Stalked

[Deleted]

Have you ever been stalked by someone? What was it like? How did you deal with it? How did it end up?
I've had a couple of stalkers in my life. One was a fellow whom I met around the same time I met Mr. C. This person whom I will refer to as F, began hanging around the restaurant where I worked at the time. He was acquainted with the owners and regulars at the restaurant so it was not that he was a stranger although strange he was.
He started off by just hanging around. Nice enough guy,very bright with a bit of a schizoid demeanor about him. I would talk to him and was friendly enough to him but then he started appearing everywhere I went. He wrote me poems,rather ballads. One was titled The Ballad of the Oak Street Sinistral (Oak Street being the locale of the restaurant and other neighborhood haunts) which was very amusing and somewhat flattering. I have it somewhere.
Everyone was pretty aware of his infatuation bordering on obsession with me but kind of laughed it off deeming him harmless.
He would present me with little gifts such as reflectors for my bicycle and little trinkets.
I had to start blowing him off because I was becoming increasingly anxious and annoyed.
After a while he finally let up during which time I was fairly involved with Mr. C.
Years later I found out that he had been the patient of a doctor who became my mentor.
Somehow his name came up,I think I saw his outpatient chart lying on a desk.
I inquired after him and the Dr. all of a sudden says "Oh my God, YOU"RE the Casimira F. has been talking about for the last 2 years in therapy. Jeez,I was worried about this person and now I know who it is".
Gave me the heebie jeebies but I was never bothered by him again. I run into him every now and then and we exchange greetings.

[spindrift]

Casi - having heard what the doctor said I'd still be wary of him if I were you.

[Deleted]

It was over twenty years ago when the conversation with the Dr. occurred. I've seen the fellow in passing a half dozen times since then. The second incident with a woman ,was far more harrowing and scary,involved the authorities. She is no longer living,"accidental" death in her sleep.

[Deleted]

That's scary. "Accidental" death? Do you think he might have done her in?

[Deleted]

No,the second incident with the woman involved the woman stalking me. And no ,I did not kill her. Sorry,it does read that way. Although,both stalkers were patients of the same Dr. I don't think they were related otherwise.

[bixaorellana]

One of my sisters was stalked for years and years by a patient. She was a medical social worker when she came into contact with him and he fixated on her. Her daughter was little then, and the stalking was so intense that it involved the police, several changes of house, unlisted phone number, etc.

This was before the internet was a common part of everyones life. I wonder if stalking has become more common with email, social networks, etc. Certainly all of those things offer blockers, indicating that's something wanted or needed.

[spindrift]

I was stalked, on and off, for some years by my ex- manic depressive boyfriend. He even gained entrance to my house whilst I was away and was caught red-handed.
He obsessively stalked me even if I spent time in London too. Finally I got fed up and reported him to the police. That stopped him.

[Deleted]

As movies have shown us, one person's stalker is often just a harmless heartsick wet person leaning on the lamppost downstairs for hours in the pouring rain. I'd be interested in seeing the police definition of what the dividing line is -- obviously breaking and entering is stalking, as I would imagine threatening notes left under the windshield wiper, headless farm animals on your doormat or endless phone calls in the middle of the night.

Obsession is really hard to pin down.

[bixaorellana]

Yeah, I wonder what legal guidelines there are to getting a restraining order. Even if there are no threats, always finding the same person outside your home or workplace whining that he/she "just wants to talk to you" would get wearing and creepy pretty quickly.

[lagatta]

Not really a stalker, but a very scary adult student when I was teaching languages at a local YMCA (yes, of course you can cue the Village People song). He was obsessed by sex and violence and made creepy comments towards me and the other women students, teachers and staff. He seemed to be an admirer of Marc Lépine, the sad outsider who was obsessed with "feminists" costing him what he thought was his deserved spot at an engineering faculty, and eventually killed 14 women, most of them students, and injured several other people (mostly women, but some men too). There was a very scary incident when he found my home phone number and phoned me at home complaining of some injustice. I'm putting some of the details out of my mind as there were a lot more and they were very disagreeable.

I think there has to be a whiff of menace for someone to be a stalker and not just an obnoxious f(r)iend, but there are many shades and varieties of menace; it could be destroying someone's career, marriage or friendships as much as bodily mayhem.

[bixaorellana]

Scary enough, LaGatta!

That reminded me of a similar thing that happened to me years ago. I lived in a very pleasant neighborhood, in the penultimate house before the end of the block. Even so, it was more convenient for me to approach my house from the other direction when returning home from my various outings. There was one guy, probably in his late twenties, who lived with his mother & maybe some other relatives in a house a few doors from mine in the same block. It seemed he was always outside washing the car or talking to some icky friend or other. Whenever I passed, they'd mutter graphic sexual stuff. It was so uncomfortable, I had to always take the longer route home.