I have often seen women on BDSM boards declare that if they left, their Master would hunt them down and bring them home. It is often declared proudly, as if it is somehow romantic.
As someone who has been stalked, I do not find this sort of sentiment romantic or cute. When you leave someone to escape them, really leave and not some game time attention ploy to see if they will follow, being "hunted down" can be the worst experience of your life. It can change you, harden and darken you.
It certainly did me.
When I was a kid, I got into a really bad relationship. The guy was flat out nuts. I don't say this because he is my ex. I say this because he was diagnosed as such by the State on the several occassions during our relationship when he was involuntarily committed to a mental health facility. Usually for trying to kill me or a member of his family.
As is often the case with domestic abusers, he didn't hit random people on the street. He didn't have an anger management problem. He managed it very well. He managed to direct it to people he thought would love him enough to let him.
Over the years we dated, he beat me. Not in the fun way. Even at that young age, he would go for places where marks didn't show. The "out of control" was very controlled. I have driven off with him bleeding on my windshield. (He was big for cutting himself for sympathy.) I was dragged across rooms by the hair. I woke up cuffed and violated. I've had a knife held to my throat over his father's grave. He slammed my face into a bank window. He lied. He cheated. Constantly. That mistake I would repeat in later relationships. But I would never make the physical abuse mistake again. See - she can be taught!
I tried to leave several times. He would threaten to harm himself, his family, me. Sometimes he would try. Eventually when I found out he beat up the girl he cheated on me with, I figured out that I was not the problem or the cause and I did break it off, but it took years and years to break away. I stayed with friends the first few days, hiding out somewhere. But eventually, life happens and I had to get on with it.
I had several jobs over the next few years. Remember, I was still a teen and didn't have a career yet. I worked retail and fast food kid jobs. And every new one, I would walk out at the end of a night shift to find him sitting on my car. I am not sure how he found me. Well meaning friends no doubt.
More on well meaning friends and how much trouble they can cause later.
If I would go places by myself, he would jump out at me. He would follow me. Wandering through the grocery store became a terrifying experience.
I was standing outside my school, having a cigarette before going into a nighttime performance (orchestra and chorus) when his car came out of nowhere. He tried to run me down in the street like roadkill.
When I got married and moved into my ex-husband's apartment, he moved into an apartment upstairs. With his wife. I am sure she was thrilled.
I developed agorophobia. And panic attacks. I could not handle standing in an open area. Or crowds. I used to love concerts and would be the first one in the pit. For years, I could barely handle a long line at the movie theater.
I bought a gun. I learned to shoot.0
It got better over the years. The man I am with now helped a lot. He is patient with my twitchy moments and knows that it isn't him that causes it, but the PTSD. My abuser was always afraid of him. Afraid of men in general, actually. Like most domestic abusers, he is inherently weak. I know that.
I should know better than to be afraid. The truth is, I am stronger than that.
But not always.
Lately, my stalker managed to locate a bunch of us on an social networking site. He friended one of my friends. Then another. I got friend requests from him. Under multiple names. All of which I ignored.
And I started to have panic attacks again. I started to feel those agorophobia feelings again.
Then my best friend added him. She is also his ex. But his abuse worsened with time. He was more violent with me than he had been with her. And since I was later, I was the one stalked for years.
When I started having trouble breathing when I logged on and saw him as a friend suggestion because of all our mutual friends, I dropped out of that site altogether.
Well meaning friends have put me right back where I started. And it may just take me years again to be comfortable being alone, or out in the open.
And I may never be able to feel fully comfortable with my old friends again. Its not their fault. They shouldn't have to choose. And most of them don't really know HOW bad it was for me then. Or now.
