June 24, 2019 • 31 mins
Stalking is not uncommon during the end of a relationship. With today's technology and our quest for connection, it's easier than ever to track someone. It's easier to do that without the person's knowledge and it's harder for the person being stalked to stop it.
So what is stalking? When does stalking become a crime? What are the common methods of stalking and how can you protect yourself?
My guest for this Conversation is BreAnne Meyer, Outreach Director for the Safe Shelter of St. Vrain which offers services to victims of abuse, working with them to develop their safety plan for remaining or leaving their relationship.
During the show, Meyer references keeping an incident log. You'll find a template for one at the Stalking Resource Center here: https://victimsofcrime.org/docs/src/stalking-incident-log_pdf.pdf?sfvrsn=4
You'll also find a synopsis of the show at my blog here: https://sincemydivorce.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-stalking-and-divorce
So what is stalking? When does stalking become a crime? What are the common methods of stalking and how can you protect yourself?
My guest for this Conversation is BreAnne Meyer, Outreach Director for the Safe Shelter of St. Vrain which offers services to victims of abuse, working with them to develop their safety plan for remaining or leaving their relationship.
During the show, Meyer references keeping an incident log. You'll find a template for one at the Stalking Resource Center here: https://victimsofcrime.org/docs/src/stalking-incident-log_pdf.pdf?sfvrsn=4
You'll also find a synopsis of the show at my blog here: https://sincemydivorce.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-stalking-and-divorce
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Getting a divorce. Even thinking aboutgetting a divorce can be overwhelming, scary,
and sometimes exciting. Join divorce coachand mediator Mandy Walker for conversations about
divorce. The more you know,the easier it will be to make your
divorce healthier, less trustful, andto put it behind you. Here's Mandy.
(00:24):
Welcome to conversations about divorce. I'mMandy Walker, and today we're talking
about stalking. According to the FederalOffice on Women's Health, one in six
women has experienced stalking in her lifetimeand women are twice as likely to be
stalked as men. And we knowthat stalking is not uncommon during the end
of a relationship. With today's technologyand our quest for connection, it's easier
(00:49):
than ever to track someone. It'seasier to do that without the person's knowledge,
and I think it's harder for theperson being stalked to stop it.
So today we're talking about what isstalking, When does stalking become a crime,
what are common methods of stalking,and how can you protect yourself.
Joining us today is Brianne Meyer,outreach director for the Safe Shelter of Saint
(01:15):
Brain, which is my local domesticabuse Shelter and Safe Shelter offers services to
men and women victims of abuse,working with them to develop their safety plan
for remaining in the relationship. Allleaving, welcome, Brianne. Thank you
for having me nearly so I'm reallyglad to have your expertise on the show
(01:37):
today. I wondered if we couldstart off with asking you, like,
how does what would you define asstalking? So I would define stalking as
repeated unwanted contact that sometimes think hardhere, Okay, So that can take
(02:00):
the form of many different things.Um. There can be showing up places,
that can be phone calls that canlook like um, it can look
like care, so it can belike flowers or cards. Um. But
I think the the important piece isthat unwanted UM. And there's also can
(02:25):
be a really big technology piece,right, iology can be used. Yeah,
well, I've got lots of questionsabout that. I mean, it's
not normal or typical behavior. SoI'm wondering if when you when it first
starts, do you see people discountingit or coming up with other reasons,
(02:46):
um, like you know, ohI must have mentioned it to him,
or I must have left the dooropened. I think that's such a good
point. Um. I think it'spretty common for stocking to be again as
just like small kind of behaviors thatmaybe make you go, oh, that
(03:07):
was weird, and then over timeit can escalate, and sometimes it can
escalate really fast too. And thenMandy, I forgot the second part of
your question. Well, just Iwas thinking that if you were being stalked,
it would be and you know,because the behavior is not normal and
you don't expect it, you discountthe incidents so what you're seeing and or
(03:30):
just think well that's a little weird, and then you you just push it
off. Yes, And I think, um, thank you. That was
what I was thinking. Is ittends to escalate, and I think people
do sort of maybe excuse it,but I think deep down we always know
(03:53):
that there's something a little bit off. So not only are we discounting their
behavior or trying to explain it away, but we tend to and I say
we just because it's most often womentend to discount our own feelings about Wow,
that didn't feel good. I don'tlike that, but we maybe tell
ourselves a story about why it mighthave been okay or oh, he'd mean
(04:15):
it that way or those sorts ofthings. So yeah, there's a lot
of discounting. So then it's reallythe truth would be is if you think
that something's weird going on, somethingweird probably is going on, and you
need to listen to your inner voice. Absolutely. And every time that I'm
working with a client or anybody thatI know is working with a client,
(04:40):
w that's the number one thing thatwe say is trust your gut. If
something doesn't feel right, trust yourgut number one always, Okay, and
that goes for safety planning, whichwe'll get into in a little bit,
I imagine, as well as huh, that didn't feel right or that seemed
a little strange. So, Um, you had mentioned about technology, and
(05:02):
it just seems like there's so muchtechnology that can be used to stalk somebody.
