Today I am thankful for having a graduate degree in psychology.
My personal focal point of my education was mind-body connections. I was interested in how the mind enhanced sex. I also wanted to know how our thoughts influenced our immunity. I wanted to know how our self-esteem impacted our health decisions.
I'm not kidding.
This is who I am.
I wanted to be a psychoneuroimmunologist before I actually found out I was married to a narcissist stalker dude who sat outside campus and let his sister harass my professors without my knowledge.
Then there was the little thingy about his cousin wanting to marry him and stalking me to try to get me in trouble. He'd always hear about it when she'd peek in my apartment windows as I tutored hot Mexican nationals trying to learn English.
That was before we dated, too.
I can't go into the whole 20+ years of stalking. It is intermittent. It comes and goes. The longest lull I've had without stalking was two years. In the past, they always blamed everyone else.
They blamed my high school sweetheart, my other ex, my neighbors, the cops, some dude I never met at a church somewhere. I believed it, too until a cop actually explained why they were sitting outside of my house. That is what they do when they believe someone is in imminent danger.
Yep....they know who my stalker is.
My stalker and his family blamed everyone but themselves.
I didn't want to believe the cops. I caught my stalker when I was complaining about the stalking and he told me that the solution lies in stalking various people in order to find out who my stalker was.
A ha!!
I know who my stalker is!! It's the guy who thinks stalking is the only way to solve life's problems.
He is the idiot terrorizing me at home.
I finally lost it and started to get into my stalker's head. It's actually kind of nice delineating what is happening.
His mother thinks I stole her little man from the family. She thinks that I hypnotized him to hate her. I know this because she's said this to me, one of my friends, and to the man in the basement.
When she asked him to do stuff, he wouldn't do it and said that I was keeping him from her. She thinks that if I get out of the picture, she'll have her helpmate back. I've heard this from his cousin. I was told that his mother simply wants me out of the picture, so she can have her son back.
I've been with this man for over twenty years. The past twelve have been painful. His mother cut him off and he moved into our basement. We tried to reconcile a couple of times but he always ends up back in the basement. He asked me to stay for the sake of the kids. I did but now, he's just getting a little too weird for my taste.
His mother does call, from time to time, to ask me to come clean her house. She once claimed that I assaulted her, so I never visit....no matter what.
I can't. She's a liar. I'm scared she's going to go running to the cops, both hands waving hysterically in the air, claiming that I amputated both her arms and legs in a fit of rage.
I wouldn't put that past her.
Her daughter likes to call to gloat about the stalking and the lying. The daughter knows that her mother is lying but she has to perpetuate the myth as to tarnish me. She sees me as competition and my reputation must be sullied. She also said lying gives her a little adrenaline boost knowing that it upset me.
See the narcissism? Wow...
His sister will also admit to stalking me years after the fact. I only have 18 months to file charges. After that, her admission of guilt does me no good.
I put up with the crap for two reasons. First, he threatened to kill himself if I left. So long as he was in therapy, I said I'd stay. He's dragging that out a tad bit too long.
I also stayed because I thought he'd let me be a musician. I thought he'd give me enough space in my own room to paint and draw. I thought he'd let me write books and blog and do all those things that make life fun.
The drama has killed my creativity.
He's getting worse with age. I'm getting scared of the guy.
Actually, I think he's scared of me. I ran for office and he is terrified of politicians. I think that is where the violence is coming from. He has gone into rages and told me that if I could give speeches, I could find a job and leave him. He says that this is why he is controlling everything.
I am not happy. I've got to go.
Either I make a safety plan or I get a restraining order.
Recently, he threatened to stalk my high school sweetheart (those are fightin' words) and word has it that he may have sent an email telling one of my activist buddies never to speak to me again because I called him handsome.
I call every man handsome...even a creepy stalker dude living in the basement.
I'm NOT happy.
Today, I spent a couple hours quizzing Mr. Stalker.
