she knew Baba’s dinner was prepared and ready to serve, Farah Rahmani frequently insisted on bringing him food. Then, she would stay to make sure he ate it. On rare occasions, she dropped off a dish and left before seeing him eat it but called and quizzed him afterward to make sure we had actually served him her dish.

Whereas Farah Rahmani's dishes were laden with fat and sugar, ours were health conscious. At first, we thought it was her way of charming Baba but without exception, something in every dish Ms. Rahmani brought disagreed with him and everyone else who tasted it. In addition to questionable ingredients, the food she brought often contained foreign objects such as large pieces of walnut shells and whole pits of dried fruits.

We explained Baba’s health issues and his need for healthy meals over and over to Ms. Rahmani. She listened and acted as if she understood but the next day, employed yet another set of tricks toward compromising Baba's health.

Farah Rahmani compromised Baba’s health in several ways:

• First, she concocted scenarios and stories that made Baba worry and elevated his blood pressure.


• Second, she ‘showered’ him with sugar to ingratiate herself to him.


• Third, she tried to put him in vulnerable states in order to propel him against us. Fortunately, Baba is much more rational than she gave him credit for.


• Fourth, she repeatedly undermined our ability to care for him.


• Fifth, she weakened him drastically and affected his system adversely by supplying him with fatty foods and oodles of sugar that curbed his appetite and prevented him from eating healthy meals.

Footage of security cameras show Farah Rahmani slipping candy, honey, and sugar to Baba; leaving chocolate bars in drawers and cabinets around the house and telling him their whereabouts; calling to advise him to check the carport for snacks, honey, and syrup (shireh-shekar); cutting him a slice of the cake she had hidden in the trunk of the car when he went outside to see her off; insinuating that the rest of us were “unreasonably uncaring and mean” by withholding sugar from him; and whispering to him that "she will always protect him from us".

Farah Rahmani’s Relentless Pursuit of Farhad’s Doctor

Other than those aspects of it that relate to this subject matter, I shall not delve into the extent to which Farah Rahmani covets qualifying for disability benefits and victim assistance and the length to which she goes to become eligible. Suffice it that it is also the gold standard by other opportunists like her.

If it is not one doctor, it is another; if it not one malady, it is another; and if a doctor refutes and puts her in her place, then Farah Rahmani claims he or she has "given her something" to harm her or has "induced something" to accelerate her "imminent demise".

She holds medical practitioners in contempt and suspects their determinations despite spending an inordinate amount of time going from one doctor to another to claim an assortment of unlikely symptoms which tend to manifest only when no one else is around and defy all clinical evaluations.

Several times, she checked herself into the emergency room with bogus complaints. Then, while waiting for the doctor who would ultimately find nothing extraordinary, Ms. Rahmani who had commanded that Farhad leave work early and rush to join her there, would have him take pictures.

'Before', 'during', and 'after' pictures depict Farah Rahmani disheveling herself and posing as if on her deathbed. Once those 'photo sessions' were over, she would revert to her old self, straighten her hair, refresh her make up, and proceed to fidget with her cell phones.

Bravo Canada for offering universal health care to freeloaders! They have certainly made an art out of revolving in and out of emergency rooms by leveraging your taxpayers' money toward garnering even more of your taxpayers' money via frivolous medical malpractice and disability claims.

Farhad’s doctor has been the family’s "family doctor" for decades. In hindsight, now we know why Farah Rahmani insisted to have him as her primary care physician time after time and why she was dejected when he declined and said he was not taking on new patients.

She was even more persistent about having him as her doctor when she realized he is also Baba’s doctor as well as my 'doctor-away-from-home' and vigilantly tracked our appointment schedules. She did not say she would be stopping by his office in advance but showed up whenever one of us was there to not only sabotage Baba's health by slipping him candy but also plead with the doctor to take her on.

“Bagging” Farhad’s doctor would have served several purposes:

• First, She may have wanted the doctor’s ear so that she could explain Farhad’s cuts, bruises, scratches, etc. Sooner or later, Farhad would have gone to the doctor who would have recognized signs of abuse all over his body and reported it.
• 
  
• Second, she may have expected to get this doctor to see her way and endorse her presentments about Farhad toward pressuring the family further.


• Third, she may have planned to hedge her bet by threatening to discredit this particular doctor and using the embarrassment it would have cause the family to further her pressure on us.


• Fourth, She may have thought she could extract some sort of information to help her harm Baba further and get me out of the way.
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• Fifth, she has proven she is not beneath blackmailing professionals for financial gain.


• Sixth, Farah Rahmani has already persuaded several doctors to 'see her way' - including one in Iran who agreed to certify she has Multiple sclerosis (MS) several years ago so she could retire early and receive disability benefits there.
  
  She may have expected this particular doctor to think she has already been vetted by us and, because of his decades-long familiarity with the rest of the family, be less inclined to question her motive, therefore, easier to convince.

I sense Farhad’s doctor was the wiser when he opted not to take her on as a patient. I also suspect that in light of the large Iranian population in that area, blackmailing and bullying professionals toward insurance fraud and other amenities are more commonplace than the public is aware of.

("If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck". The majority of Iranians are moral. Moreover, most who have immigrated to U.S. and Canada are ethically appalled by such behavior. Unfortunately, regardless of country of origin, the larger an immigrant community, the more bad apples.)

Immediate Family's Reaction to Farah Rahmani's Original Plan

In particular, Ms. Rahmani's efforts at endearing herself and denigrating Farhad were focused toward Baba and me.

Baba was the obvious choice. Her "Baba Joon", as she called him, has the final say in everything to do with his house as well as his care. To her, he was the "Andvaranaut" magical ring that can make gold! To motivate him to let her move in and "care for him" as she wanted, she felt she had to show she is more devoted, more caring, more competent - and more willing to dispense sugar - than his own children.

As for why me? The rest of the immediate family tends to humor me by acting and talking as if my input counts. So she thought they would go along with my conclusions. Of course, later, I was elevated on her list of “overt” targets and landed alongside Farhad and Alex.

It was not that I was any special even then. She just needed to keep up the semblance for a while. From the start, she was as sweet as a tonne of saccharin in my presence while actively attempting to discredit me.

We respect Farhad and she was his wife. So we continued entertaining Ms. Rahmani in our lives but neither Baba nor I or Alex bought into her act for even one minute. Even when we had not quite figured exactly what she was up to, we knew her mad-hatter declarations were nonsensical.

Farah Rahmani could broadcast her vindictive and vicious lies a thousand times and they would still be and always remain lies.

Farhad and I may live thousands of miles apart but have always had a close relationship grounded in objective trust. As my confidant, he knows all my shortcomings yet still loves me. Similarly, I Know what he is capable of and what he could not possibly do and actually love him even more for that.

Ms. Rahmani underestimated the extent of our connection and tried to convince me that Farhad was something like an alien from a galaxy far far away when I know him well enough to know he is not the man she was describing.

I wish Farah Rahmani's crusade to cause friction within this family was a singular fantastic notion but now know she has actually pulled off more or less the same stunt with other families successfully. She attacks on all fronts, is tireless, and can be quite convincing to those who are susceptible to suggestions. Some families may be forced into giving in and throwing objectivity and loyalty out the door but that is not how this one operates.

Farah Rahmani’s Approach After Her Original Plan Failed

For a while, Farah Rahmani mostly focused on riling up and instigating their own neighbors (those living near where she lived with Farhad) as well as the immediate family and a few of our closest friends and 'community members' against Farhad.

Eventually, she realized we are not easily embarrassed! So, as a last-ditch effort to carry out her original plan with respect to involving 'neighbors', she threatened to "also tell all to Baba’s neighbors".

Ultimately, when her original plan to portray Farhad in such a way that we would be compelled to pay her in order to 'save face' before our neighbors and those close to us proved futile, Farah Rahmani modified her original plan and widened the circle by proceeding to drive a wedge between the immediate family and its extended relatives and the ‘community’ at large.

Specifically, to strong-arm us further into 'paying her off', she attempted to incite our extended relatives and 'community members' into doing her bidding by vilifying not only Farhad but also the immediate family.

After Farhad separated from her, Farah Rahmani continued that approach and often used those opportunities to pump people for information and keep tabs toward locating, stalking, harassing, and attacking him further.

How and Why Farah Rahmani's Plan Unraveled

Ms. Rahmani is neither a competent strategic thinker nor imaginative. Moreover, she is overly impetuous and, unless a clear advantage for her personally, has difficulty embracing new experiences and adapting to new situations. Since she is constantly focused on finding what could benefit her, she frequently misses the basics.

Her 'original plan' was not so original. Other 'imported' brides have employed the same simple blue print for decades. Its allure is that the archetype takes little imagination and is highly adaptable. Different countries, names, faces, neighborhood mindsets, and family pressure points notwithstanding, sadly, it can be and too often has been implemented more or less in the same way.

It is one thing to hear and see how others go about something. It is another to actually attempt it. In light of Farah Rahmani's self-defeating qualities, clearly her ability to initialize her plan of marrying and being sponsored, coming to Canada, and extorting from Farhad and the family was the result of much preparation, practice, setbacks, and fine-tuning. She had managed the 'marrying' and 'extorting from the family' parts before but now, she had to string 'the plan' together from start to finish.

Among other things, Farah Rahmani's impetuous nature in conjunction with her incessant greed makes her a ‘petty’ grifter. Her inability to resist stealing ‘chump change’ and her habit of swindling people out of $100 here, $200 there, etc. led her to reveal her hand much too early in the game and risk the potentially 'substantial payoff' that she was anticipating. Reportedly, she also followed that pattern with the boyfriend from whom she stole shortly after moving in.

In addition, there obviously was no concrete contingency plan - Just on-the-fly make-shift reactions. She started 'shooting herself in the foot' and her plan unraveled as soon as she hit the solid wall, otherwise known as this family!

Likely, Farah Rahmani has already fine-tuned her execution to eliminate some of the obstacles she encountered with us in her future dealings with other people and families; however, without help and intervention, she will remain unable to harness her issues and their effects on herself and on others around her.

The question is not whether she will try again? She will because she is a serial predator. Also, it is not whether she will succeed? That is not the point but, were I to venture an answer, I would say, highly unlikely. Farah Rahmani is the proverbial 'bull in a china shop' and the question is, how many families she will disrupt and how many lives she will ruin as she tries?

Ms. Rahmani has failed to follow through on many things in her life - Some big and some small. Whereas she outwardly praises herself and boasts of competence, she is quickly frustrated and loses interest immediately when she does not find herself up to par.

To protect their self-image as competent individuals, narcissists tend to shy away from what can potentially lead to failure. For example, after several attempts to qualify for a British Columbia driver's license, Farah Rahmani gave up and continued driving with her expired Iranian license. Later, she was forced into trying again when the police became the wiser.

Farah Rahmani gets quite flustered in unanticipated circumstances and/or when following methods/step-by-step guidelines and often reacts destructively when such things do not go 'her way'.

When a crowd pays her no attention, Farah Rahmani retreats to a corner like an insecure teenager. She also expressed her frustration with recipes by throwing pots, pans, and utensils at Farhad and splattering food all over him and the kitchen counters, floor, and walls.

Not only did her overt, impulsive mistakes and tantrums shattered through the calm and controlled facade she had meticulously cultivated for public consumption but also, Farah Rahmani made the wrong move at almost at every turn as she tried to fix what had gone awry with her plan.

Farah Rahmani's impetuous nature and inability to think things through completely were instrumental in subverting her plan. The more she reacted on the fly and the more she said and/or did to address, explain, bolster, and justify things, the worse it became, and the further she deviated from her planned course. As she tried to 'fix' things, her impulsiveness resulted in further miscalculation, blunders, and half-baked solutions. By extension, the resulting frustration led to more frequent mistakes and public displays of her violence.

Ms. Rahmani’s lack of imagination also thwarted her plan for Farhad and the rest of us. In many ways, she approached this family - exactly as she had done several times before - without even the slightest modification.

Her inability to imagine and act the part convincingly became apparent as we saw more and more of her mental, intellectual, and moral flaws, and recognized more and more discrepancies between her true self and how she hoped to present herself. For example, she claimed to be learned yet, instead of an open mind, exhibited profound and inflexible bias against many groups and a number of mainstream ideologies.

Even what was seemingly insignificant at the time proved chock-full of insight in hindsight. For example, a person's e-mail prefix, social networking persona, and avatar can tell a lot about his or her self-image, mindset, and inclinations. Her e-mail address, "GoldForRahmani@'xyz.com'" not only suggests narcissism by brazenly outlining her plan but also is a poignant indication that she is devoid of imagination.

We had no second sight prior to Farah Rahmani’s advent or a frame of reference for what was happening afterward. Conceivably, we could have continued giving her the benefit of the doubt, and she could have succeeded with us as well; however, it was quite easy to see what she was 'up to' once we started noticing the discrepancies and learned what she had done to others in her past.

