My family is stalking me, need advice

[Angrboda]

I recently decided to cut all ties with my family. I have suffered severe mental and emotional abuse from them my entire life. I have been brainwashed and scapegoated by them, and most recently they helped a sociopath imprison me in my home and torture me for two years. I can never heal from any of this if I continue to let them traumatize me so I told them enough was enough and that I was done with them.

I really wish this could have been the end of it, but they've mounted yet another psychological terror campaign against me. That's what they do whenever they think I'm trying to escape their control. I know from past experience that this won't stop until they drive me to a nervous breakdown.

Yesterday my brother followed my truck into a parking lot, waited for my boyfriend to go into a store without me, then immediately approached me and began verbally threatening me and pounding on the roof of the vehicle. I told him to leave me alone and called my boyfriend to come back because I was panicking. My brother's response was to call the police on me and try to convince them that he had some right to take my truck.

They are doing this because they know that I am too afraid to leave my house because the asshole that imprisoned me was having me watched and following me. I always feel like I'm being stalked and he has threatened to kill me so I never know if I'm safe. I finally got to the point where I could go into a shop with my boyfriend without constantly shaking and jumping, and it was a really big step for me to be able to sit alone in the car. It's the first time I've done that, and it lasted about two minutes until my boyfriend was out of sight. Then I was being terrorized.

I am now having trouble feeling safe even in my apartment with my boyfriend here, and this is going to keep happening. What can I do? I want to file a restraining order, but I don't know what evidence I need for that and anything I say will be countered by all of my family members working together against me. So my word basically means nothing.

I'm also really hoping that someone could provide a little emotional support. My boyfriend just kind of shuts down with things like this so I've basically been feeling alone and abandoned by him. Since he's the only person I really have in my life right now that's kind of a problem.

 

[hodge]

Go to your county courthouse and just file the restraining order. They will tell you what you need to fill it out. Your word means something. Just do it.

 

[Deleted member 541]

Jesus there are some sick f*cking people in the world.... Is it possible to move out of the area????? its you or them kind of a thing. I would move and start over!!!!

 

[Mytime]

Please go and file a restraining order on your family. Police should take your word over anyone’s. Also add your ex to it. You could also ask the store if they have surveillance cameras in their parking lot. Sending support your way.

 

[Muttly]

Ok, if you leave out the part about the sociopath imprisoning me in my home and the boyfriend, I have lived through what you are experiencing. If you can stick with it, it will get better. A restraining order is a good idea. I know it's probably terrifying. If you can, stick with the no contact. I used to believe my family would persist until I broke but that wasn't completely true. I don't think they've completely given up, I still get the occasional email or text but that's it for the last few years. Oh, and I'm out of the will. Heh. Whatever. Read about how to deal with stalking.

It's been years since I saw a family member. It's been years since I talked to one. I will be honest, I still feel some fear. I am wary. If the phone rings and it's their area code my first reaction is fear. I pay attention to cars that drive on my road. And I am super careful as to what I do online because the last attack on me was on a Facebook page I manage. The good news, the fear is so much less than it used to be. My life improved vastly once I cut them out. I am finally able to do deeper trauma work. I was finally able to enter a healthy relationship. I don't get consumed by self hate and expect to be cut down for real and imagined faults.

You are in the worst part right now. When you cut contact they unleash all the tactics they can to get you back. It is a horrible experience that I would wish on no one. I am so, so sorry you are going through that. I can get better. Make sure you have a lot of support. Do you have friends? A therapist? Reach out to them. Have escape/safety plans in place, but then try to focus on other things in life. What do you do for fun? What are your interest and plans in life?

Hang in there.

 

[Sweetleaf]

Get a restraining order, you shouldn't have to deal with this. Go for the nuclear option.

 

[Friday]

I fought for months to get a restraining order filed against my ex... hired an attorney, and she got not just one, but ELEVEN filed in about half an hour. With me following along in her wake, from judge to clerk to judge just stunned. I’d been hitting brick walls for months. She came onto the scene & wham, bam, thank you ma’am.