And I thought maybe we could startoff talking about the ways a cell
phone can be changed turned into aweapon, and I don't mean like a
gun, but like it's a wayof tracking and stalking people. Yeah,
(05:27):
so technology can be used for goodor evil equally, I think, and
often it's used with clients that comein to see me and they may not
even know it. So, um, there are tracking apps that people can
download. So um, not onlyif somebody purchased a phone for somebody,
(05:48):
but also if they've ever had accessto a phone. So um, it's
it's good to go get that phonechecked out because the phone could be could
have a app in the background that'srunning, it could be hidden to track
locations, to track emails, totrack any really anything that's happening on the
(06:08):
phone. So um, because mostof my people are thinking about divorce or
getting divorced, I think what I'mhearing you say is when your relationships ending,
if you have your your cell phoneon the family cell plan, or
even without that, if your otherparty has had access to your cell phone,
(06:30):
do you go to your cell phoneprovider and ask them to have a
look at the phone and check thatthere isn't there are any apps on there
that are tracking you. Yeah,that's what I recommend. And what about
getting off the family cell phone planas soon as possible. That's always a
(06:50):
good thing to do as well,because even if something found and can be
taken off, if they're still onthe plan, they can access the phone
like remotely and add back on oradd something else, or add something smarter.
Really, they can do that remotelywithout even having the phone in their
(07:10):
possession. Yeah. It just happenedto a client of mind that I spoke
to like last week, that herabuser was able to get into her email
address. Wow, that's scary becausehe owned the plan. Yeah. Yeah.
And the other thing is being onthe family's cell phone is the other
(07:30):
peasant has access to all the phonenumbers that you're calling. Yeah, So
that that just happened last week wherea client of mine, the abuser had
all access to the phone numbers andthen called those people to say whatever things
he wanted to say to them.So yeah, that can be scary.
(07:55):
Wow. And I've also I readsome material prepping for this show about how
a cell phone could be used asa listening device and set to auto answers.
So the person could put a cellphone with a child and it could
get in the backseat of your car, so then it's auto answering and then
(08:16):
picking up the conversations that are happening. Obviously, the cell phone will die
eventually, but that's another way thatsomebody could be listening to your conversations.
Absolutely, there are so many waysthat technology can be used that we I
don't think most of us want tothink about all the different ways that technology
(08:37):
can be used for this purpose.But yeah, there's so many ways.
So m and talking about other waystoo. Was there are a lot of
smart devices that we have now,Like we have the garage door openers that
connect to the phone, the ringcameras, the you can put to see
(09:00):
who's coming to the house, andthe nest thermostats. And I was thinking,
well, that means that if theother party has those apps on their
phone, they could still control allof those devices absolutely. And not only
that, but they can lock out. They can lock you out of those
(09:22):
devices as well. So I wasthinking, and I actually saw this posted
on another forum that I'm on thewith the garage door and with the ring
people, they can see who's comingand going from the house, what time
you're leaving the house, and whattime you're coming back. They could then
(09:45):
start to harass you, like setyour sprinklers to run all day, which
would cost you money. They couldhave Alexa Blossom music out at two o'clock
in the morning. Yeah, Ithink you know, the possibilities are endless
and sometimes really subtle too. Likesome of the things that you mentioned,
(10:07):
you might not necessarily think right away, oh, this has got to be
that person doing this. You mightjust say, oh, that was weird
and um and that head game pieceof stocking is also very common. So
do you know, like, howdo you get those apps off the other
(10:28):
person or restrict that other person's accessto those devices? Actually that's a really
good question. Many well, yes, right, no, that's quite all
right because I think that you know, that just demonstrates how complex this topic
has come has become, and soyou know, I would probably tell somebody
(10:52):
to start off with looking on yourphone and looking to see in the settings
to see if you can control whichdevices are programmed or the granted access through
your phone sure, or even justcalling the provider. I think, yeah,
(11:15):
yeah, wow, oh my gosh. Scary. So another kind of
scary one to talk about is spoofing, and oh my understanding of that is
the that's also something that's pretty easyto do. But you can if I
was wanting to stalk somebody, Icould make it look like the an email
(11:39):
was coming from a family member oryour boss, or a phone call from
them, and so that you wouldpick up or respond to it, but
it wouldn't be who you thought itwas going to be. Yes, that
something that can happen pretty regularly,and often what I've seen a lot of
(12:03):
recently is you know, you cango in and get just a free phone
number and then lose it and thenchange it to another one the next day
and another one the next day,And so when somebody's trying to maybe report
to the police or something, thatmakes it really difficult to track where those
calls are coming from. So,especially if there's a protection order in place,
(12:24):
or when the police are involved andthe soccer knows it, they might
try and be smarter about it,and so they'll just change phone numbers and
call and call and call, butit's all from these different numbers, so
it's really hard to prove who itis. And I would think, I
mean, that's that sort of stuffis going to make you really think you're
(12:46):
really going crazy. It can definitelyhave that effect because you just don't you
don't know what to believe, andyou start to think question yourself and like,
am I imagining this is going on? Well, And not only that,
but it makes enforcement really difficult aswell. So not only can it
(13:07):
make you question yourself, but itcan also make you know the police question
you. So if you take youknow, I've gotten these forty five phone
calls from these forty five different numbers, and I don't know why, and
I don't know how to stop it. You know, the police that are
probably not going to be able todo much about that, right, especially
all by itself, And so itdoes become really important to document everything,
(13:33):
including you know, the other likeit rarely takes just one form, it's
often many forms, So showing up, calling work, calling friends, going
to polices at the person frequents,and then also doing these other things.