Farah Rahmani's Attempt to Tighten the Noose by Inciting and Instigating others to do Her Bidding

In general, Farah Rahmani is the perpetual star of her own one-woman show. She does not care for those who are not attentive to her and her stories. After some forced initial civilities, she is clearly disinterested in people who do not compliment or abet her as well as in those she figure would not offer her tidbits, albeit innocently, to meld with lies in order to make her slander plausible.

Her world is divided into two factions: Those who buy into her antics and those who doubt or question her and/or express any sort of liking or admiration for Farhad. She immediately targets anyone who question her presentments and/or say anything nice about him.

Farah Rahmani tends to observe, read, and test people and thrives on her audience’s gullibility and propensity to gossip and/or be influenced by flattery. Generally, she begins by fawning over the other person’s wisdom and cognitive prowess. Then, she engages in lengthy hyperbolic boasts about how great she is and laments about fabricated wrongs she endures all the while professing selfless devotion and pleading for commiseration and intervention.

In addition, Ms. Rahmani does not shy from sweeping the gentlemen in her audience off their feet with flattery and wiles. She proposed “meeting and speaking with” several of Farhad’s male friends and relatives “in more casual and private settings”; however, I shall not touch that topic!

Farah Rahmani may have personality flaws and unsavory plans but by no means is stupid. She is a captivating speaker, astute in manipulation, and highly persuasive. She has a history of playing people to gather insights in order to shroud her depravities with plausibility and/or circulate misinformation. Moreover, she is relatively skillful at games such as chess and backgammon because she knows how to wile and distract her opponents - Precisely why she prefers to play against men.

Sometimes, she did not even have to ask for information and/or intervention overtly. Some fools volunteered what she needed to hear and/or took it upon themselves to pick up the phone, or go to Farhad’s work, or stop me in traffic to plead her case and/or admonish him and the family – Unaware that they were foot soldiers in her quest to embarrass us to the point of paying her off.

Methods to Denigrate Farhad and the Family

Ms. Rahmani started calling and making her rounds of visiting friends, relatives, and so-called “prominent members of the community” almost immediately after Farhad left for work, and on the pretense of needing to have a heart-to-heart (dard-o-del) and, wanting to save her marriage, spent most of the day fabricating stories and badmouthing and denigrating Farhad, and later, the whole family.

Her antics in this respect vary and she is quick at spotting and seizing opportunity. For example, she once pre-recorded Farhad as he was watching a hockey game. Then replayed it during her calls on the pretense of chitchat and/or heart-to-heart to certain 'community members' in order to support her claim that Farhad was there shouting at her. (She also tried to do that with me without realizing that he was actually sitting across from me.)

Concocting Fictional Scenarios and Stories

Farah Rahmani purports (still!) fabrications to embarrass, and/or demean, and/or denigrate Farhad and the rest of the family.

If someone does not act like he or she is on her side when she disseminates her fabrications, then Ms. Rahmani denigrates that person as well.

Her pronouncements are in writing, on the phone, and in person to Farhad, the immediate family, our cousins, our extended family, our family friends, Farhad’s own friends, his coworkers, and members of 'the community'.

For example, following a series of attacks by Ms. Rahmani during which she punched, hit, and assaulted Farhad, and yet again chased him up and down the street by car as he ran from her on foot, he managed to get away and hide for the rest of that night.

The next morning, as she often did after trashing the place, Farah Rahmani left the door ajar to attract the neighbors’ attention toward motivating Farhad and the rest of the family to comply with her wishes. Reportedly in Iran, neighbors are meddlesome and people are very concerned about what their neighbors think.

As it happened, a neighbor, who saw remnants of her attack on Farhad on the previous evening, thought their home had been broken into. He suggested they (Farhad and Farah Rahmani) call the police.

Apparently, Farah Rahmani misunderstood and thought the neighbor was going to call the police himself. She called Farhad immediately and was very concerned. She insisted he meet her so they could approach the neighbor together and dissuade him from contacting the police.

When Farhad declined to meet her, in a voice-mail, an agitated Farah Rahmani threatened to “tell everyone” Farhad had left the home in that state. She also threatened "to lay out bottles of liquor" and claim "he drank them and was drunk and dangerous".

Untrue and Misleading Portrayal of Farhad

To prevent others from seeing Farhad in good light and reinforce the lies she was spreading, among other things, Farah Rahmani vehemently prevented him from doing what she thought may make him 'look good'. Often framing those opportunities to portray Farhad as bad, irresponsible, etc. and make herself appear empathetic.

For example, if Farhad promised to stop by on a Sunday afternoon to take Baba for an outing or help Alex tidy up the yard, she threw a tantrum just as he was heading over and locked him in the apartment. Then, she called and said Farhad was reneging and acted as if upset that he was not honoring his commitment.

This in fact was among the very first inconsistencies that made us question things. Farhad has always delivered on his promises. He is attentive and stands by his word. We found such a sudden reversal quite bewildering and absolutely unlike him.

Much of Farah Rahmani’s insistence that Farhad give her what he wanted to give others, and her efforts at either preventing him from doing what he promised to do for others altogether, or expecting him to do it for her instead, likely stems from a combination of her irrational jealousy to see his time and attention diverted onto others and her desire to inhibit the notion that he is nice, kind, generous, etc.

Case-in-point, at times, Farhad’s clients present him with gifts as gestures of their appreciation – Usually restaurant and store gift certificates, boxes of chocolates, bottles of liquor, or packs of beer. He left the alcohol and some of the other items at work for his staff to do with as they wished, and would bring some of the rest home to her.

Ms. Rahmani asked Farhad if he was given a gift when he got home every day and threw tantrums when he had none to give her. Her interest in gift certificates is understandable. One can even venture to assume chocolates are irresistible but, although Farah Rahmani enjoys her liquor, she is not necessarily so consumed by alcohol to care so much about him giving away what she perceived was her “entitlement” to his coworkers. More likely, she just wanted him to surrender such gifts to her to prevent his coworkers from thinking he is benevolent.

Vilification of Farhad and Other 'Community Members'

To drive the family of her last husband/cousin in Iran to want to avoid further embarrassment and save face by paying her those 500 gold coins, Farah Rahmani alleged to their neighbors, et al. that the husband was a drug addict and an alcoholic.

(Farah Rahmani tends to purport everyone she does not like is an alcoholic and drug addict. Those with whom we have spoken, including Ms. Rahmani's relatives, say he is a very pleasant and shy man but, in all honesty, we cannot vouch for the guy. Addiction and alcoholism are rampant in that country. Whether Ms. Rahmani fabricated it altogether or drew from whatever problems he may have had, we do know that she magnified and broadcasted the story about this man far and wide, vilified him to his friends and their extended relatives and neighbors, and extorted from him and his immediate family in order to stop embarrassing them.)

Ms. Rahmani attributed all sorts of evil to those she was not fond of but was particularly bent on accusing Farhad as well as some other 'community members' of drinking because she knows 'the community' abhors such behavior.

(Along the same lines, the assortment of ploys she used in order to get Farhad to return her calls after the separation included telling him that she was invited to speak at 'community events'. She thought that would motivate him to return her calls.)

She became quite pensive when I finally said, "'the community' is focused on bigger issues and has neither the time nor the inclination to concern itself with what stragglers do".

I suppose she wanted to switch to that 'big issue' when denigrating and threatening 'community members' because she kept wanting to know specifically which 'big issue' is of concern to 'the community'. I responded, "global warming"!

She was also beside herself when I called her bluff and said, “I’m certain his doctor who has seen him for decades can attest that he neither drinks nor partakes in drugs”.

When Farhad mentioned this to his doctor, the doctor actually took it upon himself to write a letter in which he certified Farhad's health and stated that there is absolutely no indication that Farhad drinks or uses drugs and that he has never discerned signs of alcohol and drug use. Ms. Rahmani was not happy.

Twisting Bits and Pieces and Embellishing Fiction with Plausible

To Enhance her fabrications and make them seem authentic, Farah Rahmani often interjects bits and pieces of reality into what she says.

Similarly, she twisted what Farhad and other members of the family said to suit her needs. For example, several of our conversations included her view that the West’s “social flaws” are due to alcohol and drug abuse. I know now she was hoping to record bits and pieces of what we said about those topics.

In general, Farah Rahmani does not have a high opinion of the West and often asserts that “Canadians are lazy” and have “weak characters”. Of course, she thinks she is strong-willed in all aspects and has her own alcohol consumption under control.

When she expressed that view for the umpteenth time, Farhad and I explained that, unlike places like Iran where alcoholics, drug addicts, and their families are left to cope on their own, they have resources available to them in the West. We also explained to her concepts such as rehabilitation facilities and alcoholics anonymous which do not exist in Iran.

The fact that Farhad was actually sitting there and participating in that conversation did not stop Ms. Rahmani from twisting all that and continuously trying to demoralize him during her tantrums as well as denigrate him to other people by claiming “his sister has asked me for help to put him into rehab”.

Typical Behavior During Tête-à-têtes

Farah Rahmani’s claims range from the dubious to the ridiculous. To convey her utter despondence as she grumbles, she sobs oceans on cue, wails, and smacks the back of her own hand, pulls her hair, throws herself against the wall, and slaps the top of her head uttering, "ru-yam-siah" (literal: my face is covered with soot), "khak-tu-saram" (literal: dust in my head), "man-bad-bakhtam" (I am a wretch), "zen-de-giam-bar-bad-raft" (literal: my life is gone with the wind), etc.

(Those who do not speak Persian, just imagine a hysterical and highly animated pre-prince Cinderella lamenting about her demented life and the ordeal of exposure to cinder and soot!) Believe me! If you can remain objective and keep a straight face as she does it, that scene is a study by itself.

Her on-demand fits and grotesque contortions can be so bizarre that a police officer who was there to ensure she does not pull something when Farhad went to collect his personal belongings was compelled to call for backup to control her.

Eliciting Empathy

Farah Rahmani is masterful at playing a hapless waif to accomplish what she wants - Be it undeserved favorable consideration of applications for social services, or deceitful entry into programs, or fraudulently qualifying for freebies, or alienating Farhad's acquaintances, distant relatives, and 'community members' against him, or cajoling them into unwittingly harassing him and/or revealing where he is and what he does.

Dumbing down and Pretending to a Lesser Command of English

From the start, Alex and I wondered why Farah Rahmani pretended to a lesser command of English than she actually did. I suspected it was so that we could talk freely in front of her.

At times, her body language indicated she was following routine conversation better than she let on. It was as if she was expecting us to feel at ease in order to say something more!

At the risk of sounding elitist, I venture that the way Ms. Rahmani carries herself and her ideologies suggest a repressed provincial background; nevertheless, in this case, let us accept her presentation that she is well-educated.

Public elementary and secondary schools in Iran provide mandatory training in English grammar and conversation for all 12 years. While her schooling would not have accommodated reciting Chaucer or debating the intricacies of the language's style, surely, she should have learned enough to manage basics of conversational English.

Besides, one would expect someone like Ms. Rahmani who enjoys bragging about her wisdom, intelligence, and abilities to have had the foresight of taking English classes in anticipation of moving to and living in British Columbia - If not before marrying Farhad, then during the almost 1-year after the wedding when her eventual move was certain.

As a once fresh-off-the-boat arrival who started stringing words with no rhyme or reason to get her point across immediately when she hit JFK's tarmac, I could not understand why she was hiding something so natural yet trivial.

I appreciate that some foreigners are bashful about speaking but she does not shy away from more consequential things.

Moreover, Farah Rahmani constantly boasts about her cognitive prowess. Even if she were apprehensive about speaking out, it was odd that she 'dumbed down' and pretended not to comprehend rudimentary English.

Pretending Inordinate Naiveté With Culture and Surroundings

Understandably, Ms. Rahmani is new to the area; however, she tends to spread it on too thick by pretending more Naiveté than warranted.

Within a few weeks of arriving in Canada, Farah Rahmani found and partook in a great number of free amenities, free services, free food, etc.

It was obvious that she had done her homework with respect to the geography before arriving to Canada. She was apt at getting around and making do within a few weeks. In fact, she found her way to places that even I did not know existed after spending extended time there for almost four decades and I am not a shrinking violet when in a new environments.

Yet, when suitable, she pretends to be absolutely lost. It takes one to know one. Having had to navigate and explore the Western Hemisphere with little or no language skills, I could tell when her apprehension was genuine and when it was exaggerated; however, Farah Rahmani is very slick at playing this game. To the “untrained eye”, i.e., someone without that experience, her reactions are likely to seem natural.

On one occasion, after escaping yet another of Farah Rahmani’s tantrums, Farhad called and said he was on his way to his office. This occurred shortly after her arrival and on a Sunday afternoon. He did not say why he was going to his workplace and I still did not know the extent of what was happening but sensed he needed some time alone.

As usual, Ms. Rahmani called to see where Farhad is. She did this regularly. If she could not track him by calling around, she drove erratically, speeding and slamming on the brake as she circled every store, home, and business which she though he may have gone to until she found him.

