Have you ever been "stalked"?

[njmom47]

Yes...ex husband.....
Still shakes us up just when we stop looking over our shoulder.
I hate it.

 

[AustinTink]

Yes. Just out of college I got a job as a radio deejay. We had headshots on billboards and newspaper ads, etc. So, I had a few weirdos calling the station during my show, etc. Pretty harmless.

But then, one started showing up. Everyday, with flowers. He would wait outside the station until i got off my shift. At first, the male producers would walk me to my car. Then he got kinda aggressive and the cops had to be called. The station then hired security. The guard would walk me to my car everyday that I worked there. And, many times a co-worker would follow me home just in case.

Ah, fun times.

 

[Anna_Marie]

Yeah when I was in high school - I dated this guy for 4 years then when I broke up with him he didn't take it well. He drove past my house at all hours and if I was outside he would yell stuff. He called the house at all hours and would hang up. Once he did talk to me and told me he was gonna get a bomb and blow up our house.

Finally after that my mother called his mother and told her we were going to get a restraining order if he didn't leave me alone and that stopped it. I ran into him years later with my baby and husband at a Christmas parade and he apologized for his actions. I was like, Ok, apology accepted, get away from me now...

 

[Minnie_me]

Yes, way before "stalking" was popular - LOL!

It was the 80s, and every time time I was home alone (either my mom had just left, or I had just gotten home from school), the phone would ring. As soon as I said "Hello", the caller would say, "Sorry, wrong number" and hang up.

This went on for months. Drove me crazy. My mom didn't even believe me, since it never happened when she was around.

One day, 2 dozen yellow roses were delivered to the house. The card said, "Sorry, wrong number". The phone rang and it was him. This time he said, "Did you like my flowers? They go nicely with the blue shirt you're wearing."

That's when we got the police involved. It was a very small town, so they jumped on it like it was a murder investigation. Turned out to be a guy from my school, the kind of guy that no one ever talks to. He lived across the valley from my house and had been spying on me with a telescope!!

 

[Kat77]

There is a Dis'er I figured out I knew from elsewhere a while back and pm'd her but I swear I'm not stalking... pure coincidence.
I had a stalker boyfriend in high school. He called, left notes, followed me between classes, threatened other guys who talked to me. Then he started threatening me . Police and school officals were involved. He quit doing it so openly but somehow found the worlds stupidest girls to date and would tell them how he loved me, eventually they would come to me po'd (at me!) . I switched schools (back to my tiny hometown). He still showed up randomly over the next couple years but it was no longer daily. He had his SIL tell me he was sorry a few years after HS and he avoids me on FB now so I think he grew up.

 

[krcit]

Sort of. Twice. The first time was when I was a receptionist and a guy called asking for me. When I answered the phone, he started telling me that I was really pretty and stuff. I told him that I didn't know him and to not call. He kept calling, knew a lot of info about me. It was really scary and my bosses got involved and eventually we found out that he was an inmate at Rikers island One call to the warden put a stop to it. We never really figured out how he knew all about me. Creepy. Another time, I was getting phonecalls in the middle of the night saying gross things. I thought I knew who it was so I loudly announced that the police were investigating and lo and behold, the calls stopped.

 

[ols386]

When I was about 19 years old, I worked in a factory. This guy who worked a couple of production lines over from me asked me out and I turned him down. And he kept asking me out, over and over and over, he just wouldn't take no for an answer.

Then he started calling me, sending me letters and cards. I would see him drive by my house now and then. And then in one of his later letters that he mailed to me, he asked me to marry him. It didn't help that my parents WANTED me to go out with him, and acted like I was being mean for not going out with him. Sorry, but I'm not going out with someone if I don't want to.

Then eventually he wrote me this letter and said that he was in the autumn of his life, making it sound like he was dying. I guess he thought that would make me feel sorry for him, or whatever, and that I would give in and see him, but it was all just too weird for me. I never heard from him again.

