Feels too much like coincidence- stalking & getting tired of never feeling safe.

[Lilycat]

Hi everyone,

I am feeling tired- not just ‘exhausted’ but ‘flatlining’. I am usually a very motivated person, but I have got to the stage where I feel like all my safe spaces are gradually disappearing, one after the other. It’s got so bad that I was drifting in and out of a dissociated state this morning and I haven’t done this for a very long time.

I mentioned, in a couple of earlier posts, that it looked like my ex was tracking me. Then my ex-stepchild started to work in my neighbourhood and now they want to get into my working space. I also recently found out that they are interested in certain areas for which I do voluntary activities. I don’t know if this is a random coincidence, but my profile was on the internet for this activity and ta-dah!… Guess what? They like the same thing as me!

Out of a bizarre sense of curiosity, I would love to put something up on a social media outlet mentioning that I am really into interests that don’t interest me in the slightest as an experiment and also to help them waste their time in another direction, right away from me. I am so sick of finding something or somewhere wonderful and have these individuals infiltrate where I am and what I do.

Building up friendships and work contacts over the years, I am now at the point where I just feel like jacking it all in and moving far, far away.

Lilycat x

[Twisted Sister]

so with you on this one, but instead of feeling like setting something up to see just feel lost in it all.

The continual questionning of self, like you say, is it just a coincidence, am i just being paranoid, wanting to hide away from everyone! Its bad isn’t it 🙁

I don’t have any answers, but i know from today that high stresses around results day has made me realise what a different experience it is when eveeryone around is understanding what the deal is and openly talking and sympathetic and what a different experience it is going through this and feeling so the opposite! Misunderstood/noone talking about shared experiences in general/the isolation of all that. The whole experience has truly been an eye-opener to the difference in experiences and its so sad its this way.

warmest wishes to you KS xx

[older lady]

Hi, Lilycat
My first thoughts are it would not be random coincidence; I’ve experienced this myself several times over. With my child’s father, in particular, over the last number of years I have had to ‘hide’ aspects of my life because he invades it. He still tells people he is my partner (we were in a relationship for (removed by moderator) a long, long time ago). He will contact people behind my back on various pretexts. He once told me he knew people everywhere in my life. I do feel ‘invaded’. He thinks he has the ‘right’ because he is our child’s father to access and monitor my life. He feels he can get away with it because his excuse will always be that he’s just concerned about his child (the facts certainly don’t support that). Sometimes I see him as an empty person with no imagination, preying on my life: he goes places I used to live, he uses me as a ‘shoe-in’, he’ll say ‘oh, my partner used to come here, you might know her’, I had a special place he found out about and now he goes there alot and likes to let me know, I told him once I was interested in something, he completely went to town on it, etc. There is an element of competition in it I think but also it’s theft. To me it feels like he’s raping my life. It’s about power and control: he’s telling me I can have no privacy, he can step into my life and mess with it any time he likes. If I had no contact with him it wouldnt matter where he went I wouldnt know about it, but he is in those places where there are people from my life. I had a whole other life before I met him that I don’t want him touching.

[Peaceful Pig]

My ex has started this recently too. It started as a threat via the children and now he has been somewhere important to me and ensured I found out. He’s still trying to intimidate me and let me know I can’t escape him. It is very sad and quite pathetic. I refuse to be intimidated anymore. They are so good at finding ways which are plausible and hard to prevent. We know their intentions. Believe in yourself Lilycat and save energy wasted on doubting at least x*x

[KIP.]

