Being stalked

I knew someone like that! I'm sorry that you were treated like that.

Yeah it was a teacher. The same thing year my speech therapist became obsessed with me it was a classmate older brother.

We have both had our share of stalkers! I think all told, I've had six in my life. Sometimes I can see things that I may have done, but sometimes, it's just existing and they latch on.

Hey @jimi
I am sorry you are going through this. Why should she fear you? I mean aside from the fact that you told her to not contact you what do you mean? Is your chat network hosted by a forum or site admins? There is always a way to block someone over safety issues.

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Originally Posted by -jimi- The stalker isn't someone I fear physically, instead she should fear me. She totally seems to have forgotten that I told her never to contact me for her own safety... She waited a few months... then per usual... I know her pattern with others... she contacted me, after I told her never to talk to me again. It wasn't over nothing, she basically ruined my life and it took a lot of time and effort putting it back together. She is completely reckless, also just self serving, is a black hole, takes and never gives back. Just thinking of her drains me of energy but I need to decide how to handle her. Of course she is the victim in all instances of stalking others, so I assume she tells everyone how mean I am that she cannot come back into my life. She thinks she is the victim for real, she thinks she has rights to other peoples time, energy, money, you name it. I used to blame everything on her autism and being very low IQ, but I realize now how sly she is, even if everyone is seeing through her, and that she is stubborn. She basically never stops stalking people that quit being her friend. She always needs her way and ruined her parents lives by this. Many times over. I don't know why they don't just kick her out, she is an adult, OK she has the mind of a child, but of a demon child. You'd think she'd understand I don't want her in my life after the chaos that happened last year. It nearly got our dog killed, nearly got me killed, cost my friend tons of money, ruined my finances, ruined my stuff, almost burned my place down... just some examples. She just tells people after things like that they should forgive her and her mistakes. Some people sort of half took her back, but she can cry nonstop for like a week that they're not actively talking to her a lot. She needs you to quit everything else, just talk to her, for hours. When I still was her friend she could talk at me easily for 12 hours in one go. I always excused her selfish behavior by thinking it was her disabilities. Thing is, I really thought she'd leave me alone. How stupid I was. She was just waiting to try to get into my life. She has emailed me twice, whatsapp messaged me twice. She will soon come to my chat room and pretend everything is for me. Like am I doing OK? She never cared. She cares about herself. She really thinks she can fool people. I could block her on whatsapp, it shows if you're blocked, but I won't block her from email since it doesn't show anyway. I can't block her from chat since it is a huge chat network, which is a bit of a problem. I haven't talked to her since December after telling her what I think. And I promised myself never talk to her again. But if she doesn't quit contacting me, I'll start thinking of her and it's not a good place to be mentally, since I really hate her. She probably has a string of new victims. Last time I saw her she was showing off expensive items people gave her for no good reason. People think she's cute and innocent and needs help. So they give her like expensive clothes and iPhones. Yes, seriously. Then she basically tear them down. Or drown them in her own self pity. So do I answer her and really make sure she understands she's not welcome, or do I just keep ignoring her? I know she is talking to everyone now about me, as she has about others to me in the past. She gets super obsessed by people. I know people actually get very triggered by being ignored... but I really want nothing to do with her. Not even a sentence that I'll contact the police if she continues. I know she would stop if I did, because she has a huge paranoia about the police. But I still think it would be total failure and her winning if I speak to her. So what do I do? Just keep on ignoring her and having her trying to contact me, very likely for years? With a few months apart. Or do I put an end to it and "touch" this filthy person? Ugh. I can't decide.

Other than the chat network you mentioned (and I advise you to read my other post about that) all the other ways she contacts you should be eliminated by blocking her.

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Originally Posted by -jimi- Thank you guys! Restraining orders are really hard to get here! I have worked with a friend to help him getting a restraining order against a guy that used to be in the same club as him. The guy now makes daily really gruesome threats of violence to my friend, also threatens his friends and his pets! But still he hasn't managed a restraining order. Luckily he is not freaked out easily. It seems like you say I should not contact her even to scare her into letting me go. I sort of felt that was the way to go but I really needed input. It might be better that she tries to contact me, and I still don't respond at all. Better than letting her win and yet again get my attention. It's not like she's bothering the crap out of me. It's mostly that I forget all about her, then I hear from her and get reminded. I have really freaky thoughts when I can't stop them. Like that I want to cut her hair off because she depends a lot of her looks when she fools people, she is actually super cute. I hate having thoughts I am ashamed of. I want to be a civilized person. But she did three big nonos, she hurt my pet, she hurt my friend and damaged my home. So that really set off something deep and ugly inside me. Also I feel stupid for not knowing how much she used me. She asked me to help me with homework and it always ended up I did her homework for her. After I broke off the friendship I can't believe I did all that. But she never gave up nagging, also she threatened with self harm if I didn't help, or told me I was selfish that didn't want to "help" her "just a little" as she called it. Sucks to know what a fool I was. I'd rather forget that too! She doesn't even understand that if she gets someone so mad that they hurt her she cannot go to the police since she is here illegally. She is scared of everything than things she should be afraid of.