And so when we can start topaint a bigger picture, then it becomes
(13:56):
a little bit more prosecutable, butit's still these cases can get really complex
right in the eyes of the courtorder with police officers doing all these investigations
and trying to figure out trying tobe able to prove who did all these
things, right, So the so, but a really key thing there is
(14:18):
if you think that you're being stalked, to start keeping an incident log and
documenting everything in as much detail asyou can possibly give. Absolutely. And
I was looking at Stalking Resource Center. Their website has a stalking handbook for
(14:41):
victims that has a sample incident log. Oh great, that's really good.
So Stalking Resource Center. I'll besure to put that in the links on
the show page as well as inthe synopsis that I write up. So,
Brianne, we're going to take ashort break. Here you're listening to
(15:05):
conversations about divorce. I'm Mandy Walker, and today we're talking about stalking.
My guest today is Brianne Meyer,Outreach director for the Safe Shelter of Saint
Vrain, which is my local domesticabuse shelter. Safe Shelter offers services to
men and women victims of abuse,working with them to develop their safety plan
for remaining in the relationship or forleaving. If you think you're being stalked,
(15:30):
please do contact your local domestic abuseshelter and or the National Center for
Victims of Crime Helpline for assistance.Brianne, when you were talking about before
the break about people calling forty fivetimes, that's kind of made me got
to thinking, do we know whypeople stalk? Are the people? Um?
(16:00):
I think that there might be manysurface reasons, right, So it
could be they're rejected, um.Often at the end of a relationship.
It could be that they're angry thatthey've been rejected. Um. It could
be jealousy, it could be manythings. But I think underlying all of
(16:22):
it um is a pattern of oftenpower and control. Just like with domestic
violence, there's a lot of umoverlap. Okay, Brian to Stalkers usually
want their victims to know they're beingwatched. Is that part of the game
or the behavior is that they they'releaving these traces and bugging people, but
(16:45):
they do want you to know whoit is that's doing it. In my
experience, that's what I've seen.That's exactly what I've seen. Um.
They want they want the person thento either be in a relationship with him
or they want they want something fromthat person. So every case that I've
(17:07):
seen, yes, they've wanted themto know. Right. There was a
lady I interviewed from my blog manyyears ago who talked about her how her
husband. I think she didn't thinkshe may have said stalking, but she
said they she and this was sothis was probably ten years ago, long
before all of this technology that wehave now. But he was like leaving
(17:33):
a business card on the seat ofthe of the car, which meant that
it was his way of saying toher, I have a key to your
car. And then he would callher and while she was in a coffee
shop and say, oh, well, you know that color. I always
liked that color on you. Soshe knew that he was watching her.
(17:57):
But also they how did you knowthat I was going to be at this
coffee shop right now? Absolutely?Oh if that gave me the chills,
Yeah, that's so scary. Sothey do want to know they're victims,
to know they're being watched. Sowhat is the best way of handling it,
(18:19):
Like when when it first starts happening, or when you first start to
realize, oh, these strange thingsthat have been happening to me are actually
connected and I think I'm being stalked? What do you do about that?
Absolutely? And so people discover thatat different points, And I would say
(18:40):
a lot of people like to andI, well, I recommend for people
to make a very clear statement sayingI do not want this contact. In
any further contact from you, Iwill be considered harassment and I will be
reporting to the police or something veryYou're like that, and only once because
(19:03):
we want to what we want todo is try to disengage and so you
know, a lot of times,I think, especially as women we have
we think we have to be likenice, even when something is unwanted.
We think, oh, well,I don't like that this card was left
in my car. But maybe itwas like, oh he was trying to
(19:23):
care for me or something, youknow, something like that, and we
talk ourselves out of it. Andthen we say, oh, you know
I got your card that huh interestyou know, we don't say, hey,
I didn't appreciate that, and Idon't like that. And so the
very first thing that I talked topeople about is being very clear with boundaries
with stokers. And I have seenoftentimes where that by itself can stop the
(19:51):
contact. It doesn't always, certainlynot in every case. Sometimes it has
to go beyond that. Sometimes therehas to be some legal intervention for the
docker to get the message. Butthe very first step and that when you
send, when you say that,or send that, whenever you communicate that,
you want to make sure it's documentedsomewhere. So text messages are great
(20:12):
because you can always print them off. Emails are also great because you can
always print them off. So Irecommend an email or a text saying I
do not appreciate this contact anymore.I do not want to have any contact
with you anymore. That way,it's documented you sent this email at this
day, at this time. Anyfurther contact after that, it's easier to
(20:33):
be able to show that it's unwantedonce it's really clear, right, And
that's why if you have children andyou're raising those together, then that would
be a clear indicator of moving toone of those online and third party parenting
platforms that you can only communicate throughthat platform. Sure, and those boundaries
(20:56):
can be drawn however, however itmakes sense for the person. So yeah,
if that if that boundary is drawnby an email saying I do not
want to have any more contact,We're only going to have contact via Talking
Parents for instance, or whatever thosethird party apps might be. Because when
(21:18):
you're stucked by somebody that you sharechildren with, it's not quite as and
I don't want to say easy,because none of it's easy, but it's
not quite as easy to cut offall contacts when you still have children and
you still often are going to beinvolved in the court, right, So,
and then picking up on what youwere saying too about you want to
engage, but we've we've been raisedto be polite and courteous. I think
(21:41):
for many of us, enforcing boundariesfeels uncomfortable because it's like they're also strict
to boundaries than we've probably had tohave with anybody else. We may not
be used to enforcing it, andit kind of it makes us feel bad,
Whereas it's the other person's behavior thatis the reason why you have to
(22:06):
have this boundary exactly. And Ibelieve that we are socialized to believe that
our needs and wants are not important, or that we need to stuff those
needs and wants down, and that'soften part of why it's so difficult to
ask for what we want and drawthose boundaries. Right. I agree with
(22:30):
you. You had said that thissending that very clear statement about not wanting
contact is often enough to stop astalker from that behavior, but sometimes it's
not. What's the next step ifit's not enough? You had mentioned legal?