I took her agitation for worry and assured that I had spoken with him and he was safe. She would not let go and insisted to know exactly where he was.

Farhad’s reason escaped me but I appreciated that he wanted to be alone. So I said, “as I understood it, he was on his way to the SeaBus terminal”. SeaBus is a passenger ferry service which connects North Vancouver to the city of Vancouver. The terminal is as far from Farhad’s workplace as I could conjure at that moment.

Ms. Rahmani wanted to know which SeaBus he was taking. I said I did not know the schedule. She called back exactly twenty minutes later. She said she was at the terminal and had already had Farhad paged over the loudspeaker but there was no sign of him.

Even after almost 4 decades of riding that ferry, it still takes me more than half an hour to circle that block, park, and find my way to the entrance - More so, were I to actually locate the attendant’s kiosk, explain my purpose in broken English, and have someone paged!

Purporting Farhad Uprooted Her

Farah Rahmani maintained to Farhad that she was working when they met and retired after marrying him; however, she has been unable to hold on to any job for long and feigned disability long before before meeting and marrying Farhad in order to retire early and get disability benefits.

To elicit empathy, she is still telling people, "I had a good job and was perfectly happy in Iran. Farhad married me, made me retire, and brought me to Canada. Then, he mistreated and abandoned me."

Feigning Frailty and Debility

Yet another of Farah Rahmani’s tricks is promoting the notion that she is frail. Primarily, this is to present herself vulnerable with hopes of taking advantage of the amenities the Government of Canada provides to the disabled; however, she also uses those opportunities to elicit empathy.

Farah Rahmani is constantly schlepping from one doctor's office to the next and has spent many hours in emergency rooms feigning an assortment of maladies. Other than common chronic and age-related ailments, extensive tests and examinations have proven her much healthier than she purports time after time. Yet that has not stopped her.

She neither respects modern medicine nor accepts her doctors’ determinations or abides by their mandates. Instead, she becomes extremely indignant when they do not agree that she suffers from "cancer" or another malady that "proves" she "is dying" and has attempted to discredit several doctors who have disagreed with her.

In addition to angling for disability determination in Canada, Farah Rahmani purports debility to promote her other agenda as well as toward addressing her emotional needs. Specifically, she feigns illness to make people feel sorry for her and creates and seizes opportunities to be pampered and attended to by medical professionals and others in order to mitigate the emotional void when she feels deprived of attention and validation. For example, after Farhad walked out during one of Farah Rahmani's heated tantrums, she called to convince him to return as she always did.

Generally, she started those calls by expressing her "profound love" for him. If that did not convince him to return, she would offer a 'light apology' and 'half promise' to do better. (Farah Rahmani would not actually apologize for having been violent and/or for injuring him. Those "light apologies" and "half promises" were along the lines of, "come home so we can sit, talk, and work out 'whatever it is'".) If that did not persuade him, then she would claim to be "lonely" or "sick" and "needing him" and, if none of that worked, she would threaten to harm us, someone else, and/or herself if he did not return.

That day, when Farhad told Farah Rahmani he had pictures of her ruckus and his cuts and bruises and he had "just about had enough and was contemplating calling the police", she tried to dissuade him by threatening him even more.

When that did not work, Farah Rahmani claimed to be ill to get him to feel sorry for her and return and, when that also proved futile, she dashed to the emergency room. ("Dash" is the operative word here. When cross-matched with ER’s time-stamped intake notes, phone company’s geolocation data and timeline of that call indicate she practically flew there!)

Per hospital’s records, a thorough examination during that visit revealed that Farah Rahmani suffers from osteoarthritis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) due to long-term smoking; however, that did not stop her from calling several people including an elderly 'community member' to lament to and elicit empathy from.

Farah Rahmani picked that particular individual to call precisely because she is very compassionate. We had told Farah Rahmani we respected that person and that she had always been kind to Farhad. That lady in turn contacted us and said Ms. Rahmani had called her "from the hospital". She 'scolded' both Farhad and me about "'heartlessly' leaving 'poor, ill Farhah' all alone to fend for herself at the hospital", then 'lectured' us about how “the family should treat 'hapless Farah' with more compassion”. She advised Farhad to "feel blessed for having such a good wife," and "be good to her"!

Farah Rahmani is as skeptical of both modern day medical practices and traditional medicine as she is of practitioners.

In conjunction with accusing several doctors who have not agreed with her of incompetence, she has purported that they are "poisoning her with medication" - Even when that medication is relatively benign, such as Tylenol.

In contrast, she has a strong interest in obscure regimens and the lesser known properties and peculiarities of herbs and spices. She diagnoses people and jots down and distributes her own recipes for what she deems and diagnoses is ailing them. Later, she quizzes them to make sure they have followed her prescription. For example, her “sure cure” for baldness involves applying crushed oral contraceptives to the scalp several times a day.

Some believe that, in conjunction with her special 'diet' to raise Baba’s glucose level and blood pressure, Farah Rahmani "laced" the dishes that she prepared and insisted we eat as well as Farhad’s food with pernicious ingredients. We all have strong constitutions but everyone who partook in her dishes ended up sick immediately after eating them, and for a while, Farhad appeared inordinately feverish and bloated.

Perils of Importing Sight-Unseen Brides

We have all heard stories about how sight-unseen imported brides can be problematic. Some may want sponsorship to join their boyfriends. Others may disappear after exhausting their spouses’ bank accounts. Still others may be seeking treatment for some sort of physical or emotional malady.

I strongly advocate people do a lot of soul searching and get know the other parties involved before committing to anything. In my opinion, that should always be the case when contemplating long term business ventures and marriages - Even more so with respect to marriages regardless of geographic distances and cultural disparities because most purely business partnerships do not have the emotional component and are much easier to dissolve.

I was among those who tried to talk Farhad out of rushing into marriage without first getting to know Ms. Rahmani but he only sees the good in people and she is quite crafty. I even kidded that at the very least one should be as discerning when vetting potential spouses as he or she would be before committing to buy potatoes and onions.

We did not know that she was pushing Farhad to rush into marry her all the while the rest of us were trying to reason with him to wait and get to know her.

I also tried to get across to Farhad that we no longer have commonalities with fresh-off-the-boat Iranians but again, he has a kind and compassionate heart and sees everyone through that lens.

Farhad naively believed an Iranian is an Iranian and all Iranians share a common value. He thought the person he was marrying and planning to spend the rest of his life with shares our family’s values but the odds of it ending as a horrific experience would have been the same had he thrown a dart at the globe and married someone from wherever it landed.

At the time I was not even aware that she is a Kurd. In essence, culturally, her ancestry could not be any more different than our family’s.

Besides, even I could not foresee all that happened. In April 2016, in response to some family members’ bewilderment about her behavior and, because I sensed the rest of the family was in danger, I drew on the little I knew and had seen at the time to posit, "Farah Khanoum is planning to kill Farhad and harm the rest of us in some way" and warned everyone to be careful.

As it turned out, at the time, I did not know much! Moreover, it is one thing to write in abstract and another to realize several months later that your far-fetched conjecture was precisely on target and, in fact, was actually much milder than reality. In that interim, I gave Ms. Rahmani the benefit of the doubt over and over and kept faulting myself for being overly dramatic and questioning whether I had reached the wrong conclusion.

Little did I know then that the thug to whom I was extending the benefit of my doubt was cold-cocking Farhad, or going at him with closed fists, or pouring hot water all over him, or that, during one of her tantrums, among other things, she had thrown a 40 lb. toolbox at Farhad from 5 feet away, missing his head by less than an inch. (Ladies and gentlemen, sadly, this is the stuff movies are made of and it is all on video!)

Immediate Family’s Moral and Cultural Compass

My siblings and I have spent our formative years and beyond in the West. We value our Persian heritage but neither speak Persian amongst ourselves, nor subscribe to post-revolution Iranian culture, or endorse many of its peculiarities – Including but not limited to some Iranians’ inclination to come to the West to usurp and take advantage.

Our mother was the 'Persian wiz' of the family. She spoke Persian fluently, wrote essays, stories, and poems in Persian, encouraged us to read Persian literature and learn and recite Persian poetry, and was instrumental in acquainting us with the rich culture of ancient Persia. She was also wise, progressive, and highly moral, yet extremely modest and demure.

She left a huge void when she passed away. Among other things, her passing extinguished the proverbial lantern of moral and cultural acuity that she kept ever-present in our lives.

Many miss her but no one senses her absence as deeply and intensely as Farhad does. They spent a lot of time traveling and working together and he devotedly took care of her. They were two peas in a pod!

Farhad still visits the cemetery several times a week. During the past almost 12 years, not a day has gone by without him ensuring that she has flowers and/or lit candles and her marker and plot are free of dust, debris, grass clippings, weeds, and/or snow and ice. If he is travelling and cannot do it himself, he puts someone else in charge of “taking care of Maman’s grave” and calls to remind them several times.

A Possible Reason for Why Farhad Opted to Marry an Iranian

I attribute Farhad’s decision to marry an Iranian woman in general to his assumption that all women from that neck of the woods are as good as Maman was. He learned the hard way that Farah Rahmani neither possesses the mindset, characteristics, values, and moral compass which distinguished our mother nor adheres to the Persian culture in its true sense.

A Possible Reason for Why Farhad Opted to Marry Farah Rahmani in Particular

Beyond Farhad’s misconception that all Iranian women possess some of what made our mother who she was, his decision to marry Ms. Rahmani in particular was in part because having done her homework, she was aware of Farhad’s affinity for his family and knew he was caring for our father.

Farah Rahmani concocted an academic and social history that portrayed her as a competent caregiver who is particularly knowledgeable about eldercare. Then, she repeatedly expressed excitement at the prospect of being sponsored to go to Canada to become Baba’s Persian-speaking companion and give her “’Baba joon’ the kind of care that only a devoted daughter can”.

I leave the implication of the latter part of that statement to your imagination! It became a mantra in and around town before and after my fall from Ms. Rahmani’s grace. On the sly before then, openly afterward.

Cognitive Dissonance?

'Cognitive dissonance' occurs when an experience contradicts one’s long-held beliefs, ideas, or values. To alleviate that stress (i.e. to reduce the ‘cognitive dissonance and ‘make peace’ between the fact and what one believes to be the truth), the individual strives for a way to resolve the incongruity. More often, the processes involved in alleviating this internal inconsistency operate at the 'unconscious level.

For details, please see, Festinger, L. (1957). A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, Evanston, IL: Row & Peterson.

The term 'unconscious' is preferred to 'subconscious'. It involves the processes which occur automatically below the threshold of consciousness, i.e., do not yield to introspection such as thought processes, memories, and motivations. In other words, one does not choose or decide to invoke them consciously.

Farhad has been in several abusive relationships. Serial intimate partner abusers are apt at spotting and going after those who are likely to succumb to their abuse.

Ms. Rahmani was the second Iranian woman and the second Iranian female bully in his experience. The first one was also violent and tried to bully him and take control of his life.

Farhad ended his relationship with the first, a native of North Vancouver, shortly before Ms. Rahmani surfaced.

When I invoked that experience in order to motivate him to reconsider his speedy decision to marry Ms. Rahmani, he said, "that was different ... She [Farah Rahmani] would never do that."

Notwithstanding that emotionally needy abusive women seem to find his easy going, generous, and gentle persona appealing, I propose that, since Farhad naively thought the first bully’s insolence was an anomaly, he was predisposed to accepting on face value how Farah Rahmani presented herself and marrying her.

I further propose that this was his 'unconscious' / 'subconscious' mind's attempt to correct the 'cognitive dissonance' between his experience with the first Iranian female bully and his notion that all Iranian women are good.

In other words, Farhad’s decision to marry Ms. Rahmani in part may have been because unconsciously / subconsciously, he hoped to mitigate the disparity between how the first woman was (violent, controlling, and a bully) and how he perceived all other Iranian woman to be (humble, demure, and good like his mother).

Baba’s Condition

Baba has high blood pressure and is a diabetic. Under normal circumstances, both conditions are controlled with diet and medication and none of them is dire. As with most other diabetics, he favors sweets and, if left to his own volition, would opt for sugary snacks instead of nutritious meals.

When Alex first went there, he banished all “bad / processed sugars” from the house and implemented a healthy, nutritious diet for Baba. He ensures Baba’s sweet tooth is satisfied by providing sugar-free desserts and snacks with the stipulation that he eats regularly and finishes his meals.

Extremely low or extremely high blood pressure can lead to heart attacks and strokes. The possibility of comas, blindness, heart and kidney damage, and other physical issues notwithstanding, fluctuations in glucose levels can affect cognition and render the individual vulnerable to suggestions and at the mercy of their “sugar supplier”.

Moreover, those at Baba’s age, with similar backgrounds, who are cognitively alert, tend to be independent minded. As it is, everything is already subject to debate and negotiation with him. He still wants to do what was easy to him in his younger days. Getting him to forego indulging in sweets as he used to was a trying uphill battle even without Farah Rahmani’s interference.