I'm sorry that you had to experience that. I couldn't get much legal help. Have you consider finding someone who could make her think that the police were watching her and her family?

Sound like my stalker. I wonder if it because we are friendly is why we attract stalker?

That's a very good question. To be honest, I can only speculate. Speaking purely from my own experience I found that one commonality was that my stalkers were loners. I know not all loners are that way, but it was common to my experience with being stalked. They were all socially awkward and did not seem to be comfortable in group settings. It was a commonality that I was friendly. For most of my life I've been a friendly person and am generally happy. I've had a couple of times in my life where external events made me mistrust people up front, but I got past that. But, with my stalkers, each one said to me at one point something to the effect of, "you're the only girl who would give me the time of day." My nurturing instinct tends to get the better of me and I try to help people I feel are in need of help. In turn, some unhealthy people seem to be drawn to me. Also, in each of the instances, they misinterpreted human caring and kindness for romantic interest. Another common thing that was said to me was something to the effect of, they saw in me something they were lacking socially.

I have spent a lot of time in the South (US) and my upbringing was to be polite and respectful as well as caring and kind. Since I'm human, I fall short of this ideal and can be petty and nasty at times and was so as a teen. But, when I see someone hurting I honestly try to be supportive and helpful.

Again, that's a very good question and it would be interesting to see what some of the causes are for this.

I've chosen to host my chat where there is pretty relaxed, of course it can come with downsides too. But mostly it has been positive.

Why she should fear me? Because she is a tiny person with absolutely no physical strength. Not to say I'd hurt her but that thought should have crossed her mind. But she seems not to understand she is just been lucky so far, I'm not sure how a person can be so fearless and so paranoid at the same time.

But actually part from what I thought, I haven't heard from her. I think maybe she has taken her mom's advice (I know she has consulted her mom and also that is the only person she might actually obey) and the mom forbade her to contact me.

She would have asked her mom if she should try contact jimi once again and she would go heck no. We will see how long that lasts.

Anyway, since she is living here illegally, they move quite a bit, so I probably don't even have a location for her if something happened to make me need the cops. The other way around, if she got hurt, she cannot go to the hospital or the cops. Even if I'd known her location, I would never give up her parents, they have always treated be like the best person on the planet. I think I am the person that she's been around for the longest, so they probably hoped I'd stay, and also maybe take some burden off of them.

To jimi and Raven and Buffy and anyone else who has ever had to deal with a situation like this: You have my heartfelt sympathy.

It's very difficult, first of all, to find people to talk with, who are objective and compassionate and wise about this sort of thing. I give you all so much credit for the strength with which you've conducted yourselves.

Secondly, in discussing it at all, we are often made to feel as if we're simply attention-seekers who are so taken with ourselves that we actually believe anyone would cling so dramatically to us in this way. We're made to feel guilty, somehow, and even complicit in some cases, as well. This is absolutely NOT the case, as stalkers simply do not recognize boundaries, for so many reasons. All our normal and patient attempts at getting them to grasp reality can feel like a futile exercise, one that starts to drag us down with them into their delusions, until the whole thing makes us question ourselves up and down.

It has happened to me on 3 separate occasions; but fortunately, not for a long time. It was terrifying and exhausting, and yet none of it ever reached the levels that you have all described.

All 3 resolved themselves when it was made clear to my stalkers that I had people who were willing to go the wall to protect me from them. Talking in circles and being vague did NOT work---it took straightforward and firm communication about what I expected, and what would happen if they didn't start to see it my way. (Not everybody has a hero to defend them, so I was really fortunate in that way. It helped, a lot.)

No one ever warns you that just being kind and patient with someone can lead to alla this nonsense and stress! There are bound to be many conflicting emotions swirling inside each particular situation, like a kind of mini-tornado, that needs to be sorted-out mostly at a later date, when you can think more clearly and rationally about it. The intervening time, though, can seem endless, and so troubling.

Speaking for myself only, it's led to trust issues, and I rolled-back on my openness and general warmth, in a lot of circumstances. I now only really open up to people that I know, w/o a doubt, I am exceedingly safe with.

