 |
By (user no longer on site)
2 weeks ago
|
It's a pain when it's online, but very unnerving when they start doing it in the real world too.
I had a trans woman who worked as a nursing sister stalk me for just under 3 years. We dated briefly after meeting online, but I got the 'too clingy' vibe and called it off after a couple of months.
Ignoring her calls and messages and blocking her stream of new numbers wasn't too much of a big deal, but then the hand delivered letters started arriving. That was a bit concerning. Not floods of them, but every few months there would be one in my mailbox. Nothing abusive in the letters, but very, very persistent with the "we're perfect for each other, can't live without you, I just want to talk" etc kind of content. Given that I'd moved since breaking up with her and had not given her my new address, that should've been the point I took some form of action. I still question why I didn't. I think there was an element of sympathy for her 'broken heart', but in hindsight, the warning signs were extremely loud and crystal clear by that point. It's weird how it just kind of creeps up on you and almost becomes the norm after a while, when looking back it's obviously any thing but normal. Almost like an annoyance, until the tipping point comes.
That tipping point came when I went for a post operation check up to have my stitches out. Different hospital to the one she worked in, but there she was outside the treatment room when I came out. She didn't even try to pretend it was just coincidental that she was there, or that she was just there for treatment too. She was very open about the fact that she knew I was there that morning and very insistent that "we had to talk". There was a bit of a scene in the hospital, security arrived, she was removed off site by them and I was asked to go with security to the department head's office.
That was the point the rozzers were brought in. They did take it seriously. With all credit to the NHS too, after they had heard what was going on, what her job was and why she'd turned up there, they took it extremely seriously as well.
Turns out that she'd been accessing my medical records almost from the day we'd got together. She was charged, it went to court and she got 14 months (suspended), a restraining order and struck off the Nursing and Midwifery register for life.
Even now many years after, I occasionally get a message from new, blank profiles across the sites I'm on with a writing style that looks a bit too familiar. I'll never be able to prove if its her or not, I've absolutely no intention of engaging with those messages to find out and they go straight to the block list, but I wouldn't bet my house against it.
Having lost her access to my private information some time ago though, me having moved again since and also having a different number and email address these days too, I'm not too concerned about her finding where I am these days. There are ways she could do it if she really wanted to, but she was never that smart.
My biggest concern these days is a random, chance encounter. It's not a fearful concern, but it's always there at the back of the mind and has made me probably a bit too fussy these days about whom I meet online. It's purely down to her why my online profiles read like a list of dos and don'ts when it comes to whom I'd meet now. |