(22:52):
Is this a criminal matter or isit civil? Do you go higher
an attorney? Well, it couldbe either UM and UM. For that
reason, I would say it's probablybest to reach out to an advocate UM
to sort of brainstorm about what's bestin a particular situation, some people might
(23:14):
have reasons that they might want toget the police involved or not want to
get the police involved. Um.Stucking is definitely a matter of criminal letter.
UM and and there are people whodo not always want to contact the
police for a number of reasons.So, um, the police are very
knowledgeable, and these cases can alsotake a long time. So the investigation
(23:41):
and the technology involved makes it oftentake a really long time to get those
cases investigated thoroughly. So what doeswhat does a long time look like?
Is it six months or three months? Or well? I hope for less
than that because that's the time thatyou know, we have a stalker just
(24:04):
out there doing what they do.But um, it can really depends.
I mean, I've seen these casesgo on for I don't I think probably
I would say mostly three months isprobably the longest. I mean, there
have been a few rare longer cases, but maybe a month to three months
(24:26):
is probably most common because they haveto often go through that they get warrants
and they have to write out allthese police there's just there's so many steps.
But yeah, but back to youroriginal question, I think if somebody
doesn't want to get the police involved, they can also go through UM and
the laws vary in the different states, but like a protection order process.
(24:48):
Oh right, okay, okay,So we had talked just now about how
it's harder when you have children andyou have to communicate with this other pat
and that children themselves can also oftenbe used by a stalker to gather information
on the victim. Can you showthis some of the ways that happens.
(25:12):
Absolutely? So, Um, thereare cases where you know, soccer will
take the children, maybe in thecar and say, hey, show me
where, show me where mommy's living, show me where you know, where
did you go this weekend? Showme where mommy's going to work? Now,
(25:32):
show me where. So a lotof those things can happen, and
they can also tell the children,you know, I want all this information.
I want you to tell me whoshe's seeing, who she or he
um hanging out with these days.So I think unfortunately, when children are
(25:53):
used in that way, it's oftenas pawns. Right, And I've also
heard of it's pretty easy to puta GPS tracker in a child's backpack and
the child be unaware of it.But then that's a way for another tracking
device. Absolutely, I could seethat being easy as well, or a
(26:18):
certainly with older children their cell phoneright right, so inadvantent. And again
you wouldn't necessarily you wouldn't even thinkto double check the backpack for that,
or you might not even be ableto find it anyway, until there's something
odd that happens and you think,wow, that's weird. I wonder how
(26:41):
he knew that, And a lotof people have difficulty finding out exactly how
it's happening for like a long time. So you know, the GPS on
the car, just the cursory lookat a car, or even get a
car by somebody who knows a littlebit, you still might miss like a
(27:03):
GPS tracker on a car as well. So I have had a couple of
clients actually hire a private investigator whois knowledgeable about all these electronic things to
help them figure out how they're beingtracked, how they're being stalked. Certainly,
(27:25):
and if law enforcement is involved,we're real lucky to have very knowledgeable
law enforcement who know what those thingslook like and turn it up all the
time. Wow, from on thecar to in the house to hidden in
the curtain, you know, couldbe anything. Well, Brian, we're
just about up on time. I'mwondering if you've got one more tip that
(27:49):
you could share with our listeners,anybody who thinks they're being stalked. So
one last thing that I would wantto say is just who get support if
you if you think that there's somethingthat might be wrong, get support from
a local advocate, and um dosome safety planning. I think safety planning
(28:10):
is really important and oftentimes the peoplewho've been affected by stalking have a long
road to healing because when you've beenviolated in this way, it can be
really difficult to gain back a senseof um confidence and believing in oneself when
(28:37):
your your reality has almost been umchanged in a way when and often I
think people describe that it's their realityhas been changed in a way that it
won't go back from. But umso healing I think is really an important
thing therapy if that makes sense,and definitely so care while going through the
(29:00):
process and after. Yeah, that'sa great point, Brian, because I
can see I was just thinking whileyou were talking there about well, you
know, if you were used towalking on a trail or going for a
run and then you experienced this stalkingwhere you never know when your ex is
looking at you or tracking you,that would definitely shake your confidence and make
(29:23):
it make you maybe think twice aboutgoing out on those trails and whether that's
you're really safe. There absolutely thatemotional but you abortional emotional peace cannot be
overstated enough of how difficult this isfor people who have been affected by it.
Yeah, thank you so much,Brian, Well, thank you many
(29:48):
thanks for bringing awareness. My guesttoday is Brianne maya outreach director for the
Safe Shelter of Saint Brain, whichis my local domestics shelter. Safe Shelter
offers services to men and women victimsof abuse, working with them to develop
their safety plan for remaining in therelationship or for leaving. Now, if
(30:10):
you believe you being stalked, pleasedo contact your local domestic abuse shelter as
Brienne recommended, and there's also theNational Center for Victims of Crime helpline.