 

[TaraPA]

I had a stalker almost 20 years ago - way before internet or cell phones or texting - he was a physical stalker I guess you could say!

DH & I lived in a condo & there was a man that would just stand below my balcony for HOURS, staring up into our unit. He would be standing by my car every day when I left for work, and he'd be standing in my empty parking spot waiting for me when I got home from work. He never said a word, just stared. I called the cops but he wasn't legally doing anything wrong - we didn't own the sidewalk under the unit or the parking space since it was a condo, so there was nothing they could do. We also got a lot of hang-up phone calls during that time too. I was TERRIFIED, but there was nothing I could do. I did switch my parking spot with someone else but it was a small complex & he walked around til he found the new one. I used to carry a steak knife in my purse when I went to & from my car, but the cops told me that was a weapons violation & I could be arrested if it was found on me. I carried it anyway, and for good reason....it turns out he was arrested around that same time for climbing up on the balcony of the condo next to us where a single lady lived, with a baseball bat. He was an adult child living with his parents in our complex, all we were told was that he had a mental illness & his parents went to FL for a few months & left him home & he wasn't taking his meds. Nice..........we never saw him again after that.

 

[Imzadi]

OP, if your friend fears a real stalking, she needs to get this book:

The Gift of Fear can save her life.

His book for kids is, Protecting the Gift: Keeping Children and Teenagers Safe (and Parents Sane) can help protect their kids.

Gavin de Becker is the leading security expert in the country. He is Oprah's own security expert as well as Michael J. Fox. Gavin saved Olivia Newton-John from being horrifically tortured & killed by a madman "fan"atic.

There are subtle nuances to a stalker. They are different from an openly, hostile aggressive confrontation & attack. Gavin talks quite a bit about stalking in his book.

He has a free MOSAIC threat level assessment on his website for potential, violent/deadly domestic situations. It was created from decades of his research and it asks a person pertinent questions a normal person/ or even a trained police professional wouldn't know/remember to ask or answer in gathering info to make an accurate threat level assessment.

http://www.gavindebecker.com
Click to Enter the site, and on the right will be the link for a threat assessment.

The fact is, stalkers are passive-aggressive at first, to see how far they can go. Depending on the threat level, the stalker will flip into another personae when confronted with losing the OBJECT of his affections. He may have already given indications that your friend isn't aware of, or would know how to accurately put together, as she does not have the knowledge or training to look for and assess a real threat. Most people blow off indicators as, in their known world, they aren't used to situations turning dangerous.

In The Gift of Fear, Gavin always goes back over a dangerous situation with a client. One of the reasons, is to re-empower the person. Almost every time, the person does finally remember clues & indicators they were given before the situation turned violent. They just didn't know how to put it together at the time. Or didn't listen to themselves. Hindsight, is 20/20.


Gavin says two things in regards to saying no to a man, who keeps pushing forward beyond respected boundaries.

"What part of NO don't you understand?"

and

"When a man says No, it is the end of a conversation. When a woman says No, it is the beginning of a negotiation."

If this stalker is already going past normal social boundaries, showing up more often than usual, in odd places, contacting more than is comfortable, and she's made him aware of her uncomfortability, he's already gone past NO, and is negotiating her boundaries, possibly her safety & life, along his terms.

 

[dicar123]

When I was young and newly married, I worked at the Exchange on a Navy Base. A guy came in one day, looking for a watch. He was kinda friendly and chatty, totally cute! For a few weeks afterward, he would wave as he walked in or stop to chat with me or a couple of the other girls.

Then, one day I noticed him peering at me from behind a rack of clothing. It got creepy pretty quick, and we would notify security every time he walked in. Unfortunately, store security was useless, one time spending half an hour following him around the store as he followed me. Then, he walked right out the front door! A friend's husband chased him, but he left the base.

