Stalking Do's and Don'ts


STALKING: What To Do
If you or a loved one are being victimized by stalking there are certain things to do that will be very effective, and other things victims often do that make life much harder than it needs to be.  For simplicity sake, these are broken them down into lists of things To Do and things Not To Do. 

To Do
  • Tell the obsessed person one time, preferably in writing, e-mail, or in front of a witness, that you want him or her to leave you alone, and that you do not want any more contact with them.  Keep a copy of the letter or e-mail, or document the date and time you made this clear verbally, and the witness who heard you say it.  This, of course, is a bit more difficult when you share a child or major investment with that person, but there is no good reason to continue dialogue with him or her unless it is with a third party present or unless information about the child or property is relayed through neutral messengers or attorneys. 
  • Tell someone that you think you’re being stalked, even if you don’t have any direct evidence.  In Gaven DeBecker’s book, The Gift of Fear, he speaks very convincingly about listening to your intuition.  I believe in intuition, and I am convinced that the people who actually listen to theirs and take action to support their little internal voice live longer, healthier lives than people who choose to ignore it. 
  • Keep a log of everything you find suspicious, alarming, annoying, or downright frightening.  If he drives by your house yelling profanities and knocks over your trash can, jot a sentence or two in a spiral notebook, along with the date, time, and any witnesses who may have seen him do it.  Logs come in very handy when pursuing warrants and when filing lawsuits later on. 
  • Save all text messages, e-mails and phone messages.  They are excellent evidence. 
  • Buy or borrow a little recording device, and turn it on any time he calls.  Recordings of him making threats, calling you names, and promising that you will never be rid of him are the evidentiary equivalent of chocolate pie for me--they both make an investigator's day.  In some cases you may even be able to initiate the call in the hopes of gathering incriminating statements, but this falls more into the area of entrapment and possible wire-tapping issues.  In my jurisdiction it’s fine; in yours it may not be.  Check with your local police department or prosecutor’s office before you launch off in that direction, but recorded threats and harassment are valuable. 
  • Talk to your neighbors and ask them to be on the lookout for anything suspicious, especially if they could recognize your ex.  You’d be surprised how neighborly folks can be at a time like this. 
  • Keep your phone charged and handy at all times.  It could well turn out to be your lifeline in an emergency.
  • Take a different route home every day, and vary your schedule often.  You have no idea how crafty some of these guys can be.  Remember, he’s bad-mouthed you to his friends, so they might loan him a car so you don’t recognize him.  Think like he’s trying to hunt you, and imagine what “camouflage” he might use. 
  • Trade cars with a friend if at all possible.  
  • Put serious thought into how you would defend yourself if you are attacked or if your home is entered.  An upcoming post on self-defense goes into greater depth on this topic. 
  • Have a safety plan in place in case an emergency such as a home invasion or an assault takes place.  You don’t want to have to think of long-term plans in the moment of crisis, and having a few items and documents lined up and ready to go on a moment’s notice can save a lot of effort and aggravation later.  (see post: Leaving and Living Safely).
  • Take your computer to a professional technician and have them look for “spy ware” and any tracking devices that might have been placed on your machine.  Software is readily available that can be quickly installed into your computer either by hand or through unwanted e-mails with nasty little viruses designed to root into your system and keep a close, close eye on everything you do on your computer.  Once the spy ware is found, have it removed.  The one exception to this is when such spy ware could be used as evidence in a criminal case.  If that is even a remote possibility, discuss options with your police investigator prior to having your computer examined.  The investigator may want to have the information extracted “forensically,” meaning that a trained expert can collect information from your computer that can later be used as evidence in a trial. 
  • Alert your police investigator that your computer technician found such spy ware, especially if your stalker seems to know things about you that he couldn’t possibly know unless he was monitoring your online activity. 
  • Include the police if you have even an inkling that you’re in danger.  I know it feels bad to involve the police, but you didn’t start this.  It’s part of taking care of yourself and the problem. 
  • Tell your employer if you trust him or her.  More and more employers are recognizing that an assault on one of their employees is a problem for the whole company.  They want to protect valuable employees and many will go out of their way to provide support, services and encouragement in bleak times. 
  • Seek an order of protection.  We will spend more time on this topic later, but suffice it to say that this simple court order can save you a lot of headaches and nightmares in the weeks and months to come. 
  • Strongly consider pursuing prosecution if you have been stalked and/or assaulted.  An obsessive personality may eventually give up on you, but he or she tends to go out and find a new victim.  Participation in prosecution may well help him to learn a better way of dealing with other people.  If a stalking personality truly learns that lesson, albeit in the harsh school of arrest and the criminal justice system, your actions may have saved the next woman in his life from having to endure what you did. 

