How to Spot the Warning Signs of Stalking Before It Escalates

Hear why most Gen Z survivors don't even recognize they're being stalked, the chilling phrase that signals real danger in a relationship, lethality risk factors backed by research, and a true case study showing how stalking escalates when it's ignored. Plus, where to go for help if this is happening to you or someone you love.

RESOURCES

SPARC - Stalking Prevention Awareness and Resource Center - Training for law enforcement, advocates, and therapists, a free victim documentation log, and the SLII risk assessment framework discussed in this episode. 

Connect with Mandi:

• Website: WomenAwareAndPrepared.com
• Take the Free Intuition Quiz: WomenAwareAndPrepared.com/Quiz
• Instagram: @WomenAwareAndPrepared
• LinkedIn: Mandi Pratt

 TIMESTAMPS

[01:03] Today's topic: stalking, and how pop culture romanticizes it
[01:25] Gen Z stalking stat and the behaviors that actually count as stalking
[03:29] Crediting the session: SPARC director Jennifer Landhouse and professor Patrick Brady
[04:18] Pop culture examples: Twilight, Mrs. Doubtfire, Amazing Spider-Man
[05:26] Myth busting: stalker psychology and the "if I can't have you" mindset
[08:19] Stalking by proxy, including Mandi's own story
[09:10] Trusting your intuition and protective action stats
[10:02] Protective actions by victims
[11:08] Lethality risk factors
[12:46] Inside the mind of convicted stalkers
[14:40] Case study: the coworker stalker
[20:14] The SLII risk assessment framework and victim resources

The primary purpose of the Women Aware and Prepared Podcast is to educate and inform. This podcast series does not constitute advice or services. Please use common sense for your own situation.

Transcript

 Hey, welcome back to the Aware and Prepared podcast. I'm Mandy, your host and CEO founder of Women Aware and Prepared. I've just returned from the Conference on Crimes Against Women in Dallas. I was presenting a poster there with my research on how self-defense can help empower victims. So I came back with a lot of information that I thought would be so helpful for my listeners here. I have some different resources, and I have some stats, and I have a bunch of great, helpful information. 

So I'm gonna do a little series here of a couple different episodes sharing some information that I gleaned from that which I thought would be super helpful for you. So let's start in today with a session I attended about stalking. And what really struck me with this one was about our pop culture and how nowadays I feel like in music and movies and TV, that's just part of the show. It's a romantic thing, right? But let's call it what it is. Stalking is a crime. So check out this stat. From a study in 2023, For Gen Z, In 42% cases of legal stalking, they did not consider their experience to be stalking, and one in three experience stalking during emerging adulthood. 

So what did Gen Z consider to be stalking? So there was a list of behaviors that can be stalking, but they only chose two of these. So it was physical following, waiting around, showing up unannounced, you know, creepy leaving gifts, digital pursuit tactics, unwanted phone calls, surveillance, GPS, harassment via social on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, you know, all those, spreading disinformation, and somebody following you with an Air Tag, following where you're going, that is definitely legal stalking. 

That's a crime. And so we need to report these things, and the more that we report, the more they can see a trail of behaviors. But the only two that Gen Z, considered to be legal stalking was the physical following and the harassment via social So interesting, right? So here's a tip for you. If any of those happen to you, especially the harassment via social and the things on your phone, please, please, please have somebody else take a photo of your phone showing that and documenting that. So many times in other podcast episodes, I always say document, document, document. But if you're in an unsafe relationship, if you document, make sure it's hidden, right? 

Or somebody else keeps it. You got to be smart about that. So let's really dig into this. So first of all, I want to give credit where credit is due. So this session that I attended was given by the director of SPARC, S-P-A-R-C, and that stands for the Stalking Prevention Awareness and Resource Center. So the director is Jennifer Landhouse, and I'm going to give you their website because it's a wonderful resource. Whether you yourself are being stalked or you know somebody who is, it is super simple. Just stalkingawareness.org. 