I thought he might lose interest when I got pregnant, but no. After about 6 months of playing around with the store security, my husband's sub was sent to dry dock and we moved away for 18 months.

About a year after we moved back, I ran into him again, at the Exchange. I was nervous but figured "it's been a long time" so I just ignored him and went about my business. In the electronics section, there was some kind of new kid toy out for Christmas and I got my son out of the shopping cart and he was playing with it. The guy walked right up and started talking to my son and called him by name. I nearly freaked out! I grabbed Derrick, got him into the cart and took off further into the store, while this guy followed us everywhere.

I didn't see any security I recognized, so I stopped at a counter and asked the workers to call them for me. I could see that he had gone outside and was waiting by the front doors. I was terrified that he'd get a look at my car. The base isn't huge, and if you knew a couple only had one child and guessed that they live in housing, we'd have been WAY easy to find, just by driving through 2 neighborhoods (no garages, only carports). I asked the security lady to just talk to him long enough for me to get to my car and off base. She didn't do a thing.

I walked to my car, put my son in his car seat and when I stood up, I saw him walking down the row. I got into my car and locked the doors and waited to see what he would do. A few minutes later, he drove by slowly in his truck, paused behind my car and then kept going. At this point, I stopped being scared to death and became ENRAGED!

I followed HIM as he left the base, hoping to get close enough to get his license plate. It took a few blocks, but I did get it. I deliberated for several hours about what to do. I was positive that there was no way the Base Police would believe me, as they hadn't been involved in any of it. But in the end, I figured they were my best bet.

The Officer was SO wonderful! He seemed to believe me right away and said he'd contact the guy and then he'd be in contact with me. When he called the next day, he assured me there was NO WAY I'd ever have any more problems with this guy.

I did occasionally see him on Base after that and he would very deliberately turn his head, or turn and walk in the other direction whenever I saw him. I guess his career meant a lot to him because he took whatever warning he got Very Seriously.

 

[krcit]

When I was young and newly married, I worked at the Exchange on a Navy Base. A guy came in one day, looking for a watch. He was kinda friendly and chatty, totally cute! For a few weeks afterward, he would wave as he walked in or stop to chat with me or a couple of the other girls.

Then, one day I noticed him peering at me from behind a rack of clothing. It got creepy pretty quick, and we would notify security every time he walked in. Unfortunately, store security was useless, one time spending half an hour following him around the store as he followed me. Then, he walked right out the front door! A friend's husband chased him, but he left the base.

I thought he might lose interest when I got pregnant, but no. After about 6 months of playing around with the store security, my husband's sub was sent to dry dock and we moved away for 18 months.

About a year after we moved back, I ran into him again, at the Exchange. I was nervous but figured "it's been a long time" so I just ignored him and went about my business. In the electronics section, there was some kind of new kid toy out for Christmas and I got my son out of the shopping cart and he was playing with it. The guy walked right up and started talking to my son and called him by name. I nearly freaked out! I grabbed Derrick, got him into the cart and took off further into the store, while this guy followed us everywhere.

I didn't see any security I recognized, so I stopped at a counter and asked the workers to call them for me. I could see that he had gone outside and was waiting by the front doors. I was terrified that he'd get a look at my car. The base isn't huge, and if you knew a couple only had one child and guessed that they live in housing, we'd have been WAY easy to find, just by driving through 2 neighborhoods (no garages, only carports). I asked the security lady to just talk to him long enough for me to get to my car and off base. She didn't do a thing.

I walked to my car, put my son in his car seat and when I stood up, I saw him walking down the row. I got into my car and locked the doors and waited to see what he would do. A few minutes later, he drove by slowly in his truck, paused behind my car and then kept going. At this point, I stopped being scared to death and became ENRAGED!

I followed HIM as he left the base, hoping to get close enough to get his license plate. It took a few blocks, but I did get it. I deliberated for several hours about what to do. I was positive that there was no way the Base Police would believe me, as they hadn't been involved in any of it. But in the end, I figured they were my best bet.

