Social Media Defamation - More Trouble Than It’s Worth?

Location: Washington state

I recently discovered through some mutuals that someone with a medium-small (<5k) sized following posted my picture with my real name on it accusing me of stalking. I have never met this person in my life and only interacted with her very briefly 1.5 years ago due to some boy drama (she had a crush on my boyfriend hence personal vendetta against me).

I share maybe a dozen mutuals with this person and I think it will have little impact on my life. However, being front and center with my real identifiable information on her public profile is giving me a lot of anxiety and I can’t get the post removed. I am worried that in the future this post may actually affect my life in some way or my silence will empower her to keep slandering me on her page. I have been harassed by this person before, where she has gone out of her way to block creative opportunities from me. She has also sent me and my boyfriend a lot of choice words whenever we have been together, which actually made us suspicious that she’s the one stalking us.

Given the full context and the unstable nature of this person, my friends are all encouraging me to take legal action. A cease and desist letter is $3000. A restraining order is another $15000. I have the money, but wondering if this can be settled in a more low key way. Because of the stalking allegation, I obviously cant contact her myself or have someone I know contact her. I also don’t think that she is capable of reason even if I did.

I am worried that if I have a lawyer write her a C&D she is going to open up a new can of worms. There is absolutely no chance that if she were to sue me, she would ever win the case because she simply doesn’t have evidence since, plainly speaking I am not a stalker and have actually tried everything in my power to avoid this individual*. But I am worried that she is mentally ill enough to pursue something like this and tank us both by..a lot of money and wasted time and effort.

*about a year ago she had burned a professional relationship I had with someone, so I did reach out to this person explaining to them my perspective of the situation and I explicitly said I want nothing to do with her. This is the only person I have contacted regarding her since it was clear that she had defamed me to him.

What to do? Meditate it away? Or bite the bullet and pay that 3k and prepare to pay potentially a lot more? Thanks.