Stalking Harassment Behavior

Please let potential stalking victim's know disconnecting one's phone is a real Catch 22. If a stalker loses his means of contacting you, it can often cause the behavior to escalate: If he can't contact you by phone, he'll seek another way. If you can afford it, hook up another phone line, but keep your original hooked up with an answering machine and caller ID to collect any evidence of stalking activity.

When I first met my daughter's stalker, he seemed nice enough, but just a little TOO nice. Having a history of abuse, I'm often wary of something being not quite right with a guy. Within a couple of weeks of their friendship, I told her he was going to be a stalker. It was difficult for her to see it because he always brought gifts or flowers or candies. After she began to see it and tried to end the relationship, it got worse, as is often the case. She would leave for work in the morning, finding a gift on her steps he had delivered in the night. He called and showed up often, and always uninvited. This went on for more than a year. It was difficult for her to report him to the police, because he had done nothing violent or threatening; still he was causing her to lose sleep, be worried about him following her, showing up at her workplace. Even though he had done nothing violent still, she eventually got an anti-harassment order to make him stop, which he did not. Even when she called the police and they told him to stay away or he would Fortunately the company he worked for relocated and he had to move away. I have no doubt that he is stalking someone else where he is now. I really worried about how far he would go if he was still here. So a warning: don't be fooled by someone who is just really really nice. There can truly be a wolf in sheep's clothing.

my daughter broke up with her boyfriend of 6 mos. over 3 months ago. since then he has been constantly harrassing her. first it was just on her phone, then he started getting his friends involved in harrassing her, then he found girls at her school that did'nt like her to harrass her, even though he doesn't go to her school. he continues to stalk her my space even though she deleted him and blocked him. he was even able to convince her now ex-best friend to be his friend now. now he's showing up with this person at my daughters social functions, he won't leave her alone. the police in our city said there's nothing we can do because he hasn't really done anything. but i'm afraid at this rate it will escalate into something more. from everything i've read about stalkers he fits the profile to a t.

My mom (and now myself) are being harassed by an old man and it has been over 3 years of aggravation. He has been arrested numerous times because he just cannot stay away. Just last week he took another guilty plea and paid a large amount of $$ to stay out of jail--however it hasn't even been a week and he has broken the law already. We have been told by others that this man will NEVER leave us alone. He is in his mid or late 70's and he'd probably die in jail; after this week he may be behind bars already. I guess we shouldn't feel sorry for him anymore since he is become more devious. He is a mess.

My former friend began stalking my wife a few months ago. I did some research on this man and found several things. He has a history of violent outbursts, has stalked former girlfriends, co workers, and strangers. He became completely obsessed with my wife. We moved, broke contact, changed our numbers and I began carrying a gun. He then moved on and began stalking my wifes friends....even one of their boyfriends....creepy.
I never saw this coming because I truly trusted this sick piece of garbage. When I contacted his ex girlfriend, she told me the long horror story of how he stalked her for seven months and threatened her new boyfriend (now husband).
but I will always live with the fear that he will show up one night. These people are sick and dellusional and can not be reasoned with. In his mind he was trying to rescue my wife from myself and our infant son!
Bear in mind this man is 35, has no job, no car and lives with his parents. I hope many of you reading this are never the victim of a stalker. It has truly turned my life upside down.
We've heard nothing from him in some time.

I was prosecuted for stalking with letters. I was diagnosed with Delusional disorder and placed on medication with five years of stayed prison time( first offense). I lost my license, my life , I was in tihe paper,I told him personal things about when I was kidnapped and raped and told him I wouldnt write anymore after 7 years. He turned them in , I am now cured of delusional disorder, and I am afraid to leave my home. I because of medication and alcohole have a two year old son and no memory of who his father is ( prn for seeing him). He would park in front of my house when I was going to school so i eat another pill. Sometimes 7 times a day. They were suppost to make my delusions go away. I had panic attacks. I had post traumatic stress disorder. I still do and the trial incompasitated me , to a point of psychological paralysis. And I am still afraid to be close to someone. Are you sure you have a stalker?

I am reffering to Stockhsolm syndrome side effects with relationships that are abusive.

I'm not sure that I am being stock. My ex-boyfriend was very abursive to me. I stay in the relationship in hope of him changing. Our relationship was an in and out one for about seven years. I fanilly left him when he told me he wanting to kill me and the kids. Since then he calls all the times threating us. Coming over to the house unannonce and would not leave. It gotten to the point I was afraid to leave home. Even though we wasn't no longer together he still wanted to know my every move. Things are a little better now. The phone calls are lesser. I truely beleives by breakthrough came from him trying to move on. Should I try and find this girl, to give her head up about his abuse and obsession?

