Stalking T

Ever stalk your T?

Sometimes I have a look in the car park and try to figure out which car is hers, but that's about it.

My behaviour was obsessive and since then I have found out it was illegal. I feel extremely guilty over the blatant intrusion of my T personal life.
I just really NEEDED to know more about him. My advice is to ask your T.

No I have not.

No never. I never even ask more than the basic polite how are yous. Their life is not my business.

I know what my T drives. ( only mine and T's in parking lot) I have never really looked at it, except its always looks like it has been washed... makes my dirty car feel sad. ( LOL )

Definitely not.

OP- why do you ask?

Nope. I googled her at the start a couple of times to try to find a website or see if she'd written any articles, and I know to some that's crossing a line, but tbh I google anyone I'm trying to learn/ gain insight from in whatever capacity - lecturers, specialist doctors, sports instructors, etc. So why not a therapist?

It makes me feel stalkerish enough that I'm communicating with her by text/email/call every day like I have done for the past two weeks or so I wouldn't be cut out for being an actual stalker.

No. Not something I am inclined to do, I value privacy very much. Also, I was stalked for a period of time, and I know how bad that feels.

I would not be cut out for being a stalker either but really! Googling and investigating someone -- anyone's -- presence in the virtual world on professional sites and posts with relevance to their outlook as a T ..is pretty harmless, IMHO. To gain insight into their perspective on professional matters is certainly warranted. It' s not like you're going through their underwear drawer or something. Give yourself a break here!

Now if you're hiding in the landscaping near their house, with your night vision goggles, that's another matter entirely!

I was just going to say that I don't think googling someone counts as stalking, and that stalking is staking out someone's house (hiding in the bushes like mcl said) for hours and following them when they leave the house.

I'm a naturally curious person, and I make full use of the web for all sorts of things I'm curious about. I've looked up every address I ever lived at on Google maps, even previous places of employment, to see what they look like now. I've probably googled hundreds of people, some just out of idle curiousity. And you bet I've googled T!! Someone that I tell things to that I've never told anyone else, someone I've revealed myself to with all my black thoughts and warts. Yeah, of course I want to know about this person. But he has a very low profile online - just a website - and has an extremely common name, so he's pretty well hidden.

Sometimes I feel a little uncomfortable about it, but since I've been an extremely curious person since childhood, it's just me. I've accepted it.

Yeah, I'd definitely say there's a difference. Peeking in someone's windows is super creepy and disturbing. Internet searches, not so much.

My Therapist thought I might have recently when I knew what her age was and where she went to school, but I than told her that I was interested in her background so I took a look at her LinkedIn page, and that I wasn't trying to stalk her at all.

I actually found it really productive to tell him that I was having this impulse to cyberstalk his wife and discuss what was behind that, rather than actually cyberstalk. I think stalking in real life is a TOTALLY different thing. Having been in the position of having someone actually watch my apartment and follow me to work and then home again, STALKING stalking was truly horrible for me and had lasting impacts for me. [speaking only for myself and offering no advice to anyone.]

I'm struggling with something like this right now. When T1 left for the summer, I went through a period of madness where I felt I desperately needed some kind of contact. I had avoided googling her while I was seeing her, but once she left I gave in to the impulse and googled her. Without much effort I stumbled across her facebook page, which was marginally "disguised" by a variation of her name. I looked at it a few times and vowed not to return, since it made me feel creepy and transgressive.

My dilemma is this: she's starting up her private practice and I will be going back to seeing her. Ordinarily, I would chalk this whole thing up to a natural need to make contact during a difficult time, forgive myself, and not worry much about it. But her facebook page is too public. If she's going to be seeing clients, and she values her privacy, she needs to tighten up the security of her page. Right now, it's not just her photos that can be seen, it's her friends list, which includes family, and I'm pretty confident she doesn't want that available to all us transference-addled clients.

I need some group wisdom. When I see her, should I sack up and tell her what I did, in the interests of letting her know she's exposing herself and her family/friends to the public? Or should I butt out and figure she knows what she's doing and doesn't need me as a mother hen? I'm not happy about telling her I creeped her, but I'm willing to take the hit if it alerts her to something she may not be aware of.

What do you guys think?

Telling her and taking the hit would be the magnanimous thing to do but at the same time i wouldn't do it if it forces you to reveal something to her that you really don't want to or wouldn't reveal in any other circumstances.

At the end of the day, therapists are being educated and warned all over the place about valuing and protecting their online privacy and social media presence. It's not rocket science. If she's not heeding that advice then that's up to her.

That was the case with my former Therapist's Facebook Page, in fact for a while I wasn't 100% sure that it was here until she liked a certain page and than I knew that it was definitely her.

I'm super curious.

From free Internet searches I figured out where T lives, marital status, basic family tree, home value and extra curricular involvements.

Through Facebook, Flickr and Picassa, I have found photos of T uploaded by T's family and friends. I have saved these photos to a file and I look at them to calm me down when I am having a PTSD flash back.

I used jog by xT's house, but it is on a thoroughfare. I do glance at the windows but I never stop!

T doesn't know but probably suspects. I told her I pulled the bankruptcy court records of a family memberwho estranged me.

Yep. I'm a creep. Maybe Googling people is my porn?

When I first told my T I thought I had and erotic transference she asked " how do I know you won't stalk me " and my reply was " I'd rather spend my money on beer then catching a train to your house everyday ".

No you're not a creep at all its just curiosity.