They can help you. You can'tbe too careful on this topic. And
the best case scenario is that yourX or your soon to be X has
access to information and could track youif they choose to, but they're not
(30:33):
interested. Worst case scenario is thatthey have access. They know they have
access. They are using this totrack your movements. They will do what
they can to use that information againstyou and to harm you. My call
to action for you is to makea list of all the ways you think
that you and your X or yoursoon to be X could still be connected.
(30:55):
That's your social media sites, yourphone, your home WiFi, our
keys, home keys, passwords,everything, and then start working through them
each item one by one and makingsure that they no longer have access.
And remember this is about enforcing yourboundaries to protect yourself. You don't need
(31:17):
to feel bad about this. Thankyou for listening today. There'll be a
synopsis of this posted to my blogSince my Divorce dot com. And you
can follow me Since my Divorce onTwitter and on Facebook. And I hope
you'll join us again next time formore conversations
Getting a divorce. Even thinking aboutgetting a divorce can be overwhelming, scary,
and sometimes exciting. Join divorce coachand mediator Mandy Walker for conversations about
divorce. The more you know,the easier it will be to make your
divorce healthier, less trustful, andto put it behind you. Here's Mandy.
(00:24):
Welcome to conversations about divorce. I'mMandy Walker, and today we're talking
about stalking. According to the FederalOffice on Women's Health, one in six
women has experienced stalking in her lifetimeand women are twice as likely to be
stalked as men. And we knowthat stalking is not uncommon during the end
of a relationship. With today's technologyand our quest for connection, it's easier
(00:49):
than ever to track someone. It'seasier to do that without the person's knowledge,
and I think it's harder for theperson being stalked to stop it.
So today we're talking about what isstalking, When does stalking become a crime,
what are common methods of stalking,and how can you protect yourself.
Joining us today is Brianne Meyer,outreach director for the Safe Shelter of Saint
(01:15):
Brain, which is my local domesticabuse Shelter and Safe Shelter offers services to
men and women victims of abuse,working with them to develop their safety plan
for remaining in the relationship. Allleaving, welcome, Brianne. Thank you
for having me nearly so I'm reallyglad to have your expertise on the show
(01:37):
today. I wondered if we couldstart off with asking you, like,
how does what would you define asstalking? So I would define stalking as
repeated unwanted contact that sometimes think hardhere, Okay, So that can take
(02:00):
the form of many different things.Um. There can be showing up places,
that can be phone calls that canlook like um, it can look
like care, so it can belike flowers or cards. Um. But
I think the the important piece isthat unwanted UM. And there's also can
(02:25):
be a really big technology piece,right, iology can be used. Yeah,
well, I've got lots of questionsabout that. I mean, it's
not normal or typical behavior. SoI'm wondering if when you when it first
starts, do you see people discountingit or coming up with other reasons,
(02:46):
um, like you know, ohI must have mentioned it to him,
or I must have left the dooropened. I think that's such a good
point. Um. I think it'spretty common for stocking to be again as
just like small kind of behaviors thatmaybe make you go, oh, that
(03:07):
was weird, and then over timeit can escalate, and sometimes it can
escalate really fast too. And thenMandy, I forgot the second part of
your question. Well, just Iwas thinking that if you were being stalked,
it would be and you know,because the behavior is not normal and
you don't expect it, you discountthe incidents so what you're seeing and or
(03:30):
just think well that's a little weird, and then you you just push it
off. Yes, And I think, um, thank you. That was
what I was thinking. Is ittends to escalate, and I think people
do sort of maybe excuse it,but I think deep down we always know
(03:53):
that there's something a little bit off. So not only are we discounting their
behavior or trying to explain it away, but we tend to and I say
we just because it's most often womentend to discount our own feelings about Wow,
that didn't feel good. I don'tlike that, but we maybe tell
ourselves a story about why it mighthave been okay or oh, he'd mean
(04:15):
it that way or those sorts ofthings. So yeah, there's a lot
of discounting. So then it's reallythe truth would be is if you think
that something's weird going on, somethingweird probably is going on, and you
need to listen to your inner voice. Absolutely. And every time that I'm
working with a client or anybody thatI know is working with a client,
(04:40):
w that's the number one thing thatwe say is trust your gut. If
something doesn't feel right, trust yourgut number one always, Okay, and
that goes for safety planning, whichwe'll get into in a little bit,
I imagine, as well as huh, that didn't feel right or that seemed
a little strange. So, Um, you had mentioned about technology, and
(05:02):
it just seems like there's so muchtechnology that can be used to stalk somebody.
And I thought maybe we could startoff talking about the ways a cell
phone can be changed turned into aweapon, and I don't mean like a
gun, but like it's a wayof tracking and stalking people. Yeah,
(05:27):
so technology can be used for goodor evil equally, I think, and
often it's used with clients that comein to see me and they may not
even know it. So, um, there are tracking apps that people can
download. So um, not onlyif somebody purchased a phone for somebody,
(05:48):
but also if they've ever had accessto a phone. So um, it's
it's good to go get that phonechecked out because the phone could be could
have a app in the background that'srunning, it could be hidden to track
locations, to track emails, totrack any really anything that's happening on the
(06:08):
phone. So um, because mostof my people are thinking about divorce or
getting divorced, I think what I'mhearing you say is when your relationships ending,
if you have your your cell phoneon the family cell plan, or
even without that, if your otherparty has had access to your cell phone,
(06:30):
do you go to your cell phoneprovider and ask them to have a
look at the phone and check thatthere isn't there are any apps on there
that are tracking you. Yeah,that's what I recommend. And what about
getting off the family cell phone planas soon as possible. That's always a
(06:50):
good thing to do as well,because even if something found and can be
taken off, if they're still onthe plan, they can access the phone
like remotely and add back on oradd something else, or add something smarter.