Sending healing vibes....

To -jmi- and MuseumGhost and others who have had to deal with this, you have my sympathy. Good post MuseumGhost

Thanks, Fuzz.

I went back and re-read some portions of what Raven and Jimi wrote, because these situations were so different from mine. I wanted to share some more.

I never had a friend who decided to actually stalk me. I've known very clingy people, but they had always also demonstrated other emotional issues which kind of gave me a heads-up that they were very needy. It never descended into actual stalking, there (there's a big difference). I dealt with them as best I could, and I think those situations worked out reasonably well. To have it happen with someone I once considered a friend would be extremely upsetting.

My stalkers were all romantically (and probably sexually) fixated. All 3 displayed the kind of loner, socially awkward tendencies that have been mentioned, to varying degrees. All 3 were originally fairly quiet, serious people. Otherwise, there was no early indication of underlying problems. They all changed dramatically at some point in our acquaintance with one another---one, because I could not carry on seeing them (just dating); another, who I lived with for a year, because he simply became unraveled for his own particular reason, which I will probably never fathom (it could have been an emotional disintegration similar to his father's, which I knew about, but never witnessed); and the last, an in-law that I chatted with at his Mom's funeral, and I guess that was enough of an excuse for him to fixate on me.

I am not so good looking that I think I'm anything special. I know that I am a very kind and soft-hearted person who doesn't like to see people hurting, or cut-off from society. I used to be very shy and awkward in my youth---so I know how painful it can be, to be stuck in that place. Unfortunately, sometimes, being kind, patient, very good to them is ALL it takes for them to feel you've given them a green light.

As I mentioned, when you're in the middle of a situation like this, no matter the causes, it always makes you feel as though perhaps you've done something wrong, sent the wrong signals. I want to assure everyone that NORMAL interactions with well-balanced individuals never take on this sort of fog of doubt and self-incrimination (well, except for perhaps when we are in a normal disagreement, which resolve themselves fairly quickly, by comparison). Yet, sometimes, to this day, I find myself questioning what it was that I did, that I could have done differently, that would have changed the equation in my favor, much earlier on.

I think the answer is, Nothing. Deluded and damaged people will, we now know, sometimes try and ensnare us in their strange emotional existence.

They also show a strong propensity for projecting their shortcomings onto us, as you both illustrated so well, Raven and jimi. That, alone, whenever I encounter it, is now a huge red flag for me, and a guarantee that I'm dealing with someone who needs far more help than I can give them. Projection, as a maladaptive behaviour, occurs under many types of mental instability---but I had a light bulb moment after reading your accounts. It was present in all 3 of my experiences, too.

A powerful, all-consuming self-absorption on their part, as well as an inability to moderate or distance themselves, and recognize their behaviour as inappropriate, were also very much present in all 3 circumstances.

I don't know what damage to my reputation my stalkers perpetrated at my expense. Any possible damage to your reputations will probably dissolve into the ether at some point, as well, I hope. You do seem like such good people. I don't know how that could ever be overlooked by anyone who genuinely knows the real you!

Sort-of related: I grew up with an extremely narcissistic, histrionic sister who continues to this day to carry on behind my back, accusing me of the worst kinds of things and bad mouthing me to all the relatives and mutual acquaintances she can find. So I know what that feels like. But I have also realized, over time, that the truth almost always comes out. People are smarter than we give them credit for. She will paint herself into a corner some day so badly with all of her lies and derision that no amount of manipulation, and none of her cleverness, will save her. And her irrational and vicious treatment of me will be exposed for what it's always been. I hope the same is true for you.

I would also say, you two especially are much more kind, tender-hearted, and long-suffering than me! I took swift and decisive action in my circumstances ( I had to; the reasons don't matter enough to elucidate here.). You've both tolerated far more, for much longer than I ever would have. And your situations, on many levels, seem far scarier than even what I endured.

Raven, especially, please be very careful. Your stalker is really frightening.

I would also urge the zero contact approach to these people. They will misconstrue the merest word or outreach on your parts. The mini-tornado will rev up all over again.

I have not read up much on stalking and its causes. If I find some more helpful info, I will forward it here.

Please stay safe, and take good care of yourselves.

Sadly there is not way to deal with a stalker that is effective. Any contact you have only encourages them. You can get a restraining order but in some cases even that makes the stalker think you want their attention even more. I did read a study once that in some cases civil litigation was fairly successful. Obviously you would have to have tedious documentation of monetary and emotional damage over time. No one likes to be hit in the pocketbook. But even that wasn't effective in ALL cases. Prison seems like a good idea.....