This is what I learned.
His sister, mother, cousin and aunt always stalk me and another in-law between the months of October and February. They leave us alone between Valentine's Day and mid-October (his birthday). I'm being told that his narcissist mother gathers a few lady relatives around for the holidays and schemes to harass the people they don't like.
Oh....
He told me that his sister says she stalks me to force me to talk to her. That is actually common stalker behavior.
You know, if she wants to talk to me, she can call me and tell it to my recording equipment.
Never harass a musician over the phone. Never bug her in person either. She always has a microphone on her person to record those little jingles that cross her mind at the oddest of times.
Wanna talk? Bring it....I'll tape it.
My other hobby is photography. It's fun to catch those stalker faces. After I laughed at the moron they had harass me on a street corner, they've left me alone. They don't harass me anymore now; they like to bother third parties, threaten them and spread malicious gossip.
I will never understand why these third parties never go directly to the police. If a stalker bugs you or threatens you just call the cops.
Now that they've left me alone, I don't have any more interesting photography subjects.
Bummer....
Still, this insight is helpful.
There is a little issue of my not being allowed to outperform his sister. For two years, she was recently in the news for losing a couple hundred pounds (yeah!!!! Way to Go!!!). They left me alone during those two years.
One day, after I gave a speech at a political event, I did an ego search on a local news site to see what they said about me (they said I railed against a corporate welfare project but didn't have a prayer of winning because I was unknown....sigh....at least they didn't call me crazy, or ugly, or late with dinner).
Alongside my photo was hers and her story.
Our names are very similar. We have the same initials which is confusing for people here answering the phone when she calls. They think she is me.
Anyway, a week after we were in the news, she called the house to gloat.
Oops...I guess I took away some of her narcissistic supply. Stupid me....Ughh....
Then the hang-up phone calls started. Then our phones quit working, so its not a problem anymore.
A few months later, a GPS box fell off the rear, driver's side wheel well of my mini-van. I was told the police department put it there. I'm not so sure about that.
I wasn't upset. My rear tire had been smoking for days. When I learned it was just a gps box, I felt relieved that my brakes hadn't gone out. So...it's not a bad thing. I just don't know why someone would go to that kind of effort to find out when I go grocery shopping.
People are weird.
Now, I'm dealing with a crazy guy making my life hell. How dare I do something that takes his sister's thunder?
Today, he also told me that his family are alcoholics who fear authority figures. So, I guess, I've got to spend a heck of a lot more time with my frenemies in politics since I won't be harassed by my stalkers this way.
Anyone need a volunteer?
Now, I know the truth. It is a narcissist family system. Daddy is a drunk. Mommy is a narcissist. Sister and cousin think they are going to earn an inheritance if they continue to do mommy's bidding.
That's so weird. If mommy is ever in a nursing home, that home will eat what little is left of their estate. How much money can a bunch of stalkers have anyway? If they're spending so much time keeping tabs on everyone else, how do they earn money?
I am hearing that I am not the only victim of their stalking.
Wow....
I'm putting together a flow chart of things I can do to stay safe. I've done it all wrong.
I gave up my business. I need go into business with another powerful, well-educated person. They are afraid of authority, so I've got to work for someone in a position of authority. Okay, I can do that.
I need to spend more time helping people in positions of power since they are terrified of authority figures.
I wish I'd have shoved my pendulum in his face earlier.
Love ya,
S.
P.S. If there was ever any proof that leaving a dead marriage is the right thing to do, this is it.
I gave up sex to be stalked, harassed and treated like dirt by a bunch of narcissistic wolf puppies that I barely know.
This is the deal about mental illness and dysfunctional in-laws.
Their problem are theirs. They are not ours. We do not accept responsibility for them just because we married into the system.
It's not my stuff....it's theirs.
I'll let you know if I can get a lawyer to dig me out of this mess.
It'll be money well spent.