The Officer was SO wonderful! He seemed to believe me right away and said he'd contact the guy and then he'd be in contact with me. When he called the next day, he assured me there was NO WAY I'd ever have any more problems with this guy.

I did occasionally see him on Base after that and he would very deliberately turn his head, or turn and walk in the other direction whenever I saw him. I guess his career meant a lot to him because he took whatever warning he got Very Seriously.

How scary!! I just remembered another incident I had. I was set up on a blind date with a guy who was a Marine. I went out with him twice and he was talking about me coming to the base to visit him I thought that was a bit weird on the first and second date and I didn't really like him(he made me buy my own drink) so I didn't go out with him again. In the meantime I met my DH and knew it was serious pretty quickly. The Marine started calling again and I told him I was seeing someone. Well, the phone calls started getting really nasty. He would call and curse at me repeatedly. I called the girl who set me up with him andf she told him that I was going to call his commanding officer(not too clear on the right term) and luckily that was enough to get him to stop.

Geez, there are an awful lot of freaks out there aren't there? Makes me frightened for my daughters.

 

[Maleficient]

OP, if your friend fears a real stalking, she needs to get this book:

The Gift of Fear can save her life.

His book for kids is, Protecting the Gift: Keeping Children and Teenagers Safe (and Parents Sane) can help protect their kids.

Gavin de Becker is the leading security expert in the country. He is Oprah's own security expert as well as Michael J. Fox. Gavin saved Olivia Newton-John from being horrifically tortured & killed by a madman "fan"atic.

There are subtle nuances to a stalker. They are different from an openly, hostile aggressive confrontation & attack. Gavin talks quite a bit about stalking in his book.

He has a free MOSAIC threat level assessment on his website for potential, violent/deadly domestic situations. It was created from decades of his research and it asks a person pertinent questions a normal person/ or even a trained police professional wouldn't know/remember to ask or answer in gathering info to make an accurate threat level assessment.

http://www.gavindebecker.com
Click to Enter the site, and on the right will be the link for a threat assessment.

The fact is, stalkers are passive-aggressive at first, to see how far they can go. Depending on the threat level, the stalker will flip into another personae when confronted with losing the OBJECT of his affections. He may have already given indications that your friend isn't aware of, or would know how to accurately put together, as she does not have the knowledge or training to look for and assess a real threat. Most people blow off indicators as, in their known world, they aren't used to situations turning dangerous.

In The Gift of Fear, Gavin always goes back over a dangerous situation with a client. One of the reasons, is to re-empower the person. Almost every time, the person does finally remember clues & indicators they were given before the situation turned violent. They just didn't know how to put it together at the time. Or didn't listen to themselves. Hindsight, is 20/20.


Gavin says two things in regards to saying no to a man, who keeps pushing forward beyond respected boundaries.

"What part of NO don't you understand?"

and

"When a man says No, it is the end of a conversation. When a woman says No, it is the beginning of a negotiation."

If this stalker is already going past normal social boundaries, showing up more often than usual, in odd places, contacting more than is comfortable, and she's made him aware of her uncomfortability, he's already gone past NO, and is negotiating her boundaries, possibly her safety & life, along his terms.

OP 100% agree with this resource - I used it when I was dealing with my ex husband (needed restraining order for years) and gave it to my niece due to a not so stable ex boyfriend (who has been in a 72hr psych hold and has a restraining order against him now). This info can definitely save a life!

 

[Liberty Belle]

Kind of.

One time when I was in college I moved into a new apartment and called to have cable installed. They gave me a time window of, like, 8 to noon, so I got up early and took a shower to be ready by 8. The guy got there early, though, and stupidly I answered the door in my bathrobe. I don't know if that had anything to do with it, but he stayed a long time, just chatting. I was 20 or 21 at the time and he was about 40 - 45. Finally I told him I had to leave for class and he left.