(There are multiple kinds of court orders, restraining orders // no contact orders // etc. I had 5, my son had 5, and the dog had 1, because otherwise his death or injury wouldn’t be considered as part of a campaign against my son & myself, and at best misdemeanor animal cruelty. With the order, it became a felony for my ex to injure or kill our dog. The month it lapsed our dog was poisoned. :meh: Which is an important thing to consider, restraining orders of all kinds do not prevent an asshole from breaking them. They DO change the sentence they get, should they do so. Your brother harassing you without an order? Nada. Having broken an order? Arrested by police, and charged.)

You don’t need to hire someone to help you, there are domestic violence outreach groups & DV shelters that have attorneys and advocates of their own. I simply had the money at the time to be able to hire someone, so I did.

 

[Angrboda]

Thank you so much to everyone. Today was extreme sleep deprivation zombie day. Need brains. Mine isn't functional. Will write more tomorrow. But I wanted to at least say thank you before then.

 

[Swift]

As someone who's lived through stalking, boy howdy do I have some advice for you. I'm just gonna write everything I did down, feel free to ignore what doesn't apply. Finance was an issue for me at the time, so my answers have that component to them.
Firstly, I want to say, whatever you do or don't do, the responsibility for their actions is on THEM. It is not your fault that they are stalking you, and not your fault if they hassle you. There is no way to stop them, there are only steps you can take to protect yourself. These steps ease my PTSD when I follow them, but even if you took zero precautions, the behaviour is their fault, not yours.

I dunno what jurisdiction you're in, but I don't mind looking up the facts for your area if you'd rather send it to me privately.
1. Restraining order the hell out of them. On this point, don't back down. Say you're afraid for your life. Say you won't survive if they get a hold of you again. Look up the threshholds for orders in your particular area, and use that language. I don't know what your experiences with police have been like, but if you're likely to get anxious, have a script, practice it, and keep using it. I must have said "I am afraid for my physical safety and my life" about 5+ times.
2. They may be able to contest the restraining order. If you can't face court, get someone to go for you. A lot of domestic violence shelters offer that. Keep ringing them or emailing them - what your family is doing is domestic violence. There are shelters for women, for LGBT people, for indigenous people, for migrants, for people with disabilities, you name it, and websites for domestic violence. (You don't state your gender, and I don't really need to know. I'm a queer woman so I used ACON, my local LGBT service.)
2. Legal advice. If you can afford it, hire the best b*stard you can. If you can't, see above services. University law depts sometimes have an advice line, run by students and overseen by professors for free.
3. Document, document, document. Every time they approach you. Date, time, brief description. Photos if you can. Look for license plates, describe locations, clothing, quote verbatim. This is generally admissible as evidence.
4. Keep your phone on you, and charged, at all times. Buy a portable charge bank and keep it on you.
5. Look up your rights in court. You may be entitled to a support person or to give evidence via video. You may be able to bring a support animal. Take every advantage you can get. The most important thing here is you and your health. They'll play dirty, so bring your big guns.
Now for the not-getting-tracked part:
1. Change your passwords and PIN numbers. Get new of whatever you can afford - driver's licence, bank cards, public transport cards. Loop in your work and your friends, assuming this applies. Get your friends to document any run-ins. I printed pictures and gave them to my manager. Was a very professional conversation. I just said, the police are involved,if any one is asking questions about me, don't tell them anything. If these people come in, get staff to call security.
2. It's possible to clone a phone. Save everything you need, wipe, and reset. Do the same with your laptop and other devices. Consider browsing in incognito for a bit. Change anything you can - number, email, banks, petrol station you go to, where you buy groceries, where you go out for fun.
3. Check your stuff for trackers. Chips are most commonly put under your SD card in your phone, or in stuff that you take everywhere, like a handbag, a laptop bag, in your headphones, attached to a pram. I don't know if your family will do this, but it's worth checking for peace of mind.
3a. Cloak your IP address by using Tor and ElongatedGiraffe if you're concerned about that. Set your phone to not connect to the net while roaming, only turn data on if you need to.
4. Security cameras, if you can afford them. If you can't, you can buy dummy ones, or set up a webcam to watch your door. If you can't afford that, some cheap LED lights can give the illusion that you have a lot more tech than you do. (I still have mine set up 3 houses later).
That about ends it for practical steps.