I have tried this she has my child a she is smart at it.She can turn on and off her adult childre make threats too .She shows up at my work I have given so men time and just want back with her for freer of her threats .I have no clue of what to do she tells me if I call the police she will tell them indid something to her .She is am master of get people to think it is not true .I have been in court and hade to let it go or she tells me my child will get it ,she has adult children who sonar she tells them .Her daughter has turned into her has a husband who is going threw the same thing just as I have lived threw .I am almost able to get away just a few more years until my child is an adult.

My boyfriend is being charged with stalking and harrassing his ex. The only issue is, she was stalking and harrassing him after she pressed he charges. She would email and call him all hours of the night for 6 months. The police took his computer and phone and he needs these items to prove she was contacting him constantly during the period after she filed he charges. She manipulated him by inviting him to her house and then woul have a friend there as a witness that he was showing up at her house even though she invited him. (keep in mind, we were friends at this time, not gf anfd bf. We got together in February and that's when he told her it was completely over and he was seeing me and he moved on... That's when she really started pushing it. She contacted the ADA and started saying he was outside her house and brealking into her house, when we were 45 minutes away from where she lived. Thank God, I was with him during the nights and days of her accusations. This started a year ago and now his trial is starting. The ADA and his attorney want him to plead guilty to get a lesser charge, however how is it fair she did the crime and he has to pay??? Any suggestions?

I'd like to comment that there are various forms of stalking. How do you define the difference between stalking and harassing in terms of a neighbor?

We have a neighbor that we had decent relations with for the first two years after they purchased the house next door. Still, I always said something wasn't right about her, call it intuition. Lo and behold, two years later after a trivial disagreement about plants - YES, PLANTS - things went downhill fast. It's really not about plants, or anything trivial or complex, because whatever her disorder is, it was obviously lurking beneath the surface the entire time and was bound to surface at any point in time regardless of our own behavior. To her, it's a PERCEIVED slight or rejection and that's all it took to trigger her behavior.

10 days after our disagreement, to our amazement, she involved an attorney in an attempt to intimidate and harass us for the next three years. She initiated a smear campaign which began in the neighborhood, petitioning neighbors and making false accusations about us, then posting public blogs with more false accusations, and that escalated to her running to the mayor, city hall attorney and building official, inspectors, police and then police chief when the police department didn't see things her way, and lies, lies and more lies. In fact the more we asked her, through FIVE separate attorneys over the course of three years to leave us alone, she'd immediately persevere with third party involvement, more lies and more false accusations. It didn't matter if we had 10 witnesses who could corroborate otherwise - she didn't care - all she cared about was the attention she was getting, and positioning herself in the role of the victim. And that's what she did. However, I knew it would be her downfall - the fact that she'd run to authority figures in an attempt to use them as a tool as a means to harass us would only come back to bite her later.

All of her claims against us were unsubstantiated - it was all "fluff" and no merit. She had no proof of anything because we didn't do anything. The more we ignored her, the more infuriated she became, and the more she harassed us and became increasingly hostile which included the tampering with our personal property. She had many members of local government convinced that we were the perpetrators. We pulled a FOIA request for public information, and even her complaints to the city were "fluff" - she'd say we're rude, we're unneighborly, etc. but without any actual statement of what we did.

After she began tampering with our property, we installed a surveillance system (our right as protected by Federal Law) on our property. She then ran to the police department, city attorney, mayor, etc. AGAIN and this time claimed that we installed the surveillance system to view the interior of her home, which of course was not true. At this point, one step ahead of her game, we are confident that we will go after her for defamation of character if she continues with such accusations and made it very clear to them through our attorney as such. We also submitted three years of documentation - including a frivolous lawsuit she filed against us immediately following our request through the police department to leave us and our property alone, to the city prosecutor for review. We chronologized all of her behavior which anyone could clearly deduce that she was harassing us as we had not had more than 30 consecutive days of peace in our lives absent of their harassing behaviors from 2008 through 2011. The city prosecutor and the police department were our saving grace. The city prosecutor came to our aid, and threatened them (her husband and various family members are her "whipping boys") with $1000 citations for each occurrence of harassing behavior from that point forward. I literally couldn't even walk down my driveway to take my garbage curbside without this nut job running outside to saturate me with her sprinkler, which ran overhead all the way across my driveway and into my own yard - behavior which did not exist prior to our disagreement - another pertinent fact we pointed out to the city so that they would understand we weren't trying to be petty about anything. It was about harassment. The neighbors then reverted their sump pump to drain onto our driveway, which was a muddy mess every time they did so.

