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 underwear, clean 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.
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