don't feed the stalker

[the_siobhan]

A few people have linked to this blog post - I'm mulling over my thoughts about it, so I figured I'd throw it up here for y'all to read first.

Don't Feed The Stalker

My take to be posted later.

Comments

[digital-space.livejournal.com]

That was concise and well written. But I worry about people without access to such resources.

[dali-muse.livejournal.com]

This example was a family of some privilege and the husband's company even paid for them to get out of town.

I don't know how many other "victims" (I REALLY hate that word.) would have the financial means to leave their job to escape harrassment. Not just for a vacation, but to just stop working.

[mathochist.livejournal.com]

Try "targets" if you don't like "victims".

[icedrake.livejournal.com]

An interesting insight into stalkers. What are your thoughts, pray tell?

[excess-and-oohs.livejournal.com]

i can't even finish reading it, having gone through that. we made a lot of mistakes, it seems.

[scarletfaewind.livejournal.com]

Thank you for passing that on. I had a boyfriend who decided I was too easy and started stalking one of my friends. I think if she would have been able to read this at the time, she would have gotten away from him sooner.

Hopefully others will read it and heed its good advice.

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

I don't know. Advice that tells the victim to uproot her life for years to avoid a stalker bothers me on a visceral level. I am NOT saying it's not useful advice. It just bugs me.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

on one hand, it's victim blaming. on the other hand, since we do in fact live in the patriarchy, at the moment, advice for the victim on how to best handle the shitstorm called down upon her by some asshole thinking she's his property might be the best that we can do, at least while we try to uproot the damned system.

[panic-girl.livejournal.com]

IAWTC.

[elixxir.livejournal.com]

Exactly. I've been having such a hard time responding to this because of that. I can't reconcile how good the advice seems with the fact that it punishes the victim to such extreme lengths. I'm still chewing on it mentally...

[firecat]

I'm also troubled by the idea that uprooting your life is the only way to deal with a stalker. On the one hand, I suppose something that drastic is sometimes necessary. But, from experience, less drastic ignoring sometimes works.

I do agree that not communicating with the person can be a successful strategy.

I'm reminded of alt.poly's resident troll (who seems to be in a quiet phase at the moment). Although he isn't as extreme as the person in that story, I believe he has the same pattern, and that's why I think not responding to him at all is the best policy.

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

You've missed the goss. Said troll may not be able to post to alt.poly anymore. (Verizon)

[faerierhona.livejournal.com]

Every single thing in there makes sense and is probably true - but still does not change the fact that society expects the stalkee to give up their life, their identity their homes and their jobs so that they stop "feeding the stalker". For a week or two that is one thing, but for "several years?" - that would have to be an extreme example, although that said in my case it has now been 18 1/2 years since I did that and have never been able to go back

I understand in the cases where the person cannot be caught that this may be necessary, but when they are we need to work harder on ensuring the safety of the stalkee

[ravensee.livejournal.com]

It was a difficult read, but an insightful one though. Thanks for posting it.

But I'm still iffy whether enough has been done, research-wise, into figuring out if this is the best way to deal with situations like this because all situations and people are different.

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

I have a real problem here, and it's one I've been struggling with a lot.

Leaving aside some of the blame-the-victim issues in the rest of the thread, I have to wonder about stalkers as human beings with needs. Maybe it's right for the people they are stalking not to reach out to them; in the case of death threats and the like, it's certainly right. But the way they get written off as "isolate them and you'll be better off" when we know that human beings die in isolation.

It's not that I want to support the stalker, especially not to the detriment of the stalkee. It's not that I don't want people to protect themselves. But I do want us to start looking for solutions that don't make the problem worse--I want to know why this behavior is growing so much and what the people engaging in it really need.

Sorry if this is the wrong tone.

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

I'm going to buck the trend and say that I don't see the advice is this post as victim-blaming. Nowhere did I see any indication that the writer, her husband, his employers, the police or the security firm think that she and her husband were to blame for being stalked. They simply were unlucky enough to cross paths with someone who had several screws loose and a taste for vengeance.

Was it fair that they had to leave their home and pull their kids out of school to avoid this guy? Of course not, but as most reasonable adults know, life ain't fair. What saddens me is that most employers would not have gone to such lengths to protect employees who were being stalked. This family and the families of the other employees who got death threats were very very lucky in that respect.