10 lessons I learned from being stalked

In my early 20’s, for a period of around 5 years, I had a stalker – 2 stalkers, both women, actually.

I won’t go into the details because there really is no short version to it – it’s a book-worthy story and one that sounds completely unbelievable when I vocalise it.

In fact, those times when I have recounted what happened to someone, I can hear an audience cheer in the background “Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!” like I’m on stage at Jerry Springer.

Recently, I was chatting to family friends who I hadn’t seen in years and somehow this old chestnut came back up again.

I rarely think about that part of my life, and I’ve done so much work on releasing this from my energy field that it feels like it happened to someone else.

My friends asked me if I had learned anything from it, so I thought it might be good to share here.

The police can’t do anything about it unless they actually hurt you – until then, everything you report to them is heresay. Having said that, if you’re being stalked, it’s really important to report it to the police, in case anything does happen in the future (sucks, I know).
With a single offence, it’s done and you can move on from it. But with stalking, you never know when it’s. I found myself getting nervous when it went quiet, as it felt like something awful was around the corner.
I was waaaaaay stronger than they gave me credit for.
My friendships and relationship, along with my relationship with my family, was unbreakable.
The truth will always come out in the end. Sure, it may have taken 5 years, but it did eventually come out.
Jealously makes you crazy, and makes crazy people stalk the people they are jealous of. If you’re feeling jealous of someone, that vibration is really going to mess with you, so do the work you need to do to get rid of that shit.
It’s really easy to hack into people’s computers. She was hacking into mine and reading all my emails, then writing me letters telling me where I’d been to make it look like she was following me. After a while I discovered she was hacking into my computer, and took my laptop to an IT specialist to get it checked over. At the time (around 10 years ago now) he was saying the only way to download spyware (which records every keystroke you make) was to do it by accessing the persons’ computer in reality. But he found 50 different spyware programs running on my laptop, most of which he’d never heard of. When he looked them up he found out many of them could be downloaded via attachments in emails. Of course, 10 years later we know much more about that.
Nothing can break you unless you let it. Sure, there were times when I was looking over my shoulder. My hands would shake as I opened my mail and I hated that I let her have that effect on me. But despite her efforts I refused to let her fuck with my friendships and relationships.
You can turn every challenge into a growth opportunity. I definitely played the victim for a while as I honestly couldn’t understand why someone would be so vicious towards me when I had done absolutely nothing to them, but in time I became more intrigued in the situation, sitting back as an observer and turning the situation into a case study so I could see it from a different point of view rather than an emotional one.
I only recently had a limiting belief pop up around this old situation. I was asked in a mastermind group to think about what the unintended negative consequences might be of me achieving my goals (of having a successful business and being a thought leader in my niche). It really surprised me when in my head popped “my stalker will find me again” as it’s not something I ever consciously think about. I had to do some work around that as it was affecting my desire to be visible online, which I know I need to be if I want to impact as many people’s lives as possible.

At the time, I was studying a Masters in Forensic Psychology.

Initially I had wanted to write my dissertation on Offender Profilers in the Police, but I decided to changed it based on my personal experience and I ended up doing qualitative research into stalking victims and their experiences and perceptions of police and other support services.

I had so many amazing conversations with people who had been stalked, and felt very grateful that I didn’t have it worse than I did.

My interviewees were also really grateful for the opportunity to be heard, and felt listened to.

I got a high distinction for that dissertation, and kinda felt like sending my stalkers a printed copy, letting them know how grateful I was for the experience 🙂

If you’re going through a similar situation right now and want to talk to someone about it, I’m here for you.

I ended up turning all my learning from this, and many other experiences, into an online coaching program called From Surviving To Thriving.

Check it out here.

Catcha on the flip side,