(He was quite active well into his late seventies and early eighties but has become progressively reclusive since Maman passed away. He read, cooked, entertained, drove himself around, maintained the house, climbed up ladders to paint walls and inspect the roof, etc. and still wants to do such chores by himself.)

It took Alex a long time and much practice and patience to reason with Baba to forego sugar for the sake of healthy meals, convince him to ask for the book he wanted from the upper shelf instead of climbing up the stepstool himself, get him to agree to regular outings around town for amusement and fresh air, persuade him to attend community events and gatherings more frequently, etc.

The fact that Farah Rahmani relentlessly continued to pop in to indulge Baba with sweets, made it much more difficult for Alex in general and with respect to convincing Baba to save his appetite for healthy meals in particular. For example, to have a salad instead of a candy bar.

Of particular concern was Farah Rahmani’s inability to appreciate a diabetic’s needs. She appeared to enjoy preparing and bringing meals for Baba but whereas otherwise her effort would have been appreciated, without exception, that caused additional frustrations.

Unfortunately, despite explanations and reiterations, she persistently offered Baba the type of foods that diabetics must particularly avoid. Examples included but were not limited to:

• Watermelon, ‘labu’ (beetroot), and ‘halva’ (highly sweet, fatty wheat pudding) instead of choosing from among thousands of other fruits, vegetables, and desserts which are readily available.


• High carb, oil-laden, sweetened dishes such as ‘Reshteh Polo’ (rice with noodles), ‘Koofteh Tabrizi’ (vegetable hodgepodge balls), and Dolmeh (stuffed grape leaves and vegetables) with added sugar syrup, raisins, and large chunks of dried dates.

Baba often dims the light as he eats with the TV in the background. Under those conditions, one cannot not inspect everything in the spoon or on the fork before raising it to the mouth. In particular, textures and coloring of the dishes that Farah Rahmani prepared for Baba are conducive to camouflaging potentially jaw-breaking pits and other indigestible items. Many of the dishes Ms. Rahmani made and expected him to eat contained chunks of walnut shells, pits of ‘Alu Bokhara’ (dried plum), etc.

She also left sweets, chocolate bars, and large bags of sugar where Baba could find them and was observed by security cameras coming in, heading straight to his bedroom, and waking him up to give him large jars of honey.

Several times, Farah Rahmani caught up with Baba and Alex at the doctor's office when Baba was scheduled for testing after having fasted overnight and slipped Baba candy.

Until we finally caught her in the act, no one could understand why Baba's glucose level went on the fritz for no rhyme or reason when he was his usual self ten of fifteen minutes before. I am certain those who have seen what can happen when a diabetic is infused with a load of processed sugar on an empty stomach would empathize with Alex who had to manage these situations and ensure that Baba got home safe each time.

Farah Rahmani's maleficence and selfish disregard of other people’s time, attention, and property were evident in her persistence in following her whims despite repeated explanations and requests.

For example, Baba is usually ready for dinner between 6:30 and 7 p.m. He believes one must share his or her meals and refuses to eat until and unless others around him are also eating. In addition, he stops eating if he is interrupted after starting a meal and is not inclined to return to it afterward.

As we generally began preparing his dinner at around 5:00 p.m., we asked many times that Ms. Rahmani refrain from calling or visiting the house between 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. unless she was willing to have dinner with Baba.

We explained and reiterated that this would allow the person who is preparing Baba’s dinner to focus on actually preparing the meal without interruption and permit Baba to eat his food in peace.

Unfortunately, whereas she had absolutely nothing to do during the day and could have stopped by at any other time, Ms. Rahmani frequently called or came over unannounced exactly during that period. (Only exceptions were when Farhad was with her because he did not get off work until later.)

Pilfering

We also hoped Ms. Rahmani would respect that those who lived in that house expected privacy but our hints that she extend the courtesy of knocking or ringing the doorbell, if not calling in advance to say she was coming, got nowhere. She stopped by as she pleased, often just materializing on the balcony out of the blue.

Except for the items he stored at Baba’s house for the long term such as some of his books, legacy computer equipment, and camping and fishing gears, Farhad had already taken all of his belongings when he had moved out. Moreover, before she entered Canada, he fully furnished and equipped the apartment they shared.

Nevertheless, without fail, Farah Rahmani “wanted” or “needed” something whenever she stopped by Baba's house and went on what seemed like scavenger hunts throughout the house to find ‘it’ - Even though she knew Farhad’s belongings were being stored in specific areas on the first floor.

Within the first couple of months, Farah Rahmani took every tool, gadget, appliance, dish, pot, pan, utensil, glass, furniture, Persian carpet, piece of crystal, etc. that she could possibly need - and more - out of Baba’s house.

Ms. Rahmani was well aware that it had taken us a long time to organize the house in general and the second floor in particular. In addition, she seemed unable to appreciate that a functioning house requires certain essential gadgets and equipment.

All of a sudden, the tools, gadgets, etc. which were steadily available in that house for decades would disappear. More frustrating was that we often had no idea something was missing until we were in the middle of a project which depended on it. Some of those items must exist in a house. So we purchased replacements only for those replacements to also disappear.

Of course, Farah Rahmani did not really “need” many of those items. Why would she “need” two additional rice cookers and three additional vacuum cleaners when Farhad had already equipped the apartment with such things? Also, what did she think she could to do in an apartment with the leaf blower, pole saw, two chainsaws, and three string trimmers that disappeared along with other gardening equipment?

Clearly, she did not take them for herself. During some of her tantrums Farah Rahmani more or less admitted that she just wanted to ensure we did not have them. Likely, she was selling them or giving them away to her ‘friends’.

Since she was in the habit of popping in and taking things without announcing herself, we requested she at least knock or ring the bell and ask Baba's permission and let us know before removing things so that we do not look for them. That too fell on deaf ears.

Security Measures

Farhad’s decision to begin their life together away from Baba’s house ultimately proved instrumental in saving his life as well as Baba’s. It was innocently and naively intended to give Ms. Rahmani the opportunity to adjust to Canada and to give the family adequate time to get to know her.

Had he not decided to live elsewhere, she would have had ready access to Baba without the rest of us around and the isolation to do as she pleased with and to both of them.

Of course, Farah Rahmani tried her best to convince Baba and me that it would be best if they move into Baba's house. As Alex and I were not needed in that case, she would have been rid of us and have Baba and Farhad at her mercy.

With him, it was all "Baba joon, Baba joon, I know what you need." With me, it was complaints about how miserable she was at her own home and how the neighbors harassed her day and night. Unfortunately for her, her hints and laments went nowhere.

Baba’s house still operates at the proverbial ‘heightened state of security’ but for a while poor Farhad had to play cloak and dagger just to spend a few minutes with his father and/or us. Time after time, he noticed her in his rearview mirror as he was coming over to the house and turned around so as not to endanger us.

It is a long list but if I am to pick and presume moral judgment against only one of Farah Rahmani’s actions, it is that she denied the old man, who did nothing but welcome and shower her with love and affection, the opportunity to spend time with his son.

Alex’s Ordeals with Farah Rahmani as he Cared for Baba

Credit is due where it is due and I do not know of any other thirty-something who would offer to adjust a full life and career to spend time with, and care for, his grandfather. The guy just happens to be my son. His compassion, sense for altruism, and decisions are all his doing.

I have written several gushy posts about what he has been doing in Canada but that is not even half of it! As our 'man on the ground, Alex in particular was subjected to a lot and had to put up with a lot.

He is very patient but ultimately, even he had to have Farah Rahmani served with a “Demand to Cease and Desist” to get her to stop harassing and issuing death threats against him.

Farah Rahmani’s Initial Approach to Alex

In the beginning, although she was going around badmouthing Alex, Ms. Rahmani acted as sweet and cordial toward him as she did toward the rest of us.

From the start, Farah Rahmani saw Alex as an obstacle to her plans for Baba. With him around, she could not do and say what she wanted to Baba, could not raise Baba’s blood pressure by calling at 2 a.m. to make him worry about Farhad’s whereabouts when he was actually asleep next to her or on the sofa, could not feed Baba what she wanted, could not jeopardize Baba’s health, etc.

Above all, she saw Alex as the only reason for why she was not living in what she perceived as 'her house' and did not have 24/7 access to Baba. She thought without Alex around, Farhad would be forced to return to the house to take care of Baba!

Soliciting Money From Alex

Farah Rahmani asked for and obtained money from a number of Farhad’s friends and relatives. In particular, she swindled from Alex over and over because she knew that, just like Farhad, he is generous to a fault. In turn, Alex respected and accommodated Ms. Rahmani because he loves his uncle.

In all, Alex 'gave' Farah Rahmani thousands of dollars. She would call him in the middle of the day, claim a dire emergency, ask for $200 here, $500 there, etc., and either say she "did not have her wallet and was not able to reach Farhad", or "Farhad was at work and she could not get there and back on time", or she "did not wish to tell Farhad because it was to be for a surprise for him".

At the time, Alex had no reason to doubt her. He was also unaware that she was grabbing Farhad’s paychecks as soon as he received them. Or that she had confiscated his bankcard, checkbook, and credit cards. Or that she had put Farhad on a $5 a day allowance for coffee and lunch at work and bus fare. Or that she was frequenting casinos almost daily.

Further, we did not know she had commandeered the car by taking its key from Farhad, thereby forcing him to take multiple buses each way to and from work.

Ms. Rahmani’s excuses whenever she would ask Alex for money were along the lines of "something is on sale only for today", and "I’m on a long line to register for something", and "I have to buy a book before this afternoon’s English class", etc.

Just as she did with the other people she swindled from, Farah Rahmani swore Alex not to mention it to Farhad or anyone else, claiming she did not want Farhad to know Alex paid for his present, or people to "think she is helpless" and/or "think badly of her", etc.

Intercepting Farah Rahmani’s Plans for Baba

As Farah Rahmani showered Baba with adorations with one breath and attempted to harm him with another, Alex had to care for him in those states.

He intercepted many of her plans for Baba. Among other things, he fronted when she called in the middle of the night to agitate Baba; replaced many dishes of “uncertain” contents that she made for him; and continuously found and discarded 5 lb. jars of honey and syrup, 10 kilo bags of sugar, and boxes and packs of cookies and candy that she snuck into the house and/or left in and around the carport and yard.

Of course, he could not monitor and deflect the situation 100% of the time. For example, knowing Alex would not refuse his uncle, Ms. Rahmani had Farhad invite him over for a game of Backgammon. Her excuse to Farhad was, “it would be nice for Alex to get out of the house”.

Then, when Alex and Farhad were engaged in a conversation, she got away from their earshot and, unbeknownst to them, called Baba to say Farhad was missing for several hours, acted worried, and put Baba who she had made sure was all alone in a frantic state.

Making the Best of a Bad Situation

Farah Rahmani’s antics were quite distressing. Moreover, she employed them on the whim and with absolutely no tact or respect for other people's time and attention.

For example, before we began to question the contents and quality of her dishes, we asked to no avail that she give us several hours’ notice whenever she planned to make food for Baba. This way, Alex or I would not have had to halt everything else to make a meal only to discard it afterward.

(Most of the dishes she made for Baba are time consuming. Conceivably, she had ample time to call and let us know she was bringing food well after she had set out to cook them.)

Likely, the fact that Farah Rahmani's flighty nature propels her instantaneous compulsions works well for her in such cases with others. Since it tends to wear people down and/or catch them off-guard, it presents her victims with fewer opportunities to notice what she is up to and/or thwart her plan.

Unfortunately for Ms. Rahmani, we recognized her incongruities early and often double-teamed and, in the process, we tried to make light of certain situations as best as we could.

Among Alex’s highly stressful yet amusing missions was when, instead of delivering the meal she had prepared for Baba as she usually did, Ms. Rahmani uncharacteristically called and asked Alex to pick it up.

Upon picking it up that day, Alex pulled over and sent me a picture of the dish. It consisted of rolls that seemed like Mexican taquitos but I was certain they were not taquitos. Ms. Rahmani prides herself on her Persian cooking. Moreover, as she dislikes foreign foods herself, I knew she would not presume to make or serve them to Baba.

After asking Alex to send several more pictures from different angles, I was still bewildered. So I asked him to unroll one and send a picture of the filling. Here I was, almost 4,000 miles away, and there he was on the side of a major highway in rush hour traffic dissecting what was presumably an Iranian dish with minimal knowledge of Persian herbs and spices.

Baba’s dinnertime was approaching and we were still unable to figure it out. I suggested discarding the food altogether but Alex offered to pick up and serve Baba a side of taquitos, egg rolls, and mini burritos along with the dish he had already planned.

Per the surveillance footage, in response to Farah Rahmani’s question, "Baba joon, what did you eat for dinner, Baba joon?" later that night, Baba said, "I had soup, salad, and salmon ... There were some other stuff in rolls ... I don’t know what they were but they looked disgusting ... I took one bite and they tasted disgusting as well ... Alex gave me ice cream (sugar free) to wash down the taste.”