Then he started coming into my work (Rite Aid). I remember the first time he came in, he said, "Hi Eden," just like it was the most natural thing in the world for us to run into eachother. After that he came in quite often. He would talk to me, but as far as I remember he never asked me out.

Then one day he came in all excited and said, "Guess what?! I'm moving to your neighborhood!" Completely freaked me out. Luckily, I was moving back home (an hour and a half away)a couple of weeks from then. I never told him I was moving and didn't hear from him after that, thank goodness.

ETA: I just read what I wrote and it doesn't sound all that creepy, but believe me, he was creepy. I wasn't prone to paranoia or anything and loved to talk to people, but he definitely creeped me out.

 

[crazymama]

Many years ago when I was single I shared my house with a friend for a few months. Her name was a very common and plain name and she listed it in the phone book. Well, she moved away and I started to get phone calls asking for her and the man would talk to me like I was the person he was looking for and didn't seem to believe me when I said no one by that name lived there anymore. He would say things like 'I hope you are liking the fur coat' and then hang up. I thought it was very weird and figured he had a problem with an ex or something who happened to have the same name as my ex roomie. I figured that maybe he had bought her a fancy fur coat and then had been dumped and was a little bitter.
Then one day a strange looking letter arrived with her name printed on the front in very juvenile looking printing. I know I am not supposed to do this but I opened it because I just knew that it was from this same guy and I wanted to know what I was dealing with. It was a very threatening letter that said that a 'real' lady would know how to wear her fur coat properly and that ladies who don't wear their fur coats buttoned all the way up should be punished and to not call the police etc etc. It was so bizarre. I was worried that maybe this freak would mistake me for this person coming home in the dark some night etc.
So of course I did call the police and they took it so seriously that they put a tracer on my phone line so that they could perhaps track him. I also had my boyfriend record my answering machine message so that when he called he would hear him. He called only once more after that and then left me alone. His letter was very disturbing and the police felt he was a legit threat. It was weird for sure.

 

[LuLuO]

I was stalked by an ex boyfriend when I was a teen. I never told my mom. He was 18 and I was 15. For a several of months after we broke up he'd call me and tell me that he was always watching me. He'd drive by my house a lot. He would even wait in the parking lot of my high school and when I'd see him, he'd speed off. He was crazy. The last time I talked with him he told me that he'd kill himself if I didn't get back together with him and I used some colorful language to tell him to go ahead and do it. Luckily after that he left me alone.

 

[dis-happy]

Yes, and to this day my phone number is not only unlisted but in someone else's name, along with our other utilities (plus all of our mail goes to a PO box). I helped out a friend of mine when she decided to leave an abusive marriage. The husband blamed me and turned all his anger my way and started stalking me. I'd be at the playground with the kids and see him sloooowly drive by in his car, staring at me the whole time. He was also a hunter, so lots of access to guns in the home. Scary!

Thankfully, a few months later we moved to a different state, and I did everything I could to make our location hard to find. Abusive husband married someone else who wasn't as nice as the first one---they ended up divorced a year or two later and she had to get a restraining order against him. My friend married someone else and lives happily every after.

 

[OK!]

Yes, a few years ago. It was a 19-year-old kid (I was 32 at the time) who was pretty obviously unstable. He'd seen me at a hockey tailgate and decided he liked me and set about "winning me over" by harassing my friends endlessly about me and impersonating me on message boards (that is, when he wasn't discussing in graphic detail what, precisely, he wanted to do to me on a lot of those same message boards). I told him to stop and so did my friends; some of them went so far as to visit his parents and advise them of what their little darling was up to. (They were horrified and got him into heavy-duty treatment immediately and his father insisted that we contact him if Junior so much as said hi to me ever again.) That pretty much put an end to the torment, but not before making about 6 months of my life a living hell and destroying the relationship I was in at the time (the latter turned out to be an enormous blessing in disguise, but still.)

