Sexual Assault Falling back into old habits - urge to check up on him via social media

[lookingfor help]

I’m trying so hard to fight the urge to check up on him through social media. I promised myself this new year I wouldn’t do anything that would harm myself, and that included staying away from him entirely. These past two days have felt fine but now I can feel myself struggle. It’s almost like an addiction. Already battling through daily reminders and triggers, I’m scared I’ll go that one step further and do what I’ve been regretting. Does anyone else do this? How do you find a way to stop?

 

[Swift]

I'm gonna take it as a given that checking up on him is harmful for you.
As to how I stopped, I substituted the addiction. Not a perfect fix but a.decent one. The thing that works best for me is console games - same electronic dopamine hit, and I'm off my phone so I don't get tempted to look where I shouldn't.

 

[Lamename01234]

I struggle with this too. Each time I get the urge I make myself do something different for 10 minutes. Most of the time I also turn to games, Solitaire. Or I go get in my car and drive around if i need to get away from my computer. Now that the weather is warmer I also go walk around my backyard. A lot of the times ten minutes turns into 20, 30, 40 minutes. Make a list of other things you can do, I made a list and made several copies. I have it on my desk and fridge and in my wallet. Call a friend. You dont have to say what you are feeling like doing if you are not comfortable. Just touch base with someone. Email your t. It is hard, I understand.

 

[Sweetleaf]

I tried looking mine up on the online court record check thingy to see if he has gotten himself in any more trouble.

It was down last time I tried, and I haven't gotten the urge since.

I have only ever managed to check it once, after my restraining order hearing, to see the restraining order on his record.

He has no electronic footprint, so it is basically impossible to look him up in any other way. No facebook. No phone. No social media of any kind. Nothing. He's a ghost. Google him, and nothing comes up, just other people.

 

[Swift]

He's not a ghost, he's a clever f*cking bastard.
That kind of no footprint takes effort and maintenance, and can only be done semi-illegally and on purpose.
I know what I'm talking about, believe me. Mine's the same.

 

[Sweetleaf]

He's not a ghost, he's a clever f*cking bastard

I can't even describe how this type of stuff makes me feel, because I know that its true. I'm sorry yours is the same.

You're right. He was extremely careful with how he used computers and the internet. On the rare occasions that he did have a phone, it was one of those pretty much disposable ones from walmart. He was just very careful with that stuff, and he was trying to make sure that he never got found out for the sort of things that he would do on the internet.

He took pride in basically having no electronic footprint. He did it intentionally. From now on I am going to avoid the shit out of anyone who doesn't have an electronic footprint.

 

[Swift]

Great idea.
Some, like me, choose to have not much of one.
It takes effort to scrub your name off google. Like, you have to be trying.
Hackers are either white hat or black hat, generally.
I'm fairly decent at the white hat stuff, protection, defence, protecting from surveillance, because that's what I have to be good at to keep myself safe.
I'm not great at the black hat stuff, espionage, jailbreaking, breaking into systems without being traceable. I can do it with simple things (and have only ever done it with consent, eg, here it is, see if you can hack it.) I can definitely wreck shit if I discover something sinister, in which case I have a common law right to. If someone steals my work for example and posts it on a non-protected website, because it's my property I have a common law right to use reasonable force to retrieve it, provide I ask first and they refuse.
I rely mainly on my wits and code I write myself.
There's a whole underground where it'd cost about $500 in bitcoin to scrub a low-profile name off the net, untraceably.
I don't know how it's done, and I don't particularly care to learn, unless I had time to offer it to abuse and DV survivors for free.

 

[Sweetleaf]

There's not much out there on me at all, but its still not blankness to the extent he had going on. The type of people I would prefer to date are also the type that would very much have a footprint, so I think it does make a good red flag.

There's a lot of very underground things you can do with bitcoin, lol. It's easy enough to get guns around here without the deep web, which is another thing I worry about, in regards to my abuser. Here it's legal to just buy/sell to anyone like you're selling a guitar or something. I've done it myself. He's done it in the past, too.

He is not legally allowed to own firearms anymore, but nobody is going to know that, if he just buys from random locals off the internet, which is very easy, and a lot of people do it.

Isn't that a fun thought? Plus he knows how to make certain firearms become fully automatic, and loads of "crazy person" shit like that.

I just want to change my name (with records sealed of course, if I can), and move somewhere else. I feel so unsafe here. He is the type of person that makes -me- want to have no footprint, at least going forward.

 

[Swift]

Yeah. That's messed up.
Changing your name could be a good option. I never use my birthname, so if you search for me via that nothing of use comes up.

 

[Sweetleaf]

I already have a name picked out, which I like a lot. Something my abuser won't know to guess.

It's just a matter of coming up with the money to pay for it.

I could take two half-day assignments at work and have it covered. But, I haven't worked since long before I freed myself. My days are still too unpredictable, and I have no idea what sort of "environmental" triggers will exist in my work environment, and how much they'll affect me. I can't really set things up in advance because of that, because I don't know if that day will be a "I have my shit together" day or not.

But, I do have years of experience doing the job, so I know what to do, I just know that I can't handle pressure or conflict or all sorts of things the way I used to, and I don't want to f*ck up in ways that could get me fired.

 

[Swift]

Fair enough.
Some states you can get it for free if you're an abuse survivor? Might be worth looking into.