After that, Farah Rahmani was noticeably less inclined to force her meals on Baba.

Other People's Money: The Subject of Farah Rahmani’s Affection

Farah Rahmani is a grifter. Her specialty is abusing the system and setting up unsuspecting victims and blackmailing them.

Whereas she purports to having had a long career in Iran, it seems she was unable to last at any job for long. Moreover, she reportedly “motivated” a doctor to certify she has Multiple sclerosis (MS) several years ago and retired early, receiving disability benefits.

When they met in Turkey, Farhad gave her a large sum to take back to Iran along with the gifts he had bought for her in Canada and the jewelry that he bought her in Turkey. He also sent her money whenever someone he knew was going to visit Iran and through currency brokers. In addition, whenever she called and said she needed a "new hot water heater", some "work on her car", etc., he immediately arranged for her to get what she "needed".

Farhad makes more than enough for the two of them to have lived very comfortably in affluent North Vancouver. She grabbed his paychecks and controlled his bank accounts, only giving him a token daily allowance but, from the beginning, Farah Rahmani asked for money from his friends and family. She told many of them "not to tell" him, and course, never repaid what she "borrowed".

Farah Rahmani actively seeks services and anythings she can get for free. She even signed up at a food pantry and ate lunch at a place which serves food to the homeless and those with low income once a week. Farhad and I tried to explain that she does not need those things and should let the less advantaged have those opportunities but she would not listen. In fact, she seemed very proud of herself for doing so.

In light of everything Farah Rahmani does, the overriding picture is that all her concerns, all her schemes, all her manipulations, and all her reckless and reprehensible actions, were - and still are - toward getting her hands on money.

Leeching Money Under False Pretenses

Farah Rahmani solicited and received money from several of Farhad’s relatives and Friends. She called them "loans" and told many of those individuals "never" to tell Farhad but never intended to repay them. Ultimately, Farhad felt obliged and repaid them when he found out.

Beyond the obvious material benefit to her, she probably did so to embarrass him and create unanticipated financial burden.

Unbeknownst to those individuals, Farah Rahmani was using that money (as well as a major portion of Farhad’s earnings) to support her gambling habit.

When Farhad learned that Ms. Rahmani had persuaded a distant relative to take a $500 cash advance from his only credit card which had a $1,000 limit for her, he repaid the individual.

Later, I asked Ms. Rahmani to refrain from soliciting money from any of our friends and relatives and emphasized that she should have never expected, asked for, and accepted, money from that person in particular.

I reasoned, "since the person is on fixed income, he probably depends on his sole credit card". Instead of at least pretending to appreciate what I was saying even if not actually empathizing with the individual, Farah Rahmani casually responded, "but he has another $500 left on that card"!

That is unequivocally the coldest and the most selfish statement I have ever heard!

Farah Rahmani's Gambling Habit

I wish I could say my former sister-in-law is a wiz at doing something constructive with the money she so lusts after. Alas, Farah Rahmani gambles it all away.

She likes going to casinos. She regularly went by herself when Farhad was at work but demanded that escort her if he was not working.

The rest of us did not know that she she had commandeered the car and frequented casinos or that she was so enamored with gambling until much later. Alex and I often thought that with Farhad at work, she would be all alone at home and felt sorry for her. We frequently called her on our way to run errands to see whether she would be interested in joining us. When she would not answer, we thought nothing of it and assumed she had gone for walks around her neighborhood as she claimed she was doing with her days.

On one of her trips to a casino with Farhad, they noticed a wallet on the floor. He expected her to call someone over and hand it in but she put it in her handbag and went to the restroom.

When they were leaving the casino, Farhad reminded her about the wallet. At first, she said she could just drop it for someone else to find and return it but he insisted she turn it in herself. She went to give it to the security and he went to get the car.

When she did not come out, he went back in and found out she was being detained and questioned because the wallet contained no money when she returned it.

Apparently, the owner had already called and reported the wallet missing. He had said it contained money and the casino’s cameras had captured Farah Rahmani going into the bathroom with the wallet in her handbag.

Farah Rahmani was barred from that casino as well as its affiliated group of casinos for one year for lying.

Farah Rahmani’s Viewpoints on Social Issues

Farah Rahmani has a profound mistrust of authority, lack of respect for the police, and the belief that laws can bend. She objects to even the most standard of the society's rules and requirements, for example, the requirement to have a license in order to drive.

She tends to express dissatisfaction about living in Canada and is not hesitant about expressing her views that Canadian authorities are “bullies” and the Canadian public is “suffering”. She has repeatedly stated that how she perceived Canada administratively, judicially, and socially before coming to the Country does not match the reality that she is experiencing.

Farah Rahmani also believes that the ordinary Canadian public such as herself are "slaves" and claims that the people who run things are "unfair", "lazy", and "stupid". This includes bank officers, motor vehicle department clerks, supermarket cashiers, doctor’s receptionists, and practically everyone else who tells her "no" or says something that she does not like to hear.

In addition, Farah Rahmani makes disparaging presumptions and derogatory statements against individuals as well as the groups to which she attaches them. Subjects of Farah Rahmani’s disdain include practically everyone she sees in the course of her day, when shopping, at the park, etc. regardless of whether or not she actually interacts with them. Groups her contempt extends to include, "Canadians", the "police", "doctors", "lawyers", and the "LGBTQ community". (She frequently uses a disparaging term when referencing the latter.)

Farah Rahmani repeatedly alleges people she does not like are "thieves", "drunks", "drug addicts", and/or "drug dealers". Sometimes she says the person is "impotent", and other times, she claims he or she is a "rapist" and/or a "pedophile".

She accuses people of "giving her cancer" by being the way they are, and uses the word "gay" as if it is derogatory. Reportedly, that is a big 'no-no' in Iran. We tried to no avail to explain to her that, in the West and the rest of the civilized world, being gay is not tabooed and being called gay is not an insult but she maintained her delusion that, "all gays have full-blown AIDS" and that she "will be infected with HIV if merely in the same vicinity as 'someone who is gay' [derogatory term revised]".

Farah Rahmani's Deep Rooted Biases and Radical Views

Some of Farah Rahmani’s later pronouncements in person, via voice mails and text messages, and on social media convey radical views and deeply rooted religious bias – Yet another aspect that manifested after she came to Canada.

There is a strong indication that a part of her vehemence to denigrate the family - within 'the community' in particular - stems from those resentments.

When she needed to ingratiate herself to us before she began her public crusade, she presented herself as the poster child of tolerance, social harmony, and pacifism.

More recently, that circle has widened even further and now includes efforts to malign 'the community' as a whole. The hateful nature of those attacks further bear witness to Farah Rahmani’s deep-rooted bigotry and intolerance, as well as her mental instability.

In practice, Ms. Rahmani does not conform to any religion but she is a Sunni Muslim by birth. She does, however; have extremely radical views and is particularly vocal about them during her tantrums. For example, when threatening Farhad, among other things, she would claim to be affiliated with "Daesh" (her term - Arabic acronym for the Islamic State).

Interestingly, in earlier times, when she was putting on the semblance of being non-practicing, Ms. Rahmani used the more generic Persian reference, "Khoda" whenever she has mentioned God.

In private when screaming at Farhad, and in public after she no longer had to pretend to having moderate views, she switched to the traditional Arabic term “Allah” - Particularly when invoking the one who she expects will right the "wrongs done to her".

Farah Rahmani’s usage of the term “Allah” by itself is not a problem. What is interesting is her ideological dithering and rapid transition from "Khoda" to "Allah" right when she started dubbing the family her "enemies" and issuing death threats against us privately and on social media and elsewhere.

This would not be an issue had she used the term "Allah" as opposed to "Khoda" even once during any of our lengthy conversations in which she invoked the almighty, or when communicating with someone else in the family and 'the community' over the preceding eight months.

Farah Rahmani’s disposition and radical social views make her an ideal recruit for subversive organizations that are on the lookout for imbalanced people with chips on their shoulders who are anti-establishment, fearlessly avoid rationality, and are not above harming themselves.

That she refused to return several of Farhad’s identity documents was additionally distressing because items such as original birth certificates are at premium in a country like Iran. Whereas duplicates are easily obtainable in black market, an original birth certificate is very hard to come by. Similarly, a Canadian passport is highly sought after by unsavory elements.

Farah Rahmani is Atypical!

In all fairness to Farhad, no one could have anticipated this. The family hit the jackpot and much more with Farah Rahmani. She does not have just one of the problems generally associated with marrying and sponsoring foreign nationals, or two of them, or three. She has a multitude of very serious impossible to treat issues which extend beyond her promiscuity and gambling. There is no cure for psychopathy!

Theories About Why Farah Rahmani is This Way

That Farah Rahmani cunningly pursued and persuaded an unsuspecting Canadian to marry and sponsor her, that she is a violent abuser, and that she is an extortionist are three distinct and independent aspects of her persona.

Even if all three of these factors were not at play simultaneously, she would still have lied her way to Canada, and/or would still have abused Farhad, and/or would still have attempted to strong-arm the family into submitting to her blackmail.

Theories abound as to why Ms. Rahmani conducts herself so. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.; DSM–5; American Psychiatric Association, 2013) which is the definitive diagnostic guideline for clinicians and researchers as well as other mental health-related literature characterize a “personality disorder” as follows:

“An enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from the expectations of the individual's culture, is pervasive and inflexible, has an onset in adolescence or early adulthood, is stable over time, and leads to distress or impairment”.

Many of the tendencies exhibited by Farah Rahmani as well as other perpetrators of domestic violence follow classic explanations of 'Borderline Personality Disorder' (BPD) in conjunction with 'Narcissistic Personality Disorder' (NPD) and 'Antisocial Personality Disorder' (ASPD).

I shall delve into some of these later. For now, briefly:

• Borderline Personality Disorder is marked by unstable emotions, inability to maintain relationships, and a distorted sense of self. It often presents as an extreme fear of abandonment, dangerous behavior, and self-harm.


• Antisocial Personality Disorder's manifestations include impulsiveness, recklessness, failure to consider consequences of actions, impoverished moral sense or conscience, and propensity to endanger self and others.


• Narcissistic Personality Disorder is characterized by exaggerated feelings of self-importance, extensive need for attention and admiration, disregard of others, and lack of empathy.

Reference: American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.

Those with 'Antisocial Personality Disorder' are often manipulative, aggressive, destructive, and deceitful. They are prone to stealing and tend to violate commonly accepted rules of conduct and formal laws.

'Narcissistic Personality Disorder' can present in a variety of forms. For example, an article published in the American Journal of Psychiatry makes a distinction between "grandiose" (or "overt) and "vulnerable" (or "covert") behavioral patterns.

Reference: Caligor, E., Levy, K.N., Yeomans, F.E. (May 2015). Narcissistic personality disorder: Diagnostic and clinical challenges. The American Journal of Psychiatry. 172(5): 415–22. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.2014.14060723

Behaviors exhibited by many political and corporate leaders and entrepreneurs are more along the lines of "grandiose" narcissism subtype. Such individuals have high self-esteem and are often go-getters. In contrast, "vulnerable" narcissists have low self-esteem and extremely fragile egos. Although both subtypes need constant attention and adoration, a "vulnerable narcissist" is more likely to become unstable and perceive persecution when rejected.

As a byproduct of those issues, Farah Rahmani has a great need for attention, affirmation, and validation; is intensely fearful of abandonment, goes to extreme measures to avoid real or imagined separation or rejection; and becomes highly agitated whenever she feels abandoned.

Her tantrums intensified and she trashed their home, broke dishes, etc. whenever he got away from yet another of her eruptions and, in many of her written and verbal messages to him, she professes she "needs" him and is "incomplete" without him as she pleads for his return. If all her other efforts at garnering attention fail, she compensates her need by feigning illness to elicit empathy and draw focus onto herself.

Farah Rahmani also claimed to want to "protect" Farhad from those she deemed as "bad influencers" in his life, i.e., practically everyone who is fond of him and/or everyone he is fond of. Conceivably, her attempts at denigrating him before his friends and family and her intense animosity toward anyone who praised him were for her to maintain her control over him as well as ensure his undivided attention on herself.

In addition, Farah Rahmani disdains authority figures and rule of law. Cases in point, she drove for a long time without a valid driver's license, has baselessly accused several police officers of dereliction of their duties, and is constantly on the 'lookout' to 'bend the rule' to her favor.

Moreover, she harbors intense envy of others, imagines nonexistent relationships, and reacts inordinately to perceived threats. For example, she reset Farhad’s preferences on Facebook to block his ability to communicate with his friends, conceived nonexistent relationships between him and any female he spoke with casually including his neighbors and customers - Often confronting and threatening to bad mouth them if they did not stop “lusting after her husband”.

Nature or Nurture?