I still use aliases on a lot of social-type sites because I don't want the little %$@# starting up on me again, though if he were to, I wouldn't hesitate to go to the police this time.

 

[horseshowmom]

My daughter had an issue with an ex-boyfriend. He was much older than her (she was 18 and a freshman in college, and he was 27), and we quickly begin to see signs that concerned us (controlling, wanted to be with her every second, trying to isolate her from her friends and family, etc.). After a couple of months we strongly encouraged her to end the relationship. He, of course, blamed us.

About 18 months later (she was involved with the man she's now married to at that point), she began to get Facebook PM's that scared her. She also thought she saw him following her a couple of times. I looked at his MySpace page, and it had a lot of music on it about raping/killing/etc. an ex-GF and the guy she was involved with now (some pretty warped stuff).

One of her friends at school is about 6'4" or 6'5". They used to horseshow together, and he's very fond of her (has been involved with one of DD's good friends for many years - the girl went on the be one of DD's bridesmaids). When he found out about it, he took it upon himself to escort her as much as possible during the time things were the worst. Apparently, the creep was watching her because one of his messages asked her if her boyfriend knew she was cheating on him with this guy.

We contacted the university counseling department who took it very seriously and recommended we contact UPD who then asked us to also contact the local PD (since the guy was no longer enrolled in college there even though he continued to live in that town).

I was very surprised with the reaction from the local PD. I carried a printout of the lyrics of some of the songs on the MySpace page but fully expected to be told that they couldn't do anything until he actually "did" something. That wasn't the case at all. When the officer read over the song lyrics, his eyebrows went up. He immediately called the creep's phone, put DD on to tell him not to contact her again, and then took the phone and had a "friendly" conversation with him. The officer told him that while everything was fine right now, if he contacted her again in any way, he would be getting a visit from them next, and he could expect charges to be filed.

End of all contact from the creep! We did find out that he moved back to his hometown (4 hours away) right after that so that was a relief.

 

[barkley]

a friend was being seriously stalked but did not know about it at the time.

she was attending college and one day a young man jumped her in the college parking lot and attempted to sexualy assault her, she was able to break loose from him and her screaming alerted a campus cop who held the guy until local police arrived to arrest him. the young man hung himself in his jail cell that night.

when the police started investigating him they searched his apartment and found hundreds and hundreds of photos of my friend dating back months and months. there were photos of her visiting people in their homes (police speculated he used a very high power telescoping lens). she had no clue who the guy was until the police researched the college records and advised her that she had taken a single class with him a couple of semesters before the attack. she wracked her brain trying to remember if she had ever interacted with him and the only time she come up with was once when the professor had done a surprise quiz and the guy asked her if she had a spare pencil he could borrow.


very scary.

 

[dyna]

YES!!! It was long before stalking was a common word.

An EXboyfriend who just did not want to call it quits stalked me for 10 yrs at least. He always knew where I was at....when I got married he moved into a mobile home a few houses down from me. I moved across town....he found a way to move to the same street only 2 blocks long. I moved across town he had friends who lived across the street.

He did not usually bother me did not call or come to my home but he would come in an take little things while I was gone never mind I had 3 sets of dead bolts locked at all times on all doors, all windows was locked he still got in an took little things that did not amount to nothing it was just to let me know I'm still watching you. Things like a recipe I left on kitchen table, bar of soap from bathroom etc.

I never did figure out how he was getting in my house or how he was getting info on me usually he did not have a car. He stalked me for more than 10 yrs...might still be for all I know.

I contacted him once yrs ago after he'd been stalking me for about 5 yrs talked to him about it he admitted it but really did not have an answer for all my questions. I know he knew more about my life than I did but was harmless...at the time I was to busy with my own life to worry to much about him.

I eventually moved 30 miles out of town did not see or hear from him after that to often if I did it was in the town that I moved from.