Really, they can do that remotelywithout even having the phone in their
(07:10):
possession. Yeah. It just happenedto a client of mind that I spoke
to like last week, that herabuser was able to get into her email
address. Wow, that's scary becausehe owned the plan. Yeah. Yeah.
And the other thing is being onthe family's cell phone is the other
(07:30):
peasant has access to all the phonenumbers that you're calling. Yeah, So
that that just happened last week wherea client of mine, the abuser had
all access to the phone numbers andthen called those people to say whatever things
he wanted to say to them.So yeah, that can be scary.
(07:55):
Wow. And I've also I readsome material prepping for this show about how
a cell phone could be used asa listening device and set to auto answers.
So the person could put a cellphone with a child and it could
get in the backseat of your car, so then it's auto answering and then
(08:16):
picking up the conversations that are happening. Obviously, the cell phone will die
eventually, but that's another way thatsomebody could be listening to your conversations.
Absolutely, there are so many waysthat technology can be used that we I
don't think most of us want tothink about all the different ways that technology
(08:37):
can be used for this purpose.But yeah, there's so many ways.
So m and talking about other waystoo. Was there are a lot of
smart devices that we have now,Like we have the garage door openers that
connect to the phone, the ringcameras, the you can put to see
(09:00):
who's coming to the house, andthe nest thermostats. And I was thinking,
well, that means that if theother party has those apps on their
phone, they could still control allof those devices absolutely. And not only
that, but they can lock out. They can lock you out of those
(09:22):
devices as well. So I wasthinking, and I actually saw this posted
on another forum that I'm on thewith the garage door and with the ring
people, they can see who's comingand going from the house, what time
you're leaving the house, and whattime you're coming back. They could then
(09:45):
start to harass you, like setyour sprinklers to run all day, which
would cost you money. They couldhave Alexa Blossom music out at two o'clock
in the morning. Yeah, Ithink you know, the possibilities are endless
and sometimes really subtle too. Likesome of the things that you mentioned,
(10:07):
you might not necessarily think right away, oh, this has got to be
that person doing this. You mightjust say, oh, that was weird
and um and that head game pieceof stocking is also very common. So
do you know, like, howdo you get those apps off the other
(10:28):
person or restrict that other person's accessto those devices? Actually that's a really
good question. Many well, yes, right, no, that's quite all
right because I think that you know, that just demonstrates how complex this topic
has come has become, and soyou know, I would probably tell somebody
(10:52):
to start off with looking on yourphone and looking to see in the settings
to see if you can control whichdevices are programmed or the granted access through
your phone sure, or even justcalling the provider. I think, yeah,
(11:15):
yeah, wow, oh my gosh. Scary. So another kind of
scary one to talk about is spoofing, and oh my understanding of that is
the that's also something that's pretty easyto do. But you can if I
was wanting to stalk somebody, Icould make it look like the an email
(11:39):
was coming from a family member oryour boss, or a phone call from
them, and so that you wouldpick up or respond to it, but
it wouldn't be who you thought itwas going to be. Yes, that
something that can happen pretty regularly,and often what I've seen a lot of
(12:03):
recently is you know, you cango in and get just a free phone
number and then lose it and thenchange it to another one the next day
and another one the next day,And so when somebody's trying to maybe report
to the police or something, thatmakes it really difficult to track where those
calls are coming from. So,especially if there's a protection order in place,
(12:24):
or when the police are involved andthe soccer knows it, they might
try and be smarter about it,and so they'll just change phone numbers and
call and call and call, butit's all from these different numbers, so
it's really hard to prove who itis. And I would think, I
mean, that's that sort of stuffis going to make you really think you're
(12:46):
really going crazy. It can definitelyhave that effect because you just don't you
don't know what to believe, andyou start to think question yourself and like,
am I imagining this is going on? Well, And not only that,
but it makes enforcement really difficult aswell. So not only can it
(13:07):
make you question yourself, but itcan also make you know the police question
you. So if you take youknow, I've gotten these forty five phone
calls from these forty five different numbers, and I don't know why, and
I don't know how to stop it. You know, the police that are
probably not going to be able todo much about that, right, especially
all by itself, And so itdoes become really important to document everything,
(13:33):
including you know, the other likeit rarely takes just one form, it's
often many forms, So showing up, calling work, calling friends, going
to polices at the person frequents,and then also doing these other things.
And so when we can start topaint a bigger picture, then it becomes
(13:56):
a little bit more prosecutable, butit's still these cases can get really complex
right in the eyes of the courtorder with police officers doing all these investigations
and trying to figure out trying tobe able to prove who did all these
things, right, So the so, but a really key thing there is
(14:18):
if you think that you're being stalked, to start keeping an incident log and
documenting everything in as much detail asyou can possibly give. Absolutely. And
I was looking at Stalking Resource Center. Their website has a stalking handbook for
(14:41):
victims that has a sample incident log. Oh great, that's really good.
So Stalking Resource Center. I'll besure to put that in the links on
the show page as well as inthe synopsis that I write up. So,
Brianne, we're going to take ashort break. Here you're listening to
(15:05):
conversations about divorce. I'm Mandy Walker, and today we're talking about stalking.