Those who have known Farah Rahmani since she was a child, say she has evinced more or less the same type of abusive behavior for "as long as they have known her".

My (very unscientific) thought is that Ms. Rahmani, as we know her today, is the product of both nature and nurture. I posit that she has likely suffered throughout her life because of her psychological issues.

Moreover, although no ‘magic wand’ can zap away all of her psychological issues, I propose that there have been quite a few missed opportunities to ameliorate some of them before Farah Rahmani, and those issues, hardened.

Would you allow your child to play with someone who has Farah Rahmani’s attributes? Would you allow a social misfit with her emotional instabilities into your life when you know what she is capable of?

We know half of her family has shunned her and the other half is weary of her. We know she has no friends because those she spoke of and her relationships with them were figments of her imagination. We also know she has antagonized many who have ventured to get close to her. We know she cannot manage work settings because her work history is fabricated. Even the job she got within walking distance of Farhad’s workplace after the separation to stalk him ended in acrimony.

This is neither to justify Ms. Rahmani’s actions nor to absolve her. Surely, she has had moments of lucidity and opportunities to exercise free will and seek help for those issues but often systems and societies are equally culpable in such cases.

If, as they say, Farah Rahmani has been "like this" for so long, where were her parents and her community? Where were her teachers and elders? Why didn't they intervene before her emotional and psychological damage took hold and it was too late?

Similarly, where was 'the system'? Her physical and emotional attacks on Farhad and everything else she did with the family are not anomalies. If I am aware of a litany of unrelated indiscretions by Farah Rahmani, others must also know.

As it happens, 'troubled' children and those deemed 'emotionally disturbed' are frequently passed from one teacher to another, one school to another, one community to another. She is a bully. Likely, passing her along was preferable to chancing her wrath by trying to help her overcome her psychological challenges. Also likely, by the time they realized what had hit them, her victims were just glad to be rid of her.

Clearly, Farah Rahmani has had much practice. One does not just 'learn' many of the specific forms of physical and psychological torture she employed with Farhad by reading a how-to book, or watching a video, or searching the Internet.

She knows how to inflict pain surreptitiously by bending the thumb backwards. She plastered the walls with targeted humiliations to dispirit him and, for maximum effect when depriving him of sleep, waited until he had dozed off before startling him by broadcasting jarring sounds and/or attacking him.

Such cruelty cannot just be 'picked up'. How come she was not stopped and given the help she needed before she perfected her 'art' and mastered how to isolate her victims and do her deeds on the sly?

Deviant Behavior

No one is 'normal' in its purest sense. We all have our kinks and each of us fails other people’s expectations at one point or another; nevertheless, most people adhere to 'social norms' most of the time. Those norms are patterns of behavior the 'collective' has agreed upon as “right” and “wrong” (or correct and incorrect). They are the rules by which to behave in the given society.

While certain norms (like views about polygamy, or the question of whether something is a gift or a bribe) can differ from one society to another, 'fundamentals' such as respecting others and striving to do no harm are the same across all society.

Psychologists refer to conduct that defy social norms to the extent of infringing on others' rights as "deviant behavior". Whereas anyone may deviate now and then, behavior that is consistently antithetical to social norms is of particular interest to psychologists as well as of grave concern by society.

Of note is that personality disorders or even certain forms of mental illness do not necessarily render people deviants. Of essence is whether the particular individual suffers from a particular issue that can activate criminal behavior and the extent to which that issue is under control.

My Quest for Answers

In the real world, people marry for a variety of reasons, none of which may have to do with love and eternal bliss. Of course, most neither lie about their aspirations nor are violent.

It was quite easy to recognize 'what' Farah Rahmani was 'up to'. She is driven by money - Specifically to feed her gambling habit.

Also in hindsight, she did not hide much of what she was doing because - First, she is an unimaginative 'one trick pony' who consistently uses the same handful of approaches such as spreading lies and recording unsuspecting people, then invoking bits and pieces out of context to bully them into succumbing to her blackmail; and second, she was far too overly confident of her ability to sway our family as individuals or as a group.

Farah Rahmani's 'narcissism' led her to believe that she had the family 'eating out of her hands'. So once in a while, the facade fell, and her true self manifested.

DSM-5 (American Psychiatric Association, 2013) identifies "Narcissistic Personality Disorder" as "a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy".

An individual diagnosed with "Narcissistic Personality Disorder" exhibits five (or more) of the following:

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Diagnostic Criteria 301.81 (F60.81)

• "Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
• Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
• Believes that he or she is 'special' and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
• Requires excessive admiration
• Has a very strong sense of entitlement, e.g., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
• Is exploitative of others, e.g., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
• Lacks empathy, e.g., is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
• Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
• Regularly shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes"

Reference: American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.

Much more perplexing was the 'why'. At first, I refused to believe anyone, much less my own sister-in-law, could be be so devoid of humanity. I pondered, "even if her initial plan was to 'take advantage', how can she be so base to continue harming those who have shown her so much kindness?"

That question answers itself when Farah Rahmani’s toxic behavior is juxtaposed with manifestations of “Antisocial Personality Disorder” and “Borderline Personality Disorder”.

DSM-5 (American Psychiatric Association, 2013) details these conditions and their key signs and symptoms as follows:

Antisocial Personality Disorder

Diagnostic Criteria 301.7 (F60.2)

“A pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others, occurring since age 15 years, as indicated by three (or more) of the following:

• Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest
• Deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure
• Impulsivity or failure to plan ahead
• Irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults
• Reckless disregard for safety of self or others
• Consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations
• Lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another”

Borderline Personality Disorder

Diagnostic Criteria 301.83 (F60.3)

“A pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

• Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment by friends and family
• Unstable personal relationships that alternate between idealization (‘I’m so in love!’) and devaluation (‘I hate him’). This is also sometimes known as ‘splitting’
• Distorted and unstable self-image, which affects moods, values, opinions, goals and relationships
• Impulsive behaviors that can have dangerous outcomes, such as excessive spending, unsafe sex, substance abuse or reckless driving
• Self-harming behavior including suicidal threats or attempts
• Periods of intense depressed mood, irritability or anxiety lasting a few hours to a few days
• Chronic feelings of boredom or emptiness
• Inappropriate, intense or uncontrollable anger - often followed by shame and guilt
• Dissociative feelings - disconnecting from your thoughts or sense of identity or ‘out of body’ type of feelings - and stress-related paranoid thoughts. Severe cases of stress can also lead to brief psychotic episodes.”

Reference: American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.

In common vernacular, the terms 'psychopath', 'psychopathy', 'sociopath', and 'sociopathy' indicate 'antisocial' behavior. The amoral (lack of conscience) aspect of 'psychopathy' distinguishes it from 'sociopathy'.

Although not a clinical term, 'malignant narcissism' which is often used in the context of domestic abuse, describes an array of severe mental issues arising from aspects of narcissism, antisocial behavior along with sadism, aggression, and paranoia. Those affected are perceived to have a sense of profound self-importance and propensity to hostility, undermining their friends, families, affiliates, and employers, and dehumanizing those with whom they associate.

I lectured about the human psyche and mental disorders but had no practical experience with such gross conduct. My knowledge was limited to research and theory and causes and effects of deviant behavior in organizational settings.

I knew deviant behavior does not require conscious will to diverge from social norms. I also knew that often, the individual thinks he or she is doing the right thing and that some formulate scripts to maintain control of themselves and the situation.

That could explain why Ms. Rahmani is incapable of remorse as well as why she always has something 'more to add' to her narrative. Yet I wondered, for example, why she was unable to at least feign empathy - even if she is not capable of actually experiencing it.

There were many indications of Ms. Rahmani’s inability to feign empathy and her tendency to script in advance what she planned to do and say but perhaps the most demonstrative was her non-reaction when she saw my two newly dislocated toes shortly after I tripped (sheer clumsiness) and my foot folded over.

Whereas a more typical reaction in such a circumstance is to grimace, and/or express concern, and/or inquire about how it happened, Ms. Rahmani dismissed the swollen black and blue stumps and proceeded to share her continuing saga as soon as she saw me that day. Even after Baba called up from downstairs to see how I was doing, she cut me off mid-explanation to add another detail to her story.

What eluded me at the time was that she had dropped the ball and she knew it! By then, the family had thwarted most of her efforts - either knowingly or inadvertently. Although many with her issues are able to feign appropriate emotional reactions, they start losing their tight control as their narratives unravel.

Then there was another part of me that was unable to resolve the cognitive dissonance I was experiencing - Specifically, the contrast between my belief in the goodness of human nature and what I was witnessing.

I knew domestic abusers often deny they are violent but still wondered, "Even if she thinks she does no wrong, is she not concerned that she is tormenting her 'beloved Farhad' as she referred to him? Even if her mind has conveniently 'forgotten' that she hit Farhad in the shin with a hammer, why hasn’t she noticed him limping and wondered why? Why isn’t she concerned about the bruises on his face and the burn blisters on his neck and chest?"

I failed to appreciate then that Farah Rahmani’s roller coaster idealization and devaluation of Farhad stemmed from a much deeper problem that I fathomed.

Mental Disorders

Farah Rahmani exhibited symptoms of several distinct 'conditions' precisely as outlined in my lecture notes on mental disorders but my lectures in this area are mainly theoretical. I am neither qualified, nor wanted to presume, to 'diagnose' her.

Those outlines could serve as checklists of her deviant behavior. Yet I Continued to doubt my conclusions and reasoned, "her behavior closely matches DSM's diagnostic criteria for several personality disorders. How can one person have so many issues yet remain undiagnosed into her late forties? There must be another explanation."

I realize now that I was giving the Iranian mental health system far too much credit. Or maybe Iranians were quite eager and extremely relieved to pawn off Ms. Rahmani to Canada!

Psychology and psychiatry are relatively new fields. They are still evolving and, as I keep reminding my students, each condition is explained by many, often contrasting theories.

Ultimately, without divulging who she was and her relationship to me, I posed a hypothetical that described some of her behavior to some colleagues who are actual mental health professionals with practical experience assessing and treating deviant conduct.

Without exception, their consensus was, "this individual is dangerous to herself and people around her." All also agreed that beneath the aura of confidence such an individual may exude, is a damaged person who needs attention and is frightened of being alone.

They said as long as the focus is on the person, that attention could be either positive or negative. They also said relatives, friends, and significant others tend to find ridding themselves of someone who exhibits such tendencies extremely difficult.

Interestingly, I had not shared that Farah Rahmani frequently slams into walls, hits herself, and pulls out clumps of her own hair. Yet their conclusion based on some of her other tendencies was "proclivity to hurt not only other people but also herself".

Later, we learned from Farah Rahmani's family that she has been self-mutilating, i.e., cutting herself and engaging in other self-harm methods, since she was a teenager.

When I eventually shared the real story as it had unfolded by then, one of those professionals expressed interest in seeing and evaluating Ms. Rahmani in person and offered to fly to Canada.

I knew she would not agree to a formal meeting with a psychiatrist because she had already refused to seek counseling. So I arranged a social get together and introduced Ms. Rahmani to “my good friend who was visiting”. Albeit informal, the opportunities for observation and in-person interaction during that weekend affirmed those conclusion.

Of course, regardless of the extent of a psychiatrist's expertise in diagnosing and treating deviant behavior, it is one thing when he or she concludes something after observing and speaking with someone, and another, when that subject has given informed consent and has been formally examined, assessed, and diagnosed in a clinical setting; nevertheless, that information set me straight.

Further delay in extracting Farhad from Farah Rahmani’s clutches and averting her access to Baba as I second-guessed myself, questioned her state of mind, or attempted to rationalize her motives would have been to their detriment.

Farah Rahmani’s Idiosyncrasies

Farah Rahmani is 'different'! She is a fascinating study for any student of human behavior. The following are some of her quirks beyond her propensity to become violent:

I noticed early on that, unless actively pursuing her purpose, Ms. Rahmani was impervious to many nuances of the spoken and body language such as facial expressions, posture, tone, and inflection.

For example, she did not react to jokes 'normally'. (Again, 'normal' is relative. In this case, it is her reaction in comparison with that of others to the same thing in the same setting and circumstance.)

It was not just that my attempts at humor were meager. My humor is 'dark' and 'dry' and not to everyone's taste. Moreover, I do not profess to be funny by any measure. Ms. Rahmani was unaffected even when someone said a really funny joke which everyone else present thought hilarious.

At first, I attributed her non-reaction to her 'foreignness' but she was not moved even after it was explained to her. She just sat there seemingly following with a glossy stare and a forced smile at intervals, yet there was nothing there.

She also appeared unable to 'take' a joke about herself. Farhad, Alex, and I do not take ourselves seriously. We goof around and poke fun at one another. At first, we tried to include her but, each time, her face contorted into a defensive expression and she appeared as if she was taking it personally.

For example, when I kidded that a particular lady at a market was probably being pleasant and particularly kind to us because she likes Farhad, Ms. Rahmani complained to the poor woman’s employer, and demanded she be fired.