As an example of more crazy abnormal behavior, during all of this, every time we'd go outside to enter or exit our garage, they'd mock our behavior consistently....we'd open our garage door, and they'd open theirs within a matter of 30 seconds. We'd close ours, they'd do the same. For clarification, they'd do so without entering or exiting their detached garage, so it was obvious their intent was to harass us by watching us. She'd also follow us - albeit she's still on her own property as we are neighbors so for that mere fact it doesn't qualify for stalking behavior - but for three years - if we went to the front of our home, she'd be at the front of her home. If we went to the back yard, she'd do the same and make a noise to let us know she was there. When we'd pull up our driveway in the evening hours, they'd consistently turn off ALL their interior and exterior lighting, which includes landscape lighting on their home, and they'd immediately open their window and stand there in the dark watching us just a mere few feet away exiting or vehicle (we have small 1/8 acre lots). They'd put offensive figurines in their window facing our home, with it's fists up at us. Talk about passive aggressive.

I've already caught her, in the dead of winter, spying on me. It was probably 10 degrees outside. I'm in a down jacket it's so cold. It's about 9:30 in the evening, and I am putting christmas decorations on my garage. My hands are freezing I can hardly bear it, but I don't have the dexterity I need to put my decorations up with gloves on. My garage is less than a foot from the fence that divides the property line. I am up on a step stool, and the ground is covered in snow. You can't walk out there without someone hearing footsteps. I momentarily run in the house to get something and come back outside. I climb back up on my step ladder and continue hanging my decorations. TEN MINUTES LATER, I am startled as I notice she is just a few feet from me crouched in the snow WITHOUT A COAT. She just stands up and walks away, and her footsteps are crunching in the snow. I was freezing with a down jacket on, and this nut job is out there spying on me without a coat. The only way she could have gotten there, is if she snuck out there while I ran in the house momentarily. If that's not what you call stalking, I don't know what it is, but she is one abnormal individual and I wouldn't wish her on anyone.

She also had to have what we had. If we purchased a new silver truck, they'd have to do the same. If I cut my hair short, so did she. If I purchased red framed glasses, so did she. This is not "flattery" as some may like to refer to it - it's so consistent that it's an obvious obsession. We'd put our Christmas decorations up after she'd already have hers up. She'd take hers down the next day, and then put new ones up to emulate our own. She's WEIRD. WEIRD. WEIRD. It's like she has no identity of her own - so she tries to take on our identity.

She has also sent us a letter in the mail immediately following the police departments request, and various attorney requests, to cease all contact with us. She can't let go.

We are now moving into 2012. This will be the fourth year. We'll see how things fare, but she's burned so many bridges with local government that they shut the door on her and told her they are not getting involved in any more of her claims against us.

Our local police department is top notch. I can say, they've always been fair. And you can't pull the wool over the eyes of an experienced crime prevention officer. They saw right through her antics and lies. In fact, she's so emotional that she'll file a police report and in HER OWN WORDS would contradict her earlier statements. Which is precisely why we submitted a FOIA (freedom of information act) public records request for anything she had on file with the local police department and city hall. I submitted all of these facts and documentation to the city prosecutor, mayor, city attorney, police department, etc. so everyone had on record in OUR own words a compilation of the behavior we were subjected to in a chronological format. It was easy to deduce that the nut job next door was the problem, not us. I pointed out all the facts and all the discrepancies in her stories - and of course there were MANY of them.

I commend the police department for their fairness but also for coming to our aid and listening to our side of the story (which the mayor and various members of city hall neglected to do for us as they should have in the beginning - she had them convinced we were the perpetrators when in fact we avoided them at all costs and want NOTHING to do with them).

Still, to this day, the nut job next door will still make excuses to meander onto our property although they've been told by three attorneys to cease all contact with us.

Where do these people come from? I came across various definitions that fit her behavior - Borderline personality as well as False Victimization Syndrome, but as stated earlier, I still think she has characteristics of stalking behavior and she's anything but normal. The funny thing is, she won't look me in the eye. If she tries to confront me, I remain calm but assertive and she can't handle it. The calmer I am, the more irate she becomes. She will throw temper tantrums characteristic of a child - foot stomping, fist clenching, animal groans come out of her throat followed by inappropriate verbal outbursts. I just stand there watching her fall to pieces, and then probably because she feels like a fool, she responds by retaliating more with third party involvement and more smear campaigns.

I wouldn't wish this on anyone as there is no easy way to cope with "crazy" as there is no rhyme or reason and no way to negotiate with "crazy". I always say, go with your intuition. We had an amicable relationship with them for the first two years, but still kept our distance as I knew something was amiss with her personality. Wish I had kept more of a distance and gone with my gut. Lesson learned. AVOID ALL CONTACT WITH THESE PEOPLE. They will make your life a living hell, and they aren't worth it as at the end of the day, they are just an empty shell of a shallow human being who has to latch onto others to have any semblence of what it means to be "somebody". In essence, they are a "nobody".