Do Not
  • Return text messages, e-mails, phone calls, or letters after you have once, and only once, announced to the person that you wish to have no further contact with him. Ignore insults, threats and “baits” to argue.  This is just a stalker’s invitation to come out and play. 
  • Keep expensive gifts.  I’m sure it is a lovely bracelet or they are very pretty flowers.  They are also the first items his attorney will bring up in a trial later to show what a “greedy, manipulative money-grubber” you are.  Give the gifts to a third party and ask them to return it the same day you receive them.  It’s just not worth it. 
  • Agree to “one last talk.”  This is a sucker’s bet, and you’ll lose.  Keep reminding yourself of the cruelty, violence, rumor spreading, and cheating you’ve already endured, and this will help steel you against whiney, sobbing pleas for one more chance.
  • Be manipulated by threats of suicide if you won’t return.  If he’s really suicidal you can call the police so they can get him to a hospital.  You don’t need to be involved any more than that. 
  • Decide to arbitrarily delete text messages, e-mails, or phone messages just because you don’t consider them to be of any evidentiary value.  Let someone who deals with evidence for a living help you make that decision. 
  • Remain silent when receiving a barrage of harassment and threats from him, his friends, or his family.  If they want to make it Us-versus-Them, I assure you we have more guys on our side.  You don’t have to do this alone.  
  • Lie to yourself that everything is okay.  I don’t want you walking around paranoid all the time, but you need to be wary.  There is a difference, and you need to learn it if you want to be optimally safe and emotionally stable at the same time. 

Moving?
Should you move?  He knows where you live, and if you are convinced that he isn’t going to leave you alone, or that you will never feel safe in your home, moving may be the lesser of two evils.  It’s expensive, time consuming, stressful, and a big old hassle, but if it means you will be safer and/or feel safer, it may be the right choice. 
            If you choose this route, I recommend a few simple steps to keep you safer and hopefully keep him from finding you again. 
            First and foremost, don’t put your physical address on ANYTHING.  Go get a post office box, preferably one that looks like a real address, and use that address for bills, information sheets for your children’s school admission, bank statements, letters from friends and family, petitions for protection or restraining orders, and applications to win a drawing for a new car or the trip of a lifetime.  Do not give out your new home address to anybody, and instruct your children to do the same.  Okay, maybe your mother and your best friend, but only if you are confident they understand the importance of this secret. 
            And, yes, use this address when you are giving information to the police.  Unfortunately, the U.S. Freedom of Information Act obligates government agencies to share certain information from their computer systems upon being requested.  This means that a stalking suspect could get his hands on your new address if your police agency honors his written request.*
            As noted above, it’s important to take a different route home every night so that you aren’t followed from work or school to your house.  This becomes even more critical when you’ve moved in an attempt to get away from someone.  How sad will it be if he figures out where you’ve gone after all the hassle of moving in the first place?
            Don’t use the Internet at your home with your own identifiers.  In other words, pick new user names and passwords, and never type in any personal information such as address, phone, places of employment or where your children go to school.  There are people in this world who make a living by finding people through their Internet use, and it’s going to be a real shame if your stalker finds you because you ordered a book online and had it delivered to your house or started “chatting” with friends on a social website.  There are several software options available that allow one person to know what another person is putting into her computer.  If he’s ever had access to your computer, he may know the moment you’ve moved your Internet Service Provider (ISP) the instant you log on, and be able to find your new physical address armed with that information


* The one exception is if you are being investigated as a suspect in a crime or if you have been arrested.  Don’t give a post office box to a police officer at those times and expect him to be happy with you when he finds out later.  A lot of people don’t show up for court, and he wants to know he can find you later.  