In general, Farah Rahmani is not interested in group conversations that are not focused on her or have no potential to reveal something she can later use to her benefit. She tends to go off and busy herself with another group. If that is not possible or if it is a one-on-one conversation and she is not pumping the other person for information or she is not complaining to that person, then she drifts off until she hears something of interest to her.

She appears as though she is listening attentively, and nods and smiles at intervals as if she is following, but her eyes glaze over. Then, suddenly, she double takes when she hears a keyword of interest and asks for whatever it was to be repeated - as if she has just woken up.

Whereas the human mind and body are inclined to ‘escape’ when a conversation is not particularly interesting and/or when one is in cognitive overload, it is unusual if that happens routinely irrespective of the speaker, topic, and occasion.

Farah Rahmani has a lofty sense of self and expects others to agree with what she says. In a number of grandiloquent messages, she boasts of being the “best wife anyone can ask for” and “God’s gift”, and harps about her abilities, virtues, decency, knowledge, etc.

In several of her voice messages and texts, Farah Rahmani tells Farhad to be “grateful to God for being blessed with such a wife” and admits to fabricating lies to “punish” him for “not appreciating a wife who is as wonderful as” she is.

After the separation, she bombarded Farhad, Baba, and me daily with hundreds of texts, calls, and e-mails. Certainly, those of you who have met her were also subjected to her lengthy hyperbolic boasts about how "great" she is and her "devotion to Farhad".

She claims Farhad and certain other people (those who anger her because they do not do as she wishes) could “find inner peace” by “letting” her help them, dress them, show them “how to behave”, “train” them, etc.

Farah Rahmani harbors intense envy of others, imagines nonexistent relationships, and reacts inordinately. She also believes others are equally envious of her.

For example, in several of her text and voice messages, as she begs Farhad to return, she posits their separation is because certain people “who are jealous of their profound love for one another have jinxed their relationship” (cheshm-e-moon zadand).

Farah Rahmani’s capricious mindset is evident in the following rough translations of a series of her text messages to Farhad during a 10-minute period. Of note is the contrast between the 1:10 a.m. message and those immediately before and after it.

Punctuations and their frequency are as in their originals. My notes are in [brackets]:

• 1:04 a.m. - "Do not fool yourself you also love me …"


• 1:07 a.m. - "I am counting the moments until I put my head on your heart and feel the warmth of your being .. and this frozen coldness transforms into the burning fire of love and again we can be tranquil in one another's arms …. And continue memories of happy moments we had together. Farhad this separation is an edification lesson so we appreciate each other more and I shall love you until the day I am alive and will remain alongside you and in your arms .."


• 1:10 a.m. - "Bloody lunatic [Literal: "crazy atheist"] ........ You do not send me a message!!??? Why are you playing hide and go seek???? Have you asked yourself what these games are for??? Suppose by making me suffer … I die will your conscience be calm??? But why?? Come to your senses and stop these things my Farhad why when someone loves you from their heart you break their heart?????"


• 1:13 a.m. - "My dearest Farhad my spouse my everything [literal: everyone] ] I swear you to God to think wisely …. Do not spoil our life …. Please …. Do not embarrass me and do not make my hope hopeless …… I swear you to God swear you to your mother's soul swear you to our love swear you to the promises we gave one another swear you to all the time we waited to get together ….. I beg come make a beautiful life … I swear to God it is not a difficult task …"


• 1:14 a.m. - "I adore you from my heart and love you and will die without you"


• 1:14 a.m. - "Understand this … Get this ….. Do not be a coward … Do not renege on your promise … Do not leave me ….. Do not let go of my hand …. We need one another …. I love you"

Empathy for Farah Rahmani

On one hand, one pities Farah Rahmani because she is so obviously miserable in her own skin. On the other hand, she is a menace incapable of empathy who mows through without a care.

Many people who are like her burn out and end up on the fringes without realizing what they did to get there. Even after all that she has done, I often wonder what will become of her and would be feeling better had she agreed to see a counselor when Farhad suggested it or had she taken me on my offer to arrange for one on the day she bloodied my son’s face.

Again, despite it all, I cannot help but feel sorry for Farah Rahmani. Amidst her tall tales, glimmers of her absolute reality shine through now and then. That life, for Ms. Rahmani, is just not fair. No one treats her right. Her own family has meanly abandoned her, this family has foolishly rejected her, friends selfishly shun her, employers wrongfully turn their back on her, doctors incompetently dismiss her concerns, and law enforcement is unreasonably harsh to her. It is all a series of injustices.

Farah Rahmani and Me

All along, Alex and I were among Farah Rahmani’s favorite targets. Of course, she was full of praise when we were around but, among a slew of other things, Ms. Rahmani tried to set us up several times, conceivably, to clear the field.

One such ploy was her attempt to implicate me in banking fraud. One day she called as if in distress, begged me to call her bank immediately, claim to them I am she, and give some cockamamie story and instructions. She was despondent and said it could not wait until Farhad got home from work.

When I declined to pretend to be her, she insisted. For almost 45 minutes, she pleaded and I tried to reason why it was a bad idea. (Now I know she already knew it was a bad idea!)

Ultimately, I offered to translate for her and arranged a 3-way call to her bank. That urgency subsided and Ms. Rahmani hung up on her end when I introduced myself as her sister-in-law.

At the time, it did not occur but many banks in Canada have adopted 'voice printing' to verify customer identity. Presumably to set me up, Ms. Rahmani wanted the bank to have a record of my voice calling from my number and pretending to be someone else giving instruction about an account registered to other people.

Ms. Rahmani had her reasons for endearing herself to me as she attempted to implicate me in one of her schemes and/or discredited me to others. For a long time, I did not disappoint.

Generally, I listened attentively as Ms. Rahmani spewed her tales in tandem with accolades about all that is me. I was trying to figure her 'end game'. She believed I was being accommodating.

At first, my silence which she misinterpreted as attentiveness was inadvertent. I am neither an idle chatter nor have the patience to sit through what I consider frivolous conversation. In fact, I am guilty of resorting to running my mouth relentlessly to mute others on occasion.

That impatience may be a byproduct of my early experiences – or lack thereof. That softer, gentler, 'girly' capacity to 'listen attentively and commiserate accordingly' is generally cultivated in childhood.

I did not have a sister to practice tête-à-tête with. Moreover, I am not a 'huggy kissy' type. Above all, I have met more than my fair share of people who deal with genuinely catastrophic illnesses quietly and gracefully, so am put off by those who pretend to be ill to get attention.

Most of my childhood friends were either males or as tom boyish as I was. Instead of softer, gentler deliberations about shades of pink and warm and fuzzy stuff or gushing about the latest idol, our parlays explored (what we perceived to be) more 'practical' stuff such as the ways and means of climbing up trees and traversing tall walls efficiently, and consuming the insects we sun-baked with magnifiers.

As I pretended to listen politely to Ms. Rahmani’s ramblings about her virtues and devotion for Farhad during our first few meetings, I actually felt bad for cheating her out of a more accommodating sister-in-law. I thought anyone else would be consoling her. A 'good' sister-in-law would have endorsed what she was saying and commiserated with her.

That compunction subsided when I realized that Farah Rahmani perceives her listener’s silence as validation of what she says. As long as she has the opportunity to deliver her soliloquy without objection, retort, or confrontation, she is comfortable with no participation by the other party in the 'conversation' and misinterprets that silence as confirmation.

In fact, she preferred it that way. She not only attempted to 'grease' me by praising my "wisdom to listen attentively as she speaks" and my "understanding of what she was going though" but also used my silence to legitimized her fabrications to others by emphasizing "even Farhad’s sister agrees with me". (She also used this line on Farhad toward isolating and further demoralizing him.)

Of course, all the while, Ms. Rahmani was attempting to create friction. For example, she called me to say an elder 'community member' was interested in a match between Alex and her granddaughter and had contacted her to get a 'feel' from me.

We have known that lady for a long time. She is very nice and Alex and she have a mutual affinity for each other. There was no reason why she would have felt the need to approach Farah Rahmani of all people for something like that. Only an idiot would think someone I have known for two minutes could facilitate such a thing and I knew the lady is smarter than that.

Based on what I know now, I am relatively confident Ms. Rahmani was using that ruse to get some sort of a negative reaction to report to the elderly lady. She did a lot of the type with other people.

I told Ms. Rahmani that the lady knows she can always approach me directly, with anything. I said I do not know the lady’s granddaughter personally but know their family and am certain she is a very nice young lady. I explained Alex was not searching and I am not into matchmaking for him.

That must not have been what Ms. Rahmani hoped to hear because several weeks later, someone scared the old lady by calling and awakening her in the middle of the night. When I spoke with her, she said she was not sure it was Alex but the man introduced himself as "Alex".

Based on what I know now, either the caller was one of Farah Rahmani’s 'friends' or Ms. Rahmani placed the call herself and played a recording – as she did when she called others and played recordings of Farhad.

Psychopaths are victims of their own fantasies and narcissists take pride in their ability to manipulate. At some level, Farah Rahmani may have actually believed the illusion that I was 'in her camp' because it led to some of the mistakes that ultimately subverted her plan. In effect, she put her eggs in the wrong basket by thinking that I will always support her and 'have her back' regardless of what she does and says.

By when she became the wiser, it was too late. Of course, she added me to her 'naughty list' and changed course several times but by then Farhad was out of her grasp and her original plan which I am sure had taken her much time and effort to set in motion started crumbling.

I was not a fool. I knew what she was doing and saying behind my back long before then but face-to-face, Ms. Rahmani continued to be the adoring sister-in-law for some time after the separation. She kept on the ruse and called and e-mailed to "confide" and beg me to convince Farhad to return.

It did not take much to fall out of favor with her. For the first time, after months of accommodating her by listening without interjection, suggesting she sees "a counselor to give her insight into how she can make it work out", etc. and she presuming she had garnered a staunch ally in me because of my silence, Farah Rahmani heard me say, “if things are as bad as you say, then I don’t think your marriage has a chance.”

Oh woe is me! That was the moment I lost my "best thing since sliced bread tohfeh Natanz" sister-in-law!

In their younger days, my brothers often used me as their scapegoat when their relationships hit solid walls. After a while, that reputation preceded me.

Farah Rahmani arrived in Canada in early November 2015 and I went there around Christmas. We had spoken by phone a couple of times and she had already met and spent time with the immediate family but I decided to have a Holiday dinner party in her honor to alleviate any trepidation she may have about meeting me in person for the first time and to “officially” introduce her to some of our extended relatives and friends.

That evening when they arrived, Farhad found me in the kitchen and whispered that Ms. Rahmani was very excited about meeting me in person and had brought me a special present. When I asked, he said he did not know what it was.

I greeted her warmly (regrettably, with even more passion than I normally allot people) and graciously accepted her hostess gift. A few minutes after the pleasantries, they disbursed to mingle with other guests and I proceeded to unwrap the gift.

When a handwritten card by someone I do not know fell out from inside the wrapper, I realized the gift had originally been from someone else. I immediately bunched the card with the discarded wrapping paper and crumbled them. I hoped she had not noticed from across the room but saw her looking at me when I looked up.

I actually felt sorry for her. I thought I may have embarrassed her by reading the card and recognizing it was a re-gift. I mouthed a “merci” and pretended to get busy with something else. Then, I took the crumbled bundle to the kitchen and shoved it out of sight.

I still felt bad after the party and figured to let Farhad in on the situation the next time we were alone. I wanted him to temper any embarrassment she may have felt by reassuring her. I also thought of showing him the card and having a laugh at his expense but it was missing from the crumbled bundle of wrapping paper.

At first I thought I had misplaced the card in my rush to the kitchen but, when I mentioned the incident to Farhad, he said Ms. Rahmani had mentioned taking it and had shown him the card on their way home.

What I am trying to convey is that within just a few minutes after meeting me for the first time, Farah Rahmani revealed that there was much more to her than the Goody Two-Shoes, fresh-off-the-boat-urchin persona she was presenting.

She also demonstrated that she is not beneath rummaging through people’s belongings and retrieving what is not hers – Thus no respect for others and what is theirs. Nevertheless, I continued to give her the benefit of the doubt for much longer than she deserved.

Yes, Yes! It was just a stupid card and not even addressed to me. My ethics students and I frequently debate the nature of ownership – be it a paperclip or a postage stamp. There was no stipulation as to how she expected me to use it (contrast with an employer-paid paperclip which must be used only to promote that employer’s objectives.) So technically, she gave up her rights and it belonged to me from the moment she handed over that package!

Moreover, Farah Rahmani was a guest that night with no business to go where she was not 'supposed to', inspect other people’s drawers and cabinets without permission, and take what did not belong to her.

Instead of approaching it as an infantile game of hide-and-seek and engaging in sleight of hand behind my back, Ms. Rahmani could have very easily approached me. We then could have laughed it off and I could have given her the card (and the gift).

