am i being stalked? am i a stalker? or none of the above?

[catlady90]

Hi everyone. I found this forum while looking online for info. I hope I am doing this right and I am very sorry if I’m not.

I have significant trauma history resulting in emotional dysregulation and anxious attachment. I do not meet criteria for BPD however experience many of the symptoms. I use DBT and try my best, but when I meet someone else with similar personality traits, I became emboldened and get sucked in.

I met a guy who had a girlfriend. Me, feeling inexplicably drawn to him, reached out anyway. We went out, talked about our shared trauma history and the field of work that we were both in. He was funny and cute and dark, and I was smitten. An on and off ensued that culminated in me finding out he was also using dating apps. After that I threatened  to tell his girlfriend about all of it if he didn’t. He used a naive friend as a middle man to pass the message on to me that he planned to blackmail me by emailing my boss that I drank alcohol on the job. He later confirmed this was the intended message. I told my boss myself, explaining the situation. I knew I had no other move besides that, as it took his power away. So I did, and I let him know. That put him back in a place of not having leverage, and being forced to tell his girlfriend. Now he really hated me.

Since then he has had me blocked on everything. I have been struggling a lot for a long time over this situation as it felt very unfair and I was still infatuated by him, although very unsettled. I have kept tabs because of my aforementioned personality traits, as well as a burning feeling that something was amiss and things were going on that I couldn’t see, but I could feel. I don’t know if that resonates with anyone.

I discovered through creative googling that shortly after things ended so badly between us, he got a new job down the street from my old apartment (I had already moved to a new town.). He also purchased a home in the same city where I used to live, something I had told him was a personal goal of mine. My former therapist who I was seeing while we were dating is now a coworker and Facebook friend of his. He bought a dog the same color as mine.

10 months later last November,  I noticed that I was unblocked on Facebook. I looked at what little I could see of his profile, wondered incessantly what spurred this, and impulsively sent and unsent a waving emoji. I was subsequently blocked again. I wanted to know what he was likely to have seen when looking at my profile, so I checked what it looks like to public. I noted there was a post from last year when I found a stray dog. In the post I put information relating to where I found her and what neighborhood I lived in.

Two weeks ago, I was walking my dog on the same route as usual, (albeit about half an hour later than usual) and I see him at the park down the street from my house with his dog. He walked past me, not acknowledging me: I called out and asked what he was doing there. He responded that he was with his dog, and walked away.  the question of  “no but what are you doing two blocks from my house” went unanswered.

I told myself now that he definitely knew I lived here he wouldn’t come back. I told myself not to feel bad that he was in my neighborhood but ignoring me. I told myself not to feel weird that he was in the park where I go with my dog most every morning. I told myself I was the creepy one because I had been able to find so much information online.

He kept coming to the park. Again he ignored me when we saw one another, but this time a third person witnessed our conversation, going over to ask him what had happened once he and I walked away from each other. Totally activated and not thinking, I tried to tell her what was going on, and was met with looks from both of them. At this point I realized that he was here often enough to have developed friendships with the people in the park. The people who live in my neighborhood.

Through my creative googling I also had an idea of what his email address might have been and decided to send him an email each time I saw him telling him to go away, ranting about how unfair it was that he hated me, and just being generally dysregulated and throughly sucked in again.

I had hoped he wouldn’t return, but he has most days since then. One day I got there earlier to avoid him, and saw him drive past when he saw me there. The next day he was there twenty minutes early - I drove past on my way home from getting coffee. He even bought the same make of car as me.

Everyone tells me just to avoid the park that is two blocks from  my house. But this game is very challenging for me as it is a very strong pull to engage, although frightening. A former mutual friend told me he had previously stalked an ex girlfriend of his. I keep thinking he can’t be stalking me because he ignores me when he sees me. Reasonably I understand that there are a large number of other reasons why he could be doing for this. I feel he wants to punish me first and foremost.

I went today to see if I could catch any of the other dog moms when he wasn’t there, so I could find out if it was normal for people to come by who lived out of town, and see if I was being unreasonable. I was told it is not normal, and asked why I was concerned. I told them the story of what was happening and my fears and concerns about seeming crazy. When I noted I first asked him to stop coming to the park two weeks ago, one of the ladies remarked that he has been coming more frequently in the past two weeks. She said he told them he drives his mom to work nearby.