Stalking: A Domestic Violence Challenge


It’s an awful feeling to be pursued and monitored, not knowing when something truly horrible is going to happen.  Perhaps you’ve felt it walking through a dark parking lot or when a patrol car slips in behind you and follows you for blocks.  Maybe you remember what it felt like to have someone promise to beat you up after school, or seeing a shark fin flash up out of murky water between you and a shoreline one hundred yards away.  Now, expand those moments to encompass every minute of the day, waking or asleep, and we can begin to understand the true scope and detrimental misery of this situation. 
When I refer to stalking, I am using a generic term to describe that relationship of predator and prey that might only culminate in the prey turning around and screaming, “Leave me alone.”  It could, however, result in the pursuit actually ending with a kill, and it must be taken seriously. 
Generally this dance starts with phone calls and text message--lots of them, hundreds of them.  Commonly these early communications will establish some sort of rhythm.  Some of the messages or phone calls will be cruel and degrading; some will beg for forgiveness and include promises.  Most will include clues as to the level of their jealousy-based delusions such as referring to her as a whore or slut. 
The contacts tend to increase, either by him going often to her place of employment, or coming to her house at all hours of the night.  Some system of surveillance will go into effect, either with the hunter doing his own investigative work or recruiting others to spy on her as well. 
Short or long term, there is always some encounter.  The encounter is never pretty or romantic.  In Hollywood movies extraordinary value is placed on the guy who never gives up on the girl of his dreams, and he is often rewarded with the bride and the enduring love of her family when he interrupts her wedding right before the “I do’s,” and whisks her away to be his own.  In real life this is just icky. 
The real life, ugly encounters occur in nightclubs when he “catches” her dancing with another man, in grocery stores as she is buying cosmetics, in her driveway when she gets home from work an hour later than she used to when they were dating, or right there at her work cubicle because she didn’t call to thank him for the flowers sent as an apology for accosting her in her work parking lot the day before. 
Eventually some violent act comes in the form of damaged property.  Maybe the houseplants she keeps on her front porch are uprooted, or her car is scratched from stem to stern.  In some cases a pet is killed, or a brick is thrown through a window.  In every case, a message is being sent, and it is an ominous message ladies and gentlemen.  If you’ve ever seen the horse head scene in the Godfather, you know what I’m saying.  The damaged car, the busted window, and the destroyed living things are all symbolic of a mounting hatred and a building moment of eruption.  They are meant to show just how close the stalker has been, and how willing he is to carry out the next logical act, unless you do what he wants.  Now!
Residential burglaries are often part of the equation as well.  Again, this is usually done to demonstrate just how close a stalker got to the victim, showing her in no uncertain terms just how much control he still has over her life.  Generally burglaries are done simply to send this message.  Perhaps he’ll put a picture of the two of them from happier times on top of a pillow, or he’ll turn some little memento he once gave her upside down.  Items he considers to be his are often stolen, and in many cases the thing he steals has no monetary value whatsoever.