I will drop that in the show notes, but it's pretty simple to remember. And then she had a co-presenter, a professor, Patrick Brady from the University of Colorado. So they were sharing with us, you know, how pop culture is just making this stalking seem like, oh, no big deal. It's a romantic thing, you know? So they were talking about how the Twilight series shows that so well, so much stalking, right? But it's seen as like romantic. And so many movies, so many movies. One that caught me was Mrs. Doubtfire. And they were saying how in that case, you know, stalking can be seen as like the hero.

 And when I thought about it, I was like, oh yeah, oh my gosh, like Robin Williams dressed up as a woman to be the nanny to like live in with his kids and like, you know, see what was going on with his ex-wife and stuff. And like, yeah, when you step back and look at that, that's really bad, right? You can't do that. And also the Amazing Spider-Man. There are many other movie examples and TV shows also showing about what happens when the woman is a stalker, right? It's not always the man. And of course, that happens in LGBTQ plus relationships as well. It's across the board. 

So I'm gonna start with a couple different myths and then some stats and then a case study we'll end with. So the myths, we think that, you know, the, the stalkers have like severe psychological disorders. We've seen too many movies, right? But the fact is that it's just less than two percent of stalkers that actually have a severe psychological disorder. Most cases are a personality disorder, um, like borderline personality disorder or a narcissist, and a lot of times we can confuse that power and control with a mental health issue. Um, but what we're finding is that most don't have the severe psychological disorders. What do we see commonly in a stalker that is whatever gender that they are entitled that they might be rejected, right? Or and/or obsessed. 

Maybe they want revenge and it's all about power and control And a lot of times we misunderstand stalkers or stalking, and we think that they're just strangers or, you know, stalkers that stalk celebrities, that sort of thing. But while that does happen, a lot of times it is a romantic partner, right? It's partner stalkers that pose the most significant threat. The, "If I can't have you, no one else can," right? So that is like a huge, huge glaring, flashing red flag. And these stalkers are having, like, big egos. They might give a big manifesto, that type of thing. So it's important to do safety planning when that happens. It's important to get help and to reach out to 911. 

And if they don't help you, then you ask for their commanding officer. Hopefully, they will help you, right? You keep going until you get help or there's hotlines. I'm gonna put that in the show notes and of course the resource I gave just a bit ago, stalkingawareness.org. So another tidbit is not necessarily a myth but a tip that a lot of times you might get stalking by proxy. And let's give an example. Let's say that there's a co-stalker, the mother, right? So the stalker has the mom call the victim, you know, and tell her, "He's so sorry. Will you drop the protection order?" Right? And gets mom to do the dirty work. That actually happened to me. So in my story that I share in episodes one and two, I share my wild, crazy story, which was in the nightly news. Um, and his mother would show up at my door, you know, and pound the door, "Let me in." Or call me, "he didn't mean it. He just needs to see his son or whatever." 

And like, that is not okay. So that is stalking by proxy so I know a lot of times we are trained to doubt our intuition, and I have a whole training on that. I have a quiz on my website, awareandprepared.life/quiz, that you can take to see how you're doing on trusting your intuition, and then it gives you a little training about it. But how many times do we just say, "Oh, you know, I'm probably just overreacting," right? 

But your warning bells are usually going off for a reason, unless you're just stuck in hypervigilance mode and you can't tell apples from oranges. So, um, but usually, you know, we really, really need to listen to that. And so I'm gonna give you a couple other stats that I found super interesting and helpful. 

So the protective actions taken by the victims, you know, what did they do, right? Did they call the police? What did they do? 72% of a study enlisted family and friends, 29% contacted the stalker by phone, 24% sought victim services, which you can do not just from the police, but from a local domestic violence shelter or a hotline, 22% changed their devices or their info, 57% restricted digital access, 28% changed their daily routine, 23% adopted weapons and enhanced security, 9% applied a protective order, and 19% did nothing. You know, though it's still impacting them, but maybe they didn't have the capacity, right? 

And another stat I found super interesting too was with stalking, what is the lethality risk, right? Like how serious is this? So if there's access to guns, there's an elevenfold increase that this is going to end in death. If the stalker threatened with a weapon, it's sevenfold. If there was a non-fatal strangulation, it's fivefold. Rape is sixfold. Controlled behavior is fourfold. So it's important to notice that and then to do safety planning. And again, you're not on your own. You can go to your local domestic violence shelter. 