Emotionally, stalking is pretty hard. I felt constantly jumpy, on edge, HV, like I needed to be running the angles in every situation, ever again, just to keep myself safe. I started referring to my stalkers as my 'fan club' as a joke to take the power back. It gets better. They're power-tripping egotists. They will eventually realise a losing battle, and find a better way to satisfy the urge that gets more emotional results for them.
Good luck, mate. Sorry about the long post.

 

[Angrboda]

Yes, definitely doing the restraining order, and a lawyer would be a great help. I've actually been looking into that. The women's center here is a joke. I know from experience that if you want them to do anything other than shuttle you to various answering machines and put you on waiting lists for over a year you have to make an appointment with a social worker and have them call. It takes about a month to get that appointment and I really don't want to have to wait that long. There is a woman I knew years ago who is a lawyer, and she came up in a google search for low-income attorneys. Her office is only a few blocks from where I live now, and she does house calls. If she isn't able to help me herself then she may be able to put me in contact with someone who can. I just need to work up the nerve to e-mail her.

I'm also wondering if it's going to be necessary to get protection for my boyfriend as well. They may try to get at me through him, especially since he's all pacifism and saintly patience whenever he has to deal with them. My family will definitely read those things as weakness/easy prey. My father has already tried to convince him that I'm delusional and that I don't know what's real. It never occurred to me that I might need one for an animal, but I think I'm probably safe there. I only have one pet. She stays inside the apartment, and every one of my family members is scared sh*tless of her.

@She Cat Moving is a pretty good idea. We've been talking for awhile about renting a farmhouse outside of the city, but that can only happen after I get it together enough to consistently go outside on my own and without massive panic attacks so I'll be able to work again. This is so frustrating because I was mostly fine for so long. There were occasional times when I would freeze trying to walk out the door, but then I'd just stick myself in the leg a few times with an insect pin and that got me moving. Then once I actually stepped through my door I was okay again. Why doesn't that work now?

@Mytime Asshole, as the sociopath shall henceforth be known, actually isn't my ex. He made me refer to him as my boyfriend, and after awhile I really believed that he was. But he was certainly not that. He was supposed to be a roommate. I had started suffering from some health issues, and when that happened my job started harassing me and stealing money out of my paycheck. I was putting myself through school at the time so I was just scraping by on financial aid and a part-time job. I figured I could relieve some of the money stress by taking advantage of the fact that I'd rented a two-bedroom apartment. Not my best idea. I'm actually really afraid to file anything against him. I don't know if he knows where I am now, and I found out after allowing him into my home that he was actually a felon and ex-gang member. He has threatened to send other people after me, and he could. All he had to do was make a phone call and someone came and stole my truck for him. I do not want to provoke all of that.

 

[Deleted member 541]

Good for you. Don’t stop at trying to stop these people. Again, it’s YOU or them. Choose YOU!!!!

 

[Angrboda]

Thought I'd split this. It was getting long.

@Muttly I can't tell you how much it helps to know that I'm not the only one who's having to deal with something like this. It completely messes with my head that it's my own family doing this to me. They above all others are supposed to love me and have my back. The fact that they are the way they are towards me just makes me feel incredibly defective. The logical part of my brain kind of knows that it isn't true, but that part of my brain doesn't really seem to be in control lately.

Asshole had me convinced that the abuse I suffered from them wasn't real, and that I was just being an ungrateful whore. I was just trying to destroy my father because apparently that is what women do. We destroy men. It's our whole reason for being. He also told me every single day that my memory didn't work right and that I was crazy. He would say something, and when I asked him about it a few minutes later he would pretend he hadn't said anything. I was delusional, oh my god sweetheart, you need help, don't you see how wrong you are, you don't even know what's real. So I actually forgot it all. I had a voice in my brain that told me my family was abusive, but no real memory to back it up. And of course, without the ability to remember then I really started to doubt everything. I wasn't sure if any part of my life was real.

All of those memories have been coming back. I guess it's a really good thing because even though it initially knocks me down for a few days when something new surfaces, overall I've been feeling better. Maybe next I'll remember how I used to cope with it. It probably had something to do with the things you mentioned, like social connections, hobbies, goals, things that gave life meaning. I've been avoiding all of those things because they've all been turned into triggers. I really should start flooding myself to break at least a few of them. I've done it before, and it really works. But oh god does it ever suck while I'm going through it.