Detective Mike Proctor, a retired criminal investigator with over three decades in the trenches, wrote an excellent book called “How to Stop a Stalker” (Prometheus Books, 2003).  He makes an important point in a chapter on the mindset and psychology of stalkers that often these obsessed people will commit burglaries for the sole purpose of collecting trophies, and the number one item collected is underwearclean or dirty (pgs. 127-129).  Imagine:  what more intimate item could he take as a prize to remind him of what he once had, to fuel him to pursue the “thing” he must have again, and to create an atmosphere of apprehension and need in the mind of the targeted person, perhaps in the delusion that she will come running back to his safe arms so he can play the hero once more?
I once attended a conference on domestic violence and stalking in which one of the speakers equated the strategies used by stalkers to those employed by international terrorists.  Both personalities tend to be charming in face-to-face meetings, but both consistently use veiled threats and symbols to create an atmosphere of unbalance and distrust.  Both groups use propaganda to make the object of their obsession look bad.  Stalkers routinely speak poorly of the person they are pursuing to her friends, co-workers and family; terrorists spread messages of hate and discontent about the government entities they are bent on destroying.  And, of course, both personalities are more than willing to terrify and destroy innocent people and, in some cases, even themselves, and all for the purpose of filling their own selfish agendas. 
There is one significant difference between the strategies employed by these two otherwise similar psyches, and that lies in the fact that a domestic stalker thrives on secrecy, whereas an international terrorist needs the attention created by suicide bombers and the media. 
Knowing this helps greatly when building strategy to thwart the unwanted pursuits of an ex boyfriend/girlfriend or spouse.  Simply put, these types rarely continue once their actions are revealed to others, especially when those others include the police.  It’s hard to work up the courage to puncture your ex girlfriend’s car when you know a police officer is aware of your other obnoxious acts against her, and it gets damned inconvenient and painful getting arrested each and every time you send her a text message in violation of a protection order. 
This means, of course, that when a person is being followed, spied on, harassed, alarmed and annoyed by someone she has clearly asked to leave her alone, incorporating the assistance of friends, employers, family, the police, and the court system isn’t tattle-telling.  It’s taking control of your own destiny and dealing with a problem head on. 
The typical response I hear to this strategy is, “He’ll be really mad if he knows I talked to the police.”  My response is, “He seems pretty mad already.”  And, of course, we follow this by pointing out that she will be given a lot of police protection, legal advice, shelter, financial assistance, and relocation services if necessary. 
In reality, most stalkers finally get it when they are confronted with the police or with court orders to leave the other person alone.  A few don’t, and those are the ones in which I believe we can be most helpful.  But it all comes down to the person at risk having enough faith in our system that she will start throwing bright sunlight on the shadowy, sneaky tactics of a stalker and letting her friends, loved ones, the police and court systems, and victim advocates help her.  It can make all the difference in the world.  