Hi there, after reading the replies I just wanted to remind everyone of the benefits of no contact. You absolutely have the right to have zero contact with these men. You don’t have to listen to their mind games, they are still living rent free in your head and that’s how they get their kick. I came off social media all together and don’t miss it at all. I just email the people I need to. In fact it’s freed up so much time. I can relate to them needing to remind you that they are still out there. I cut off every avenue so he decided to appear at the bottom of my street. So I phoned the police and took him back to court. Do not give these men an inch as they are experts at taking a mile X
Stay strong and stay safe X

[older lady]

Hello, KIP
You’re right. We should all have the right to not have an abusive person in our life. We are adult women, we had that choice before we met them and should always have it throughout our lives. But we don’t. Not in practice. What we have are third parties putting pressure on abused women to communicate with their child’s father for the sake of the child. We have caring mothers not wanting their children to be manipulated by an abusive parent who will use them to still get at their mother. He used to say to me ‘I’ll find it all out from her you know. She’ll tell me everything’. That’s right. Everything I do, everyone I know. If I’m trying to get back on my feet. If i’m achieving something he’s not got. We can’t even be really honest with our children about the abusive behaviour because we might be accused of the irrelevant theory, certainly in situations of domestic abuse, of ‘parental alienation’. But we’re supposed to talk to our children about bullies, aren’t we? To be able to say ‘that behaviour isn’t right’. Society just needs to get much more tough on men who try to limit and control women’s lives, whatever the relationship. As a mother I have felt disempowered and that I lost the right to the choices i had before I met him. He’s not living rent free in my head, he’s living rent free in my life.

[Lilycat]

Hi everyone,

Reflecting on our collective thoughts and experiences. It strikes me how much abusers lack a core personality and core beliefs. They form their existence around copying and feeding off other people.

Talking through the abuse whilst it was happening, the counsellor I was seeing at the time said of my step-child:’this person wants to destroy you so that they can become you’. It’s so true. They copied my handwriting so their’s became identical and stole my underwear to wear. From what I gather, they are also serially embracing every large trend on social media that enables them to be noticed either by being controversial or giving them a societal victim role. Without seeing them and with my ex-texting at me their news, I can almost predict what identity they’ll assume next.

Without the ability to self-reflect and self-examine, they cause chaos, mood-hoovering the life out of others as parasites.

Keep strong, folks

Lilycat x

[Twisted Sister]

Iwould add about third parties being usdd to add pressure or find out that it only requires 2 incidents of stalking beahviour of which the ones you mention are (oldlady) and can be charged.
As far asI know u can also get an order against him coming near you or using third parties or using your child to obtain informationnon you. Him doing this is abusive to his child and contact should be supervisdd if he abusing during contact.

Its not easy to do,i know, you could try phoning the helpline to get somemore advice around this

Warmest wishes

Ks x

[Peaceful Pig]

I can’t really elaborate due to being too identifying but I absolutely have no social media and any information comes through the children. I’d have absolutely no hesitation in informing the police of any attempts to actually get close to me directly but he’s very subtle in his methods so far very plausible and perfectly targeted to what he hopes will hurt me as ever. The information comes via and through the children. They tell me alsorts of things about him which I absolutely don’t ask for but have to calmly tolerate listening to as I’m glad they feel safe enough to do so. So maybe they freely tell him things about me? It’s less likely as they aren’t too comfortable talking to him, but especially my youngest wouldn’t be able to hold it in if he’d done something exciting with me. Then my ex becomes filled with jealously and competitiveness and tries to use it for revenge as if I’m being kind to the children just to upset him (his mindset). How could I ever prove he was asking for information? It’s just how it is for now. I’m just working on my counselling so I can hopefully react and care less and less over time.

[Ayanna]

Hi Lilycat, if you have the time set them up. Create some fake events and activities and see whether they copy you. You could invent something to embarrass them and then have a good laugh where they cannot see you.

[Lilycat]

Dear Peaceful Pig, Karma Sister and Ayanna,

Thanks for contributing to this thread.

It’s sickening that abusers use other people to extract information about you and manipulate you, especially when these other people are children and young people. This shows that abusers view people as instruments for their own success and, thus, lack full human capacity for moral reasoning and questioning.

I have been tempted to make up new hobbies like medieval swordfighting and urban kitesurfing, which are ‘within character’ but not of interest to me. I’d love to see those two idiots turn up to a re-enactment of the Battle of Agincourt. They can’t even fight their way out of a paper bag!

Keep well, friends.

Kindest wishes

Lilycat xx

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