I suppose my question is: knowing that his brain works similarly to how mine works, I am unable to find these coincidences to be innocuous. I am unsure however if all of them are meaningful in the way I see them, or if I am overreacting in certain ways. I am also unsure of what to do next, to contain myself and stop myself engaging, as well as to keep myself safe and deescalate the situation.

Also any general validation that others’ brains also work in similar ways would be helpful. Because he is not giving me anything to work with, I am beginning to feel like the crazy one, and am worrying that it is all coincidences and I am insane. It’s only because I know his history that I am able to say I think at least some things are not a coincidence.

Thank you for listening!  

[Sappho11]

Hi there, most importantly: You're very probably not going crazy. Insane people don't know that they're insane. Feeling like you're going crazy is more often a symptom of ongoing stress, sensory overload and/or depression.

I had an online stalker once, so I'm going to tell you what the police told me back then: Don't engage. If you can't work out what he's looking for, it's because he's not looking for anything specific. He's looking for one very broad thing only: a reaction.

By ranting at him via email, you're giving him exactly that, along with a sense of vague power and control. If you stop engaging, his harrassment will eventually stop, though be prepared that it might take a while. The stalker I had kept sending me increasingly threatening emails for the better part of a year, and then every now and again for about two years afterwards. I never replied, and he eventually gave up (and probably moved on to a more interesting target).

If you feel like you're somehow drawn to the same pattern, it might be a good idea to examine the desire for control in your own life. Are there some parts that have gone off the rails, for example? Is there anything you can do to fix them? Do reach out for help, if you need it – just not to that person you've mentioned.

No contact, no response is the way out.

[grumpydonut]

Hey Catlady,

Your history and self-analysis sounds very similar to mine.

You're not crazy, but I assume your own actions are causing you shame - aka online Googling, etc. One thing that has helped me over the past year is listening to what my body and mind are telling me. I would online-check my ex all the time, and it would only bring me shame and make me feel like I was the bad one. As soon as I stopped, I started to heal. I definitely recommend that approach.

As for your other points, I'll leave them to other people for better advice!

[Cromwell]

Why are you looking at his profile? It's ok if you don't know why.

[catlady90]

Why are you looking at his profile? It's ok if you don't know why.

The course of the relationship was not my decision, and I always felt sad and missed him and heavily romanticized what “could have been” over what was. It was my first experience of feeling like I couldn’t tell when somebody was lying, and it also ignited the really unstable teenage part of me, especially with the really explosive way it ended. But part of me wonders if it’s just in my head. he had a lot of traits, and told me once that I was part of his repetition compulsion (he was part of mine too so I weirdly romanticized this.) I had a lot of senses of “what if” because I initially had declined being set up with him by a mutual friend only months before we actually met, by which time he was dating someone else. I think I keep kicking myself that it’s my fault that everything wasn’t perfect because I declined a date in the first place and therefore whatever happened after is my fault too. We also discovered that we had worked together in the same building many years before without realizing,, which made me feel like there was even more ~meaning~ behind it.

I know that the answer is what everyone says: stop going. Ignore it. He will move on eventually. I’m just really struggling with my own tendencies. As he escalates I find myself escalating too, and also doubting myself more than I ever have before. If he hates me so much why is all of this happening. Can all of this possibly be just coincidence or am I right in suspecting his mind makes meaning more similarly to mine than not. It’s consuming my thoughts and I hate it :-(

I am so grateful to those who responded to my long ass post. I hate admitting that this part of me still exists, and I find that when I’m feeling more stressed, I am far more susceptible to creating opportunities for emotionally charged situations like this and/or more easily engaged when I happen upon them. I have been much more stressed lately with work, ending my own relationship (for unrelated reasons,) and increased generalized and social anxiety.

I APPRECIATE YOU ALL SO MUCH.


Thanks for listening :-)

[Cromwell]

No worries catlady90.

how are you for coping with the stress of modern day life, work etc?

I also saw an association between being over stressed and starting to all of a sudden think of my ex-relationship and add that to the mix.

Nowadays it rarely if at all happens, im not sure why exactly. I think its likely one of these things once you conciously become reflective self aware and then it repeats, it loses its mystique and along with it, some of the anxiety it had the power of invoking.

thanks for listening also. sorry for the hard time your going through right now, it will get better and youll make more discoveries, the questions are just as important as the answers that build upon them (I would not call either of you "stalkers" based on the description).

wishing you either a good or stable, calm day.  

Cromwell