Cycle of Violence

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            My colleagues and I used to be dispatched to a couple that routinely crossed the line of what is normal and acceptable in a relationship.  Tim and Louise are those people you never forget but wish you could. 
            Louise had hair past her waist that was always oily and never brushed.  Tim had a beard that never seemed to fill in completely, never got shaved, and never grew longer.  Both wore plaid flannel and navy blue sweat pants every day of the year, and I’m pretty sure they shared three shirts and two pairs of pants between them.  Their body odor was overpowering even outside…upwind. 
            On those dismal days we always arrived to find all of their living room furniture outside their trailer neatly arranged on the front “lawn,” a sixteen by twenty foot patch of white gravel bordered by Johnson grass growing as high as my hip. 
            The inside of the trailer would be bare by the time we got there, with the exception of enough trash, debris, cat litter, and rotting food strewn around to fill several large trash cans.  Their home’s scent was a delightful medley of kitty crap, beer puddle, ashtray, and carcass. 
            Both Tim and Louise had a speech impediment, and the mild difficulty one might experience in trying to understand them, generally as they spoke in “jinx” and at level ten volume, was exacerbated by the fact that they were both invariably snot-slinging drunk. 
            We never arrived without finding them both bruised and bleeding, completely out of breath, and demanding in huffy-puffy screams that we immediately vacate their property. 
            Thing was, it was a planned fight.  That was the reason for the furniture being outside.  Tim and Louise learned years earlier that their neighbors called the cops much faster if they were beating the hell out of each other outside the trailer.  In order to prevent calls to the police they adopted a strict policy of moving their furniture outside the home before the fight.
            I am not making this up; they would cooperate fully in lifting the couch, two chairs, television and television stand out onto the yard, go back inside, ask each other if they were ready, and then attack.  Couldn’t they have used the energy expended to move the furniture and destroying each other to, say, go on a walk in separate directions--or vacuum?  
            “I love you, darlin’,” announced Tim to Louise as his head was guided into the patrol car. 
            “I love you too, baby,” she’d coo back.  “I’ll call my momma to get your bail going.” 
            And off to the hospital or jail they would go, depending on the severity of the injuries. 
The saddest and sickest part of this story is that Louise was often brutally damaged in what Tim called their “fair fights.”  There was nothing fair about it, and I’ve often wondered how hard Louise’ heart was pounding as she and her husband carried the last bit of furniture onto the lawn, knowing full well her beating was about to commence under the flimsy fabrication that Tim called “working it out in private.”  Perhaps she chose this pattern over loneliness or despair in believing she didn’t deserve any better.  Maybe this was all she’d ever known, but surely no sane, truly loving person can see this cycle of “honeymoon” romance followed by mounting tension, and culminating in vicious, despicable attack as normal or healthy. 
Tim and Louise weren’t so unique in this pattern.  Though their willingness to “cooperate” in staging their fights was definitely weird, their cycle of violence has been something I’ve seen repeated in other couples literally thousands of times over the years. 
Often a woman is very angry with her abusive partner at the time the police arrive, and officers frequently hear that she wants to “press charges” to the fullest extent of the law.  However, it is just as common that officers and prosecutors learn the victim has gone back to the abuser within hours, days or weeks of the violence, and that she is now his greatest supporter. 
I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard, “He promised he’d never do it again…he promised he’d go to counseling…he promised he’d stop drinking.” 
All the promises are met for a while.  Flowers are sent, apologies are made, and often we discover that the two have “fallen in love” once more. Then a week or a month later, the cycle comes full circle, and she is beaten once more.  “I’m leaving him this time…really.  I won’t live like this.  Press those charges.”
The part before tension starts again and before renewed violence is called the Honeymoon phase of the cycle, and it is as predictable in many cases as the seasons.  The circle that began as passionate love, transitioned into a period of tension, and culminated in violence begins anew at the Honeymoon phase, often to be repeated again and again. 
This is one of the reasons prosecuting domestic violence cases is so difficult.  In no other crime do we see victims not wanting something done.  If you are robbed, you might forgive the mugger but you’ll still want him prosecuted.  The same goes for burglaries, rapes, murders, shoplifting, and car thefts.  The victims want some justice, and they aren’t likely to back off with, “It’s okay.  He promised he’d never break any more car windows and steal the coins from the ashtray.”
It is in this context that we will discuss the scourge that is domestic violence in the following columns in this series.  In addressing the secrets kept within a violent family, in better understanding why one person insists on enslaving another and why the victim chooses to stay in such an abusive environment, and in understanding ways in which all of us, including police, prosecutors, family, friends and employers can make a positive difference in helping those victims finally leave and then live safely, we can begin to confront this issue as a united community.   