My guest today is Brianne Meyer,Outreach director for the Safe Shelter of Saint
Vrain, which is my local domesticabuse shelter. Safe Shelter offers services to
men and women victims of abuse,working with them to develop their safety plan
for remaining in the relationship or forleaving. If you think you're being stalked,
(15:30):
please do contact your local domestic abuseshelter and or the National Center for
Victims of Crime Helpline for assistance.Brianne, when you were talking about before
the break about people calling forty fivetimes, that's kind of made me got
to thinking, do we know whypeople stalk? Are the people? Um?
(16:00):
I think that there might be manysurface reasons, right, So it
could be they're rejected, um.Often at the end of a relationship.
It could be that they're angry thatthey've been rejected. Um. It could
be jealousy, it could be manythings. But I think underlying all of
(16:22):
it um is a pattern of oftenpower and control. Just like with domestic
violence, there's a lot of umoverlap. Okay, Brian to Stalkers usually
want their victims to know they're beingwatched. Is that part of the game
or the behavior is that they they'releaving these traces and bugging people, but
(16:45):
they do want you to know whoit is that's doing it. In my
experience, that's what I've seen.That's exactly what I've seen. Um.
They want they want the person thento either be in a relationship with him
or they want they want something fromthat person. So every case that I've
(17:07):
seen, yes, they've wanted themto know. Right. There was a
lady I interviewed from my blog manyyears ago who talked about her how her
husband. I think she didn't thinkshe may have said stalking, but she
said they she and this was sothis was probably ten years ago, long
before all of this technology that wehave now. But he was like leaving
(17:33):
a business card on the seat ofthe of the car, which meant that
it was his way of saying toher, I have a key to your
car. And then he would callher and while she was in a coffee
shop and say, oh, well, you know that color. I always
liked that color on you. Soshe knew that he was watching her.
(17:57):
But also they how did you knowthat I was going to be at this
coffee shop right now? Absolutely?Oh if that gave me the chills,
Yeah, that's so scary. Sothey do want to know they're victims,
to know they're being watched. Sowhat is the best way of handling it,
(18:19):
Like when when it first starts happening, or when you first start to
realize, oh, these strange thingsthat have been happening to me are actually
connected and I think I'm being stalked? What do you do about that?
Absolutely? And so people discover thatat different points, And I would say
(18:40):
a lot of people like to andI, well, I recommend for people
to make a very clear statement sayingI do not want this contact. In
any further contact from you, Iwill be considered harassment and I will be
reporting to the police or something veryYou're like that, and only once because
(19:03):
we want to what we want todo is try to disengage and so you
know, a lot of times,I think, especially as women we have
we think we have to be likenice, even when something is unwanted.
We think, oh, well,I don't like that this card was left
in my car. But maybe itwas like, oh he was trying to
(19:23):
care for me or something, youknow, something like that, and we
talk ourselves out of it. Andthen we say, oh, you know
I got your card that huh interestyou know, we don't say, hey,
I didn't appreciate that, and Idon't like that. And so the
very first thing that I talked topeople about is being very clear with boundaries
with stokers. And I have seenoftentimes where that by itself can stop the
(19:51):
contact. It doesn't always, certainlynot in every case. Sometimes it has
to go beyond that. Sometimes therehas to be some legal intervention for the
docker to get the message. Butthe very first step and that when you
send, when you say that,or send that, whenever you communicate that,
you want to make sure it's documentedsomewhere. So text messages are great
(20:12):
because you can always print them off. Emails are also great because you can
always print them off. So Irecommend an email or a text saying I
do not appreciate this contact anymore.I do not want to have any contact
with you anymore. That way,it's documented you sent this email at this
day, at this time. Anyfurther contact after that, it's easier to
(20:33):
be able to show that it's unwantedonce it's really clear, right, And
that's why if you have children andyou're raising those together, then that would
be a clear indicator of moving toone of those online and third party parenting
platforms that you can only communicate throughthat platform. Sure, and those boundaries
(20:56):
can be drawn however, however itmakes sense for the person. So yeah,
if that if that boundary is drawnby an email saying I do not
want to have any more contact,We're only going to have contact via Talking
Parents for instance, or whatever thosethird party apps might be. Because when
(21:18):
you're stucked by somebody that you sharechildren with, it's not quite as and
I don't want to say easy,because none of it's easy, but it's
not quite as easy to cut offall contacts when you still have children and
you still often are going to beinvolved in the court, right, So,
and then picking up on what youwere saying too about you want to
engage, but we've we've been raisedto be polite and courteous. I think
(21:41):
for many of us, enforcing boundariesfeels uncomfortable because it's like they're also strict
to boundaries than we've probably had tohave with anybody else. We may not
be used to enforcing it, andit kind of it makes us feel bad,
Whereas it's the other person's behavior thatis the reason why you have to
(22:06):
have this boundary exactly. And Ibelieve that we are socialized to believe that
our needs and wants are not important, or that we need to stuff those
needs and wants down, and that'soften part of why it's so difficult to
ask for what we want and drawthose boundaries. Right. I agree with
(22:30):
you. You had said that thissending that very clear statement about not wanting
contact is often enough to stop astalker from that behavior, but sometimes it's
not. What's the next step ifit's not enough? You had mentioned legal?
(22:52):
Is this a criminal matter or isit civil? Do you go higher
an attorney? Well, it couldbe either UM and UM. For that
reason, I would say it's probablybest to reach out to an advocate UM
to sort of brainstorm about what's bestin a particular situation, some people might
(23:14):
have reasons that they might want toget the police involved or not want to
get the police involved. Um.Stucking is definitely a matter of criminal letter.
