The 66 Mile Stalker

Stalking is a pattern of unwanted contact or behavior that leads someone to feel upset, anxious, or scared for his or her safety. (Psychology Today) 

Stalking is engaging in a course of conduct directed at a person that serves no legitimate purpose and seriously alarms, annoys, or intimidates that person. (Merriam Webster)

I wasn't sleeping well if at all in that period of my life, and was alerted to a text at 4:30 am while at my son's house. I was spending some time with him, and had left my place (not the first time) after being screamed at, raged at, humiliated, and I felt very frightened.  I felt frightened quite often in those days.  My instinct was to get away from the very danger that was residing with me.  I needed to be in a loving, calm environment, and try to make sense of what was happening to me. The fact I was not home, and was with my son, made someone very jealous and angry.  The fact that it was family didn't matter.  Narcissists/Abusers do not like the focus of their partner to be anywhere but on them.  After all, how can abusers do what they do best if their target isn't there?  I grabbed my phone and saw that the text said my son's parking gate remote was on his front porch.  I was instantly confused and when I saw who it was from I was even more so.  It was from my (then) boyfriend, who should be at our house well over an hour away.  I sat up and my heart began to race.  In autopilot, I texted him and said, "Are you here?"  I received no answer and I went to the front door and looked out the window, seeing no one I opened it up--sure enough I found my son's gate remote to his locked and gated parking area laying there on the welcome mat.  It took me a minute to realize that the remote should be in my car, which was parked in that gated area.  Why was it sitting out on the front porch?  And why had my boyfriend sent a text telling me exactly where it was, moved from inside my car?  I had thought a couple hours earlier that I had heard his loud truck out in the parking area but quickly pushed that thought out of my mind, for why on earth would he be here?  And at that time of the early morning? 

I started feeling afraid, scared.  Heart beating faster, I woke up my son and told him of the text and finding his gate remote on the front porch.  He and I walked out back to the parking area to my car.  As soon as we got close, I could see that something was wrong.  I used my key fob and unlocked the doors.  When I opened the drivers door, a bunch of stuff fell out.  What was going on?? 

Apparently, my boyfriend had taken a bunch of my belongings from our house, packed them into his truck, taken my other key fob that was in my jewelry box next to the bed, driven 66 miles to my son's house, climbed the fence to get into the parking area (which was tall and had barbed wire on the top) accessed my locked car with my spare key, let himself out of the parking area in my car to wherever his truck was parked, then transferred all the items he'd packed from his truck into my car, drove my car back into the parking area using the gate remote, parked my car, again let himself out of the parking area using the gate remote from my car, walked to my son's front door, laid the remote on the doormat and texted me that the remote was on his welcome mat.  

Now if that doesn't make your head spin.... 

On top of the craziness of all that, the items he had chosen to pack my car with were so random, things I absolutely didn't need--I certainly had not asked for any of them--but things like heavy nursing textbooks, lamps, bathroom rugs, and more boxes of books.  On the very top of the pile on my driver's seat was the toilet scrub brush--can you say Passive-Aggressive?  Or was this crazy act simply pure aggression? 

While my son and I stood in shock staring at all of this, I found myself feeling scared and very nervous.  I didn't know if my boyfriend was somewhere watching me.  I looked around the best I could to see if I could see him or his truck, and told my son I wanted to go inside, that I was afraid.  Of course my son was upset also seeing all this and gave me a big hug, telling me it would be okay, that I was safe there with him.  I still felt as if we were being watched.  

My boyfriend knew that I was physically unable to move all of these heavy items out of my car and my son had to do it, moving it all into his living room.  The front seats, back seats and trunk were all packed full. I had to use my car that morning and needed it to be cleared out.  The ridiculous actions he had taken only served to confuse me.  I was living in a constant state of confusion, trying to make sense of things such as this, while being abused verbally and psychologically.  (The physical abuse was yet to come.)  The fact that he had stalked me, taken the time and physical exertion to move my belongings into his car, driven 66 miles up to where I was, climbed the fence, unloaded them all into my car and leave a text for me in the wee hours of the morning was very frightening and disruptive.  If he had intended for me to feel this way, he had succeeded.  The thing that kept going through my mind was that he had over an hour of driving to cool off, to change his mind.  To choose to not go through with such an outlandish thing.  But 66 miles did not deter him.

Who does things like this?  What is the point, the end game?  Was he saying that because I was not at home with him, that I might as well have some heavy nursing textbooks to peruse?  Maybe I needed a toilet brush?  To this day, I can say that his actions that early morning, were the strangest, oddest events that I have ever experienced.  As I looked in the boxes, I saw what he had attempted to do. The books were arranged —he took time and he thought it out.  This whole extravaganza took him hours.  On the top were any books I had that were psychology related topics.  A book about women’s hormones. One about a woman and her fight with bipolar illness. (By Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison—a brilliant woman.) He took a LOT of time picking these out to place on top so they’d be the first thing I saw.  My psychology textbooks from nursing school laid on top, next to a book about Chronic Pain and Depression.  It was as if he was there, yelling “Look at all these, you are crazy” his one of two favorite words to yell at me during his rages, and “You are bipolar” (the other favorite) yelled very loud for humiliation purposes.

I will write more about living with a narcissist/abuser, there are red flags that if identified, and caught in time, could absolutely help someone in the early stages of a relationship with these people, possibly saving them months, years of suffering.  Reliving that early morning by writing here, has awoken a state of anxiety that I experience when I spend more than just a little time on those days.  It's not good for me, and I worked through these things years ago.  I am safe and I have healed.  If I tell someone about this event, they just stare at me, asking, why?  They can't wrap their head around it.  And I have no answer.  A dictionary can define a stalker, but it’s very hard to understand someone who does that.  I will never have an answer why he did it—he would not talk about this, as with many other things.  He would get angry and defensive, then proceed into either the silent treatment, a rush of verbal rage, a healthy door slam, or another personal fave of his, leave in his loud truck with a nice tire squeal for added impact.  As hard as I try, I will never understand the 66 mile stalker.      

Gentle Hugs....and a tolerable pain day.