Of Bullies and Monsters

One of the worst cases I ever investigated involved a man we’ll call Gregory.  At some point Gregory met Geneva, a single mother of three who lived life tired, lonely and always behind in her bills. Gregory was no great catch, but Geneva wanted some help, and maybe even someone to hold during thunderstorms. 
I saw their wedding photo once.  He held a grim expression, like people from the earliest days of photography.  Geneva smiled, but even then it seemed to be a pose created of desperation.  A happy wedding day, I suppose, and two weeks later he beat the crap out of her. 
We didn’t enter the scene until years after that wedding photo, and when we did it wasn’t to deal with the fact that Gregory was a vicious wife beater.  It was to investigate allegations that Gregory had been having sex with Geneva’s daughter. 
Gregory grew tired of working two years into the marriage.  He called it “back pain,” but I think he was just a lazy fake who sent Geneva out to bring home the bacon.  She accepted his laziness and his brutality, and every day she’d go off to work and leave him alone with her two little girls. 
Stephanie would get in trouble when Geneva left.  Who knows what heinous act five-year-old Stephanie did?  Whatever it was, it got her sent to his bedroom where Gregory would mete out her punishment.
He’d punish her for an hour each time. 
Stephanie didn’t tell her mother about the rapes until she was eleven.  By that time Gregory had fled the country, and Stephanie finally felt safe enough to tell.
Geneva and Stephanie fought constantly after the girl told her story.  Sometimes Geneva wanted to hug her to make all the pain go away, but at other times she’d look her little girl in the face and accuse her of lying or blame her for breaking up the marriage.  Some would say there is a special place in hell for Geneva; some would say she was already in it. 
All I know is that Stephanie was a shattered human being when we met her.  Her eyes were dead, and any sense of humor she’d ever had was squashed.  She barely tolerated people, though I’m told she was a joyful child before Gregory ruined her. 
Gregory was eventually caught, and there is some satisfaction in knowing he’ll never see outside a prison window again.  But Geneva is still beaten down by this world, and Stephanie may never be whole again. 
Gregory was a cruel, selfish man.  He tortured and raped when it suited him and never felt remorse for his actions until the day he was finally caught. This falls in line with studies that show children living in an environment of domestic violence are 1500 times more likely to be assaulted, and approximately 30% of routinely abused children are also sexually abused.  The mentality of harem-master entitlement and slave master cruelty is fundamental to an epidemic of violence and sexual predation, and the only way to stop this tragedy is to expose the secrets, stand toe to toe with the offenders, and offer compassionate, effective services to the survivors. 
Children living in an environment of domestic violence are in grave danger, and burying our heads in the sand only allows the brutality to continue.  Fortunately, this is a new age blessed with extraordinary services such as the Children’s Safety Center where children can talk about what has happened to them and know they will not be in trouble, professional police agencies where investigators dogmatically pursue truth and justice, and mental and physical health agencies ready and able to repair the damage and restore victims to wellness.  Victims don’t have to suffer a Gregory in a community courageous enough to acknowledge that men like him exist and compassionate enough to embrace survivors and help shoulder their burden. 
There is a battle waged daily in our community for the bodies and souls of innocent children like Stephanie. I invite you to pick a side, starting with the simple question of, “What can I do to help?”  

Leaving and Living SAFELY


Emergency Plans Before Leaving
Let’s assume that a person has opted to stay in a violent home for any number of reasons, or she’s working up to the day when she actually leaves.  Perhaps she’s just waiting for Christmas to be over, or for one more paycheck to come in before she pulls the plug.  This is a dicey time because she knows things could go bad in an instant.  There have never been so many eggshells in her home, and she’s trying hard not to step on any of them.  There needs to be a plan in place just in case an emergency occurs; a preparation that will allow her to escape at any hour of the day or night without being badly injured, and with a real chance of getting away for good.  Here are reasonable steps to take as part of that plan. 

  • Avoid rooms where a batterer has access to weapons, especially if he seems to be gearing up for a violent outburst. 
  • Have a plan in place as to what exits to use if trapped in any part of the house.  A good way to think of this is as if you’re pre-planning for getting out in case of a fire. 
  • Talk over your situation with a trusted neighbor, friend or family member.  Neighbors can be asked to call 911 if they hear screams or hostility.  This simple step often gets neighbors involved that would otherwise try to ignore the problem as “none of their business.” 
  • Establish a code word or phrase you can use with a trusted friend of family member. This code phrase should be something simple and something that could conceivable come up in conversation such as, “No, my allergies are fine today,” or “Can you pick up some root beer for me when you go?”  The code word or phrase is to be used only when an emergency is brewing, and it means, “Call the police.  Things are getting ready to go straight to hell.” 
  • Do research about safety planning on a computer he can’t access, such as at a library.  Every website you access will be stored on your computer’s hard drive, and you want to limit or eliminate clues about your plans. 
  • Use phones that the batterer won’t be able to access for records of who you called (such as a battered women’s shelter, the police department, etc.)