UM and and there are people whodo not always want to contact the
police for a number of reasons.So, um, the police are very
knowledgeable, and these cases can alsotake a long time. So the investigation
(23:41):
and the technology involved makes it oftentake a really long time to get those
cases investigated thoroughly. So what doeswhat does a long time look like?
Is it six months or three months? Or well? I hope for less
than that because that's the time thatyou know, we have a stalker just
(24:04):
out there doing what they do.But um, it can really depends.
I mean, I've seen these casesgo on for I don't I think probably
I would say mostly three months isprobably the longest. I mean, there
have been a few rare longer cases, but maybe a month to three months
(24:26):
is probably most common because they haveto often go through that they get warrants
and they have to write out allthese police there's just there's so many steps.
But yeah, but back to youroriginal question, I think if somebody
doesn't want to get the police involved, they can also go through UM and
the laws vary in the different states, but like a protection order process.
(24:48):
Oh right, okay, okay,So we had talked just now about how
it's harder when you have children andyou have to communicate with this other pat
and that children themselves can also oftenbe used by a stalker to gather information
on the victim. Can you showthis some of the ways that happens.
(25:12):
Absolutely? So, Um, thereare cases where you know, soccer will
take the children, maybe in thecar and say, hey, show me
where, show me where mommy's living, show me where you know, where
did you go this weekend? Showme where mommy's going to work? Now,
(25:32):
show me where. So a lotof those things can happen, and
they can also tell the children,you know, I want all this information.
I want you to tell me whoshe's seeing, who she or he
um hanging out with these days.So I think unfortunately, when children are
(25:53):
used in that way, it's oftenas pawns. Right, And I've also
heard of it's pretty easy to puta GPS tracker in a child's backpack and
the child be unaware of it.But then that's a way for another tracking
device. Absolutely, I could seethat being easy as well, or a
(26:18):
certainly with older children their cell phoneright right, so inadvantent. And again
you wouldn't necessarily you wouldn't even thinkto double check the backpack for that,
or you might not even be ableto find it anyway, until there's something
odd that happens and you think,wow, that's weird. I wonder how
(26:41):
he knew that, And a lotof people have difficulty finding out exactly how
it's happening for like a long time. So you know, the GPS on
the car, just the cursory lookat a car, or even get a
car by somebody who knows a littlebit, you still might miss like a
(27:03):
GPS tracker on a car as well. So I have had a couple of
clients actually hire a private investigator whois knowledgeable about all these electronic things to
help them figure out how they're beingtracked, how they're being stalked. Certainly,
(27:25):
and if law enforcement is involved,we're real lucky to have very knowledgeable
law enforcement who know what those thingslook like and turn it up all the
time. Wow, from on thecar to in the house to hidden in
the curtain, you know, couldbe anything. Well, Brian, we're
just about up on time. I'mwondering if you've got one more tip that
(27:49):
you could share with our listeners,anybody who thinks they're being stalked. So
one last thing that I would wantto say is just who get support if
you if you think that there's somethingthat might be wrong, get support from
a local advocate, and um dosome safety planning. I think safety planning
(28:10):
is really important and oftentimes the peoplewho've been affected by stalking have a long
road to healing because when you've beenviolated in this way, it can be
really difficult to gain back a senseof um confidence and believing in oneself when
(28:37):
your your reality has almost been umchanged in a way when and often I
think people describe that it's their realityhas been changed in a way that it
won't go back from. But umso healing I think is really an important
thing therapy if that makes sense,and definitely so care while going through the
(29:00):
process and after. Yeah, that'sa great point, Brian, because I
can see I was just thinking whileyou were talking there about well, you
know, if you were used towalking on a trail or going for a
run and then you experienced this stalkingwhere you never know when your ex is
looking at you or tracking you,that would definitely shake your confidence and make
(29:23):
it make you maybe think twice aboutgoing out on those trails and whether that's
you're really safe. There absolutely thatemotional but you abortional emotional peace cannot be
overstated enough of how difficult this isfor people who have been affected by it.
Yeah, thank you so much,Brian, Well, thank you many
(29:48):
thanks for bringing awareness. My guesttoday is Brianne maya outreach director for the
Safe Shelter of Saint Brain, whichis my local domestics shelter. Safe Shelter
offers services to men and women victimsof abuse, working with them to develop
their safety plan for remaining in therelationship or for leaving. Now, if
(30:10):
you believe you being stalked, pleasedo contact your local domestic abuse shelter as
Brienne recommended, and there's also theNational Center for Victims of Crime helpline.
They can help you. You can'tbe too careful on this topic. And
the best case scenario is that yourX or your soon to be X has
access to information and could track youif they choose to, but they're not
(30:33):
interested. Worst case scenario is thatthey have access. They know they have
access. They are using this totrack your movements. They will do what
they can to use that information againstyou and to harm you. My call
to action for you is to makea list of all the ways you think
that you and your X or yoursoon to be X could still be connected.
(30:55):
That's your social media sites, yourphone, your home WiFi, our
keys, home keys, passwords,everything, and then start working through them
each item one by one and makingsure that they no longer have access.
And remember this is about enforcing yourboundaries to protect yourself. You don't need
(31:17):
to feel bad about this. Thankyou for listening today. There'll be a
synopsis of this posted to my blogSince my Divorce dot com. And you
can follow me Since my Divorce onTwitter and on Facebook. And I hope
you'll join us again next time formore conversations
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