Just email them or call them up and say, "Hey, here's what's happening. I'm being stalked. I need help. I'm not sure what to do. Can you help me with safety planning? Can you help me with knowing what my rights are?" And of course, I always suggest making sure you file a report with nine one one, and they'll, you know, they'll probably... the domestic violence shelter or the hotline can help you discern about that. 

So you're not alone, right? So even if you don't have much capacity, maybe you just have a friend sit with you, and you can reach out to your local shelter or reach the hotline. So there's all kinds of different options. What if you just called to get the information? What if you didn't wanna report it yet, but just to get the information, just some kind of action, taking a little baby step forward is super, super key So here's something that I found super interesting. So in this session, they had us actually watch some interviews with stalkers who were in prison. 

So there were some women and there was a couple men and there was, uh, LGBTQ+, so all genders. But what was the overarching theme was that they didn't see their behavior as wrong Right? No scars, no blood was an actual quote And they didn't see themselves as a stalker. They thought stalkers were like Peeping Toms, right? And one gal said that the goal was for her to scare the other gal that she was stalking. And somebody else said it felt good like a high. 

Remember that power and control? But they don't wanna be known as a stalker. It, it goes bad for you if you're a stalker in prison, and they don't want stalker on their record, yet they can't put the two and two together, right? That they don't see their behavior as wrong. Again, remember what I was talking about, how most don't have severe psychological disorders, less than two percent do, but mostly it's a personality disorder like a narcissist or borderline person- personality disorder, that type of thing, um, or they're just entitled, and they have the power and control. 

It was just really interesting for me to hear from them out of their own mouths, how they framed it in their own heads All right, and lastly, I want to share with you a case study that they shared, and it was a story of a coworker who was her stalker. So remember how I was saying in the beginning that our stalkers are usually somebody we know. 

So it is an intimate partner. It's a friend or family, close acquaintance. It's somebody in the workplace. So this gal starts noticing that this guy starts making these weird parking decisions and goes out of his way to, like, park next to her all the time, and then he starts moving his locker above hers, and she receives a note, "Will you go out with me?" 

And so she just threw it away and ignored it, you know. But a week later, he left that same note in her locker, and so she brings it up to HR, and unfortunately, they didn't take her seriously. She worked at, like, a big-box hardware store, and they didn't, like, take her seriously. So she tried ignoring him then, right? And so she actually started changing her personality and became quiet and reserved, kinda not herself. 

She before was very bubbly, and, everybody liked her. She was popular and, so friendly, everybody's friend. The customers loved her, and they started saying she was rude. So coworker started walking her to the car. Well, then this stalker switches his schedule to match hers. She went back to HR, and they said, "Oh, it's cute. He has a crush on you. Just let time pass." So the HR manager talks with him, and she sees them laughing, and they point to her. 

So she starts wearing hats, and like I mentioned, stops being her bubbly self, and then he stole her wallet and started using her credit card, and his car showed up by her house. She reported that. Unfortunately, the police laughed. This was in a small town, rural area. So the stalker starts following her and actually runs her off the road. That's psychological terror, and then she starts sounding insane, right? 'Cause she's telling all these things, and people are like, "Oh, you know, you're overreacting," or whatever. 

And so this is a lot of the reason why sometimes victims don't report And it's still important to report though. Remember, if you get a police officer who doesn't take you seriously, ask for the commanding officer. Keep going, keep going. I'm cheering you on if this is happening to you. So finally, the police start paying attention because now there's financial abuse. 

Remember, he stole her wallet, starts using her credit card. Well, in their eyes, these are crimes finally, even though stalking was legit crime. So another time he's following her, she pulls up to the firefighter and because , she wasn't, help, getting help from the police, and so she goes there. And the police actually go and do a welfare check at this guy's, this stalker's home, and he actually has kids, and they're in squalor. 

Well, come to find out this stalker is actually assaulting his own four-year-old child. And so eventually he goes away to prison for assault, so she is finally at peace. But then he gets out with no notification, and so he starts showing up again. So she moves out of Texas. She moves out of the state, which is so unfortunate. She had to change her whole life, and that makes me so mad. I'm sure it makes you so mad just as well. 