That experience showed first, her juvenile assumption that she could erase my memory of the card by removing it from my sight; and second, her disrespect for me and for the collective family’s property – regardless of how insignificant.

I am sharing this because it presented a poignant first clue yet I missed it. It was a harbinger of Farah Rahmani’s incessant mind games to present black as white and left as right.

That was also the first of many more instances of her presuming to sneak into and around Baba's house and removing and/or pawning off much more valuable items to feed her gambling habit unbeknownst to us.

My Approach to Farah Rahmani

Ms. Rahmani’s ramblings about Farhad and others concerned me. In particular, how she depicted Farhad and her persistence in portraying him that way while professing her love for him did not make sense.

I knew something was wrong from the start but, even after recognizing she was angling for something, it took me some time to figure exactly what.

I wondered about her clearly staged naiveté and public displays as well as her over exaggerated "sweetness" toward, and "adoration", of me. I know I am nice but also know I am not that nice!

Even then, I kept reviewing all Ms. Rahmani was saying and doing, and questioning my conclusions. No one sets out believing her new sister-in-law is intent on destroying her family – much worse, actively trying to kill her brother and father!

God knows I spent many agonizing days and nights in self-doubt, pouring over the facts with hopes of a reasonable explanation. All along, instead of exhibiting any behavior that refuted those conclusions, Farah Rahmani said and did more and more to convince me she is dangerous and bent on harming Farhad and Baba.

This is what I mean when I say I detest what this situation has done to me as a person. Ms. Rahmani undermined my belief about the basic goodness of human nature. Maybe I am giving her undeserved credit even here. May be I am a fool for not heeding the signs from the beginning and for agonizing and engaging in self-doubt when, in hindsight, she was transparent from the moment I met her.

As for Farah Rahmani’s grievances about 'others', according to her, they were either "wastes" who annoyed her just by merely existing or had done something to antagonize her.

She faulted her neighbors, cashiers at grocery stores, servers at restaurants, doctors and receptionists, bank tellers and managers, police officers at cross walks and just about everyone else she came in contact with and declared each of them "stupid" and incompetent for either "misunderstanding her goodwill" or "treating her unfairly".

So I continued keeping mum and letting her talk. This time consciously for insight into her psyche to figure what was 'driving' her. Later, I became more participative when I noticed her tendency to embellish her accounts by twisting and interjecting bits and pieces of the 'truth' into them.

Likely, this was to give her claims plausibility but it also suggests lack of imagination. She basically 'filled in the blanks' as opposed to coming up with altogether novel scenarios and I obliged by giving her confusing and fantastical information to digest and pick through.

I am not a patient woman! When, after entertaining several sessions of her same-old, same-old lamentations, that broken record became intolerably jarring, I would become more expressive and divert the subject half-hoping her upcoming heart-to-hearts with me would revolve around the new topic. Ms. Rahmani did not disappoint.

For example, during one of her predictable soliloquies, she complained yet again that her "incompetent" doctors were unable to determine why she coughs so much. (She does not let on that she has suffered from COPD for years, or that her doctors in Canada concur with that diagnosis). So I suggested she consult with her doctor about potential sensitivities and allergies.

At that time, I still had not quite figured Farah Rahmani's real reason for pretending to be sick. I thought she merely suffered from 'illness anxiety disorder' (also known as 'heath anxiety', 'hypochondriasis', and 'hypochondria') and frequented doctors' offices and emergency rooms for assurance and attention.

I presumed she would find it soothing to learn that the process of detecting and alleviating allergies involves multiple tests and presents opportunities to interact with medical professionals over an extended period. I also expected she would be happy at the prospect of having an allergy because that could have given her yet another health related matter to talk about when feigning frailty to garner empathy.

I pointed out that one's body can start reacting even if he or she has had no problem before and explained that even when seemingly harmless to others, food-borne allergies, environmental pollutants, and even brief exposure to chemicals can trigger allergy-like reactions including coughs. I further commiserated that I am prone to sudden bouts of coughing when in vicinity of a variety of products.

To console her, I explained that I do not necessarily have to actively use a product to be affected by it and that it took a long time and numerous tests by a variety of specialists to determine that I have "reactive airways".

I specifically identified shakers of finely ground black pepper, cans of Lysol spray which may have droplets of the chemical on them, and poorly rinsed items formerly exposed to chlorinated bleach as some of the items which, in my case, trigger profuse coughing and allergy-like reactions even from across the room. In particular, I identified chlorine as a highly irritating substance.

I also shared the basics of the "hygiene hypothesis", told her more and more people are developing sensitivities, and mentioned that the scientific community attributes the problem in part to modern day refrigeration techniques which prevent natural exposure to agents and microorganisms that boost immunity as well as increased popularity and availability of antibacterial cleansers and bleach in recent decades.

In particular, I said one cannot avoid exposure to bleach in people’s homes and public places completely because it is a cheap yet effective disinfectant and readily available.

The next time we met, Ms. Rahmani was beset by one of her neighbors who she claimed was "breaking in to urinate in the hallway and poison the food" in her refrigerator and pantry "with bleach" when she was not around. She said her "home is reeking of bleach" and she "is suffocating there".

Ms. Rahmani regularly would come up with such calamities to motivate me to invite them on Baba's behalf to come and live at his house. One could sense her waiting patiently for an invite after she had presented yet another tall tale to highlight her case. As always, I was kind, concerned, and even helpful but all is fair when one tries to harm my family and I came across too dense to conclude that moving in was the optimal solution to her problem.

Farah Rahmani is not apt at making good decisions on the fly. Almost all of her impetuous choices were 'half-baked'. They either missed the target or backfired and hurt her. It stood to reason that her larger, more elaborate plans had taken a long time and painstaking attention to develop.

She probably found having to conjure yet another way, another thing, another reason to get through my 'thick skull' and compel me to extend that offer excruciatingly difficult.

I have to credit her for at least figuring that while I may consider other people’s input and suggestions, to be absolutely comfortable with a decision, ultimately, I must validate it independently. She needed me to be 'absolutely comfortable' to the point of extracting Alex and myself and leaving her the lock, stock, and barrel, and full access to Baba!

Support From Relatives and Friends

Our hearts are filled with gratitude toward those who have championed Farhad and this family along this journey. That did not go unnoticed. Many of you gave Farhad strength to carry on. We survived Ms. Rahmani’s hostility, aggression, and desire to disrupt Farhad’s life, and harm him, Baba, and Alex because of your support, and encouragement.

Farhad appreciates your continued love and compassion. He acknowledges his error in judgment by marrying and sponsoring Farah Rahmani and wants to amend her adverse impact as much as he can.

He has learned that, unbeknownst to him among other things, Farah Rahmani solicited thousands of dollars from distant relatives and friends under varying pretenses. He has repaid those he has become aware of and wishes to know if others have also given her money and/or items of value.

Let Down

With respect to those who chose to genuflect to Farah Rahmani, fueled her vitriol when she pumped them, bought into her spectacle, and served as her instruments, we appreciate that for some, accepting contradictory uttering by a total stranger is less cognitively arduous than accepting the most basic, easily verifiable facts.

That disingenuous disregard for blood ties and decades of intimate familiarity spoke volumes. It does not take much to recognize that Farah Rahmani is a social menace with questionable morale and motives. Even strangers who do not share blood ties with Farhad or have not known this family for decades were able to conclude that she lacks credibility and dismiss the notions she circulates as untenable and absurd.

Again, I apologize for waiting until now to release this. To spare his family and friends, Farhad put on a brave face, and for a long time, we looked the other way as Farah Rahmani and her cohorts disseminated misinformation.

At this juncture, I am compelled to call out those who take it upon themselves to admonish and instruct us regarding what they were absolutely clueless about. In such cases, I find comfort by subscribing to Hanlon's razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"; nevertheless, they should know that Farhad’s heart is more pure than theirs, his faith is more genuine than theirs, and God is much more benevolent than whatever and whoever they bow to.

We are not in the habit of going around and talking about ourselves - good or bad, but Farhad and the rest of this family are absolutely transparent.

We believe that talking about oneself is unbecoming and crude. We hesitate to boast of our triumphs because we think that is pompous. We also do not beat our chests over our miseries because we do not wish to impose on and/or bore people.

Above all, we do not presume that our lives are worthy of interest and/or speculation by others; however, we are, and have always been forthcoming and very open to questions even when some of those questions and the people asking them were inordinately prying and/or absolutely impertinent.

I suppose the 'untrained eye' could misinterpret humility, reticence, and disinclination to grandstand as secretiveness. I am also aware that some people seek to escape from their own lives and find catharsis by dwelling upon and meddling into other people's; nevertheless, I am bewildered by the degree to which some of my own relatives and family acquaintances are susceptible to suggestions

I am baffled further by their rational that a person who has known us for a mere two months would have a deeper grasp of our family's inner working than they could have learned by merely asking - Particularly since as she was spewing the smear they were so eagerly lapping up and circulating, that person was also imploring them to help her get back with Farhad.

Moreover, if our family is as "rotten" and "diabolical" as Ms. Rahmani was claiming, did they at all wonder how and why this 'notorious Persian version of the Corleone clan' - as she tends to depict us - had spared her, cut her loose, and allowed her to run around and badmouth it?

Warning!

I was just informed Farah Rahmani is actively trolling yet another associate of the family who, despite repeated warnings, has maintained contact with her.

This family has extricated Farah Rahmani from its midst and, in the process, leveraged its legal and other resources to protect those among the extended family and acquaintances who had no business to be involved to begin with. From this point forward, those who foolishly continue to permit Ms. Rahmani into their lives – in person and/or online - are on their own!

The following is one last time for the benefit of those who have not yet grasped the danger she poses. They know who they are. So I shall not go into the details except that with our own plate full trying to keep Farah Rahmani in check, we have also had to thwart a number of her unsavory plans for several other people who could have, and should have, kept their distance from her when they were first warned.

Farah Rahmani can present well and appears lucid but, as has been the experience of dozens in Canada, pity and acts of kindness toward her do not end well. Also, as a myriad of her relatives and acquaintances in Iran have reported, no familial, cultural, moral, or legal strictures bind her.

Similarly, as her victims can attest, not only she is a scheming swindler but also she is quite volatile and prone to spontaneous and unprovoked violence and infliction of physical harm.

In addition, Farah Rahmani is a staunch believer in her own abilities and expects others to agree with her. Those who do not, fall out of favor and are subjected to her defamation campaigns and/or physical violence. This turnaround does not take much and is often instantaneous.

She went after Farhad’s coworkers only because they work with Farhad, and cashiers and clerks only because they spoke with him. She has tried to discredit her doctors, police officers, and other people. She has antagonized her neighbors including one who is a local baker and brings home leftover bread and pastries to distribute among neighbors. Ms. Rahmani accused the poor guy of trying to poison everyone in the building!

Farah Rahmani's egoism and egotism as well as her inability to control her impulses make it difficult to imagine or predict her mood or her behavior but perhaps the most disconcerting is her intractable belief in her own wisdom and intelligence. Her narcissism overcomes her ability to know she needs help and ask for it. Since she is neither cognizant of her issues nor amenable to counseling or treatment, there is no hope of her ever 'turning a new leaf'.

Regardless of how alluring some may find Farah Rahmani, she is still the same vile, dishonest, and manipulative creature who duped Farhad into marrying her to gain entry into Canada and proceeded to torture him and harm Baba and Alex.

Epilogue

The family is extremely grateful that Farhad survived Farah Rahmani’s peril. The confounding kowtow to Ms. Rahmani during the past several years by some friends and relatives warranted this announcement wait until now.

This is just a brief glimpse into Farhad’s ordeal. He is still traumatized and reluctant to share everything he has endured at Farah Rahmani’s hands but, to his credit, he is quite resilient.

The authorities have vowed to protect him from Farah Rahmani and there is a restraining order against her. Moreover, to help him heal from the trauma, the police have referred him to a victim advocacy organization that helps victims of domestic violence recover from their ordeals. He is moving forward and hopes to ultimately put this experience behind him.

As mentioned, in addition to a number of witnesses, multitudes of pictures and documents, and many hours of audios and videos in which Farah Rahmani attacks Farhad, there are thousands of voice mails, e-mails, text messages, and posts on social media in which she threatens and denigrates Farhad, the rest of the family, and others.

We have read / heard a mere fraction of those messages and do not plan to waste any more of our time on Farah Rahmani's ramblings; however, should she continue violating her restraining order, I shall be obliged to upload them in their raw state.

I know this is a lot but it needed to be said. I hope those who have read so far are more alert to signs of domestic violence because of this. Abuse can take many shapes and forms and be physical, sexual, financial, emotional. It can also involve isolating the victim, monitoring and controlling their activities, and cyber bullying.

In particular, male victims are vulnerable because this society thinks them "rugged" and expects them to "grin and bear" their troubles. Unfortunately, boys are raised to be less expressive about their feelings. Consequently, they are less inclined as adults to confine in their friends, relatives, and authorities if and when they are abused.