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I have been verifiably stalked by at least three people.
The first was my abusive boyfriend, who used stalking as a means of intimidation and control. It was often very severe, and it also lasted a really long time--maybe eight months or so. It got to the point where I just assumed I was being watched as long as I was either in a public place or on the first floor of my house, although I remained paranoid that I was somehow being watched at all times, regardless of viability.
The third time I was stalked, I was stalked at my college by a student I barely knew, and it was extremely intense but relatively short-lived. I had gotten worlds better with my symptoms just by being in a completely different region of the country, but this set me back drastically. Although I was only stalked for maybe a month, it was so intense that I once woke up to my stalker stroking my face in my dorm room. I had a professor who would escort me to class whenever she could, and he was banned first from my workplace and then from my dorm building after making an insane scene (including shouting violent threats when I told him to leave). It was so high-profile that all of the professors were literally whispering about me in the hallways. One of my (well-meaning but seriously misguided) professors literally grabbed me by the arm one day to tug me aside and ask what was really going on. Look, it was just really f*cked up, is what I'm saying, and it made me into a public spectacle at seventeen years old in a really small school.
The second time I was stalked, I have no idea how long it had been going on. It took me a couple of months at least to put together the pieces that I was being followed. He was a guy I was dating in the loose sense of the word (it wasn't a relationship), and it finally came together for me that he was always magically minutes away from where I was, wherever I was. He would somehow be right near my neighborhood if I wanted to hang out, and I lived 20+ minutes away from him. I essentially ex-communicated him when I figured out that he was clearly just hanging around my neighborhood/school/wherever. I never found out how deep that went.
In any case, I say all of this as context for what I've been thinking about a lot lately: what exactly are the long-term effects of having been stalked? Does anyone else experience the sort of paranoia and quasi-delusional thinking that I seem to have?
If you have PTSD, paranoia and anxiety are basically a given, and I was paranoid and panicky before I was stalked. For example, when I was about eight years old, I had a really bad panic attack while walking my dog around the block, because I seriously thought the UPS guy was following me and was going to kidnap me (which, by the way, made me much less believable a year or two later when someone really did try to f*cking kidnap me on my street). I also had strange delusional ideas from a very young age that I was being constantly monitored ala The Truman Show, something that still occasionally pops into my head as some sort of habitual hold-over from youth.
All that being said, when you actually are stalked, especially when you already have this serious paranoia, I think it's a game changer, and I've been thinking about that a lot lately.
I've noticed that any time I become close to a male in any way, I suddenly start wondering in daily life if that person is watching or following me. If I have a male in my life whom I trust but who for some reason I feel might be a threat--because of a disagreement or fight or anything--I start wondering if they're following me. And the feeling that I'm being followed/watched reaches ridiculous proportions. I feel like they're watching me sleep, shower, go to work--everything I do.
I worked at a gas station where there were cameras everywhere. There were eight or so that I could watch as an employee, but there were something like eight more that were only accessible by my boss, who had some seriously unstable psychological problems (which was obvious to pretty much anyone who knew him at all). I found this environment unbearable, because I actually knew I was being watched. He liked to call the store (from home, where he watched on his phone or tablet) to comment about what I was doing or not doing at any given time, and he seemed to like to get me to run around like a rat in a cage just for the fun of watching it. This didn't seem to really affect my co-worker, who worked the opposite shift, but it seemed to drive me slowly but steadily insane. It bothered me from the outset, and by the time I quit, I was terrified to work in another place with cameras everywhere. I don't even like using ATMs at the bank because of the camera. It just feels so oppressive and crazy-making to me.
Okay, so, this is a much longer post than I anticipated, but I'm hoping to hear from other people who have PTSD and have been stalked. I'll be especially interested to hear if other people had PTSD before being stalked and if it made a difference to their symptoms, as I feel it did with mine.
The first was my abusive boyfriend, who used stalking as a means of intimidation and control. It was often very severe, and it also lasted a really long time--maybe eight months or so. It got to the point where I just assumed I was being watched as long as I was either in a public place or on the first floor of my house, although I remained paranoid that I was somehow being watched at all times, regardless of viability.
The third time I was stalked, I was stalked at my college by a student I barely knew, and it was extremely intense but relatively short-lived. I had gotten worlds better with my symptoms just by being in a completely different region of the country, but this set me back drastically. Although I was only stalked for maybe a month, it was so intense that I once woke up to my stalker stroking my face in my dorm room. I had a professor who would escort me to class whenever she could, and he was banned first from my workplace and then from my dorm building after making an insane scene (including shouting violent threats when I told him to leave). It was so high-profile that all of the professors were literally whispering about me in the hallways. One of my (well-meaning but seriously misguided) professors literally grabbed me by the arm one day to tug me aside and ask what was really going on. Look, it was just really f*cked up, is what I'm saying, and it made me into a public spectacle at seventeen years old in a really small school.
The second time I was stalked, I have no idea how long it had been going on. It took me a couple of months at least to put together the pieces that I was being followed. He was a guy I was dating in the loose sense of the word (it wasn't a relationship), and it finally came together for me that he was always magically minutes away from where I was, wherever I was. He would somehow be right near my neighborhood if I wanted to hang out, and I lived 20+ minutes away from him. I essentially ex-communicated him when I figured out that he was clearly just hanging around my neighborhood/school/wherever. I never found out how deep that went.
In any case, I say all of this as context for what I've been thinking about a lot lately: what exactly are the long-term effects of having been stalked? Does anyone else experience the sort of paranoia and quasi-delusional thinking that I seem to have?
If you have PTSD, paranoia and anxiety are basically a given, and I was paranoid and panicky before I was stalked. For example, when I was about eight years old, I had a really bad panic attack while walking my dog around the block, because I seriously thought the UPS guy was following me and was going to kidnap me (which, by the way, made me much less believable a year or two later when someone really did try to f*cking kidnap me on my street). I also had strange delusional ideas from a very young age that I was being constantly monitored ala The Truman Show, something that still occasionally pops into my head as some sort of habitual hold-over from youth.
All that being said, when you actually are stalked, especially when you already have this serious paranoia, I think it's a game changer, and I've been thinking about that a lot lately.
I've noticed that any time I become close to a male in any way, I suddenly start wondering in daily life if that person is watching or following me. If I have a male in my life whom I trust but who for some reason I feel might be a threat--because of a disagreement or fight or anything--I start wondering if they're following me. And the feeling that I'm being followed/watched reaches ridiculous proportions. I feel like they're watching me sleep, shower, go to work--everything I do.
I worked at a gas station where there were cameras everywhere. There were eight or so that I could watch as an employee, but there were something like eight more that were only accessible by my boss, who had some seriously unstable psychological problems (which was obvious to pretty much anyone who knew him at all). I found this environment unbearable, because I actually knew I was being watched. He liked to call the store (from home, where he watched on his phone or tablet) to comment about what I was doing or not doing at any given time, and he seemed to like to get me to run around like a rat in a cage just for the fun of watching it. This didn't seem to really affect my co-worker, who worked the opposite shift, but it seemed to drive me slowly but steadily insane. It bothered me from the outset, and by the time I quit, I was terrified to work in another place with cameras everywhere. I don't even like using ATMs at the bank because of the camera. It just feels so oppressive and crazy-making to me.
Okay, so, this is a much longer post than I anticipated, but I'm hoping to hear from other people who have PTSD and have been stalked. I'll be especially interested to hear if other people had PTSD before being stalked and if it made a difference to their symptoms, as I feel it did with mine.