So I wanted to share that with you because it is so interesting, right? It escalates, and she asks for help and nobody listens, and so she's changing her behavior, right? Well, finally he starts doing other crimes. He's stealing her information, her identity, and using her credit card, right? And so he gets, starts getting noticed and in trouble for that. Well then, with the assault, he does as well. So don't forget, like, there's other things they can look into as well. I'm sure in this kind of situation, you know, this type of person is maybe doing other crimes that you can look into as well. 

But honestly, what he was doing is legal stalking, and that alone is a crime. So I feel like in bigger departments they, they get that, bigger cities, hopefully they would understand that better. And nowadays you would think that police even in rural areas and HR managers would be better at that. But just saying, you know what you're seeing, you know what you're experiencing. 

Keep sharing, keep talking, keep documenting, keep reporting. A very helpful resource that you can find on the website www.stalkingawareness.org is actually a log for victims. So it makes it not feel so overwhelming, so it helps you document. So there's like a column for each item, and it helps you work through that. 

So it's just a simple one-sheet, one-page log for victims to be able to document And there is a framework that's called the SLII framework which stands for four different elements that they use to weigh in a risk assessment. So S is for surveillance, L is for life invasion, I is for interference, and I is for intimidation, SLII. Um, so they developed a risk assessment using that, and then they use four elements, the big picture, what's going on in the big picture. Number two, what is the stalker mindset? 

Number three, what is the stalker history? You know, does this person have a rap sheet as long as a CVS receipt? Or does this person not really have a history, right? And lastly, fourth is victim vulnerability. So you can find all of this help on their website, stalkingawareness.org. 

So I am cheering you on. Remember, go to stalkingawareness.org and you'll see there's all kinds of training there for law enforcement and advocates and, um, social workers, therapists, people that work in the courts. And then if you yourself need help, you're being stalked or you have a loved one who is, they have a section there telling you where to go and get help and they have just a ton of really great information. 

So I highly, highly recommend that you go there or you save it somehow. Um, save this, share this episode with somebody who may be dealing with this or, hey, if you have a student going off to college, you can have them listen to this. Remember what I said, the stat was that one in three experiences some form, some level of this in emerging adulthood. Um, how would you open the conversation? 

You could just say, "Hey, I heard this really interesting podcast episode about stalking. Here, let's listen to it together when, you know, whenever we're in the car or something, and I'd love to discuss it with you or, you know, whatever you wanna say. You can bring it up that way. Um, more of like a conversation is how I would do it. So I'm cheering you on to stay safer with more peace. And again, make sure that you go take my quiz if you haven't already, awareandprepared.life/, or backslash quiz, and you can see how you're doing, and then get a little training on how to fine-tune that and really listen to your intuition. 

And I do give a weekly email every week sharing with you the podcast link and the show notes and all of that so it doesn't get lost in the shuffle. I know that, good Lord, like, we have so much information coming at us light speed ahead, and it's easy to miss something. So each episode shares something super helpful and valuable, so make sure you don't miss it. So you'll see when you go to my website, awareandprepared.life, you'll see if you scroll to the bottom where you can sign up for that. And if you do take the quiz, you'll be signed up to get the weekly email. So I'm super happy to help you guys. And what we learned here today was that there's many different myths, there's many different stats. You heard about the case study, and you heard about ways to get help, the different resources. 

So now you can move forward knowing that if this ever happens to you or your loved ones, you understand it a little bit better and you have some resources. So I'm gonna ask you before I sign off if you can do me a favor, if you would give me a review for the podcast to help more people find this, because this is a common issue, and I feel like a lot of people don't know what to do with this. It feels overwhelming. So if you go and give the show here a review, like if you're in Apple, you just scroll down to the bottom of all the episodes, and you'll see there's five stars down there, so you can fill in however many stars, and then you can even leave a little sentence or two what you like about this podcast or the episode if you feel so inclined. So that helps the show, um, get more listeners. Thank you so much for your support. Stay tuned for next week Thanks for being here on the Aware and Prepared Podcast. Remember, you are worthy of a safe and peaceful life. Talk to you next week.