Planning Your Exit
Life is complicated enough without having to worry about all this, I grant you, but a little bit of careful exit strategy can make all the difference in terms of safety, lifestyle, stress level, and the ability to quickly and smoothly move on with your life.  Here are some good ideas to implement before the escape, assuming of course that you have the luxury of time. 
  • Establish a post office box.  Many post office box companies now feature boxes with an address that has the look of a real address.  For example, your P.O. box could be 4321 Apple street Suite 876 instead of P.O. Box 4321.  This will be valuable later when you start putting your new address down on documents such as school forms, an address for attorneys, police and courts, all of your bills and magazine subscriptions, and any other mail you get, all without actually giving out the physical address where you and your kids will be living. 
  • Establish a bank account.  This needs to be done in a separate bank from the one you share with the batterer.  You’ll have to disclose all your transactions if you go through a divorce process later, but a bank account all your own is empowering and allows you to take your half of the financial assets and put them somewhere safe when the time is right. 
  • Pack a bag with enough clothing, toiletries, vitamins, prescriptions, and anything else you absolutely need for living out of a suitcase for several days.  DO NOT store this bag in or near your home.  Discovery of a “jump” bag by a controlling batterer will get you hurt.  Store it with your most trusted friend or family member. 
  • Gather your birth certificate, social security card, driver’s license, other personal identification cards (military, passport, etc.), insurance documents, a checkbook or bank passbook, food stamps, savings bonds, vehicle registrations, a copy of the lease or deed to your home, medical and school records, and any other legal document that might apply.  Imagine having to reconstruct all of those documents from a shelter phone or a motel room. 
  • Make sure you have gathered all the prescriptions for medications you or your children will need. 
  • Have a list of important contact phone numbers.
  • Give a copy of all of the above documents to a trusted family member or friend. 
  • Give a set of important keys to that same trusted person. 

After the Escape
After leaving, certain actions must take place in order to insure maximum safety and to cement your resolve so that you don’t reverse the difficult decision you made. 

  • Make a list of grievances.  You may have already done this, but now would be a good time to create or update a list of all the really bad things done to you that created the environment so hostile you felt the need to leave.  This might include all the times he hit or threatened you, denied you basic human rights, lied, belittled you, hurt the children, or cut you off from family an friends.  This list will embolden you during those times you’re feeling lonely or when your conscience is bothering you that you might have left for inadequate reasons.  It’s a great tool for when he starts sending love letters, flowers, and text messages promising to change. 
  • Change the locks on your door if you have stayed in your own home. 
  • Give copies of your protection order to your children’s school, your place of employment, trusted neighbors, and to any police investigator involved in your case.  Keep a copy of the order with you at all times. 
  • Show photos of the person you fear to neighbors and ask them to call the police if they see him show up around the neighborhood. 
  • Ask someone to screen your calls at work.  This may not be possible if you are responsible for answering phones. 
  • Have someone walk you to and from your car each workday.  Attacks and confrontations in place of employment parking lots are extremely common.  The buddy system works, so resolve that you will not walk to your car for the first few weeks unless someone is with you or watching. 
  • Talk to your children about the importance of not divulging your new address or showing the batterer where you live. 
  • Seek assistance and guidance from people who deal with domestic violence for a living including battered women shelter staff members, victim advocates in prosecutor’s offices, police agencies, and attorneys.  You’re probably new to all this; they are not and, believe it or not, they probably have a trick or two up their sleeves that will help keep you safe and smooth out the new life path you’ve taken. 
  • Seek therapy.  Look, you’ve been through a lot of emotional trauma, and there’s no sense in carrying all that pressure around if there are professionals who can help you get rid of it and learn from your experiences.  Shelters and victim advocates will have a list of therapists who specialize in this area, and often your bills can be paid through grants and charitable funds so you don’t have to worry about paying for treatment.