Moral Harassment Healing Series: Handling Hoovering & Disturbing Comebacks
The aggressor wants total control over your life. Once they discover they have lost it, they will try to restore it. They might even stalk you due to their obsession. From their viewpoint, you have become their property since the moment they spotted you. They will go mad at you if you move on and live happily without their toxic influence. You were never supposed to!
Disclamer. This series is written by a moral harassment survivor, not a psychologist.
The predator’s expectation is that they leave you empty, torn to pieces and unable to recover. This would give them the feeling of significance. They want to know that they matter enough to drive you crazy or even make you take your life because of them. (This was basically where my abuser was leading me with his manipulations, lies and fake love…)
For an abuser, contacting you, researching your social media, sending flying monkeys your way, victimizing people around you, serves only one purpose: THEY WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT YOU ARE EITHER DESTROYED OR AVAILABLE FOR USE. If you are not, they will smear your name to your friends, family and even your bosses at work, or otherwise punish you for being so disobedient and…alive. Only dead objects can be controlled by 100%. So secretly, the abuser wants to see you dead to feel maximum superiority. This necrophiliac pattern is scary, but it is what it is.
Abusers would kill people, if they could avoid punishment (they never feel remorse). This is why we need to avoid them — just think of how many times they dreamed about holding you hostage or even killing you, because their perverted sexuality works that way… Disturbing. Disgusting. Horrible. They will pull attention out of you — even committing crimes. Yeah, they are insane to such extent. Super needy. Super damaged.
So I have explained why they chase us, stalk us on social, try to hack our accounts, send their servants to us for super stupid reasons, or otherwise make attempts to bring mess into our lives. They think we belong to them. They also expect us to play games to make them react to what we do (they think we’re their sort of people…). Are they obsessed by ex-victims getting new and better lives? Oh, yes! Is this affection healthy? Of course, no.
Now, let’s talk about what to do when these creatures try to worm back into your life…
Ignore the abuser where possible
In most situations, 100% NO CONTACT is enough. If you do not respond, sooner or later you will be classified as “not eatable” in the predator’s head. Until then, ignore. Do not answer them. Do not communicate with them. Do not ask them to take responsibility for their actions (they will never take it, and all their apologies will be just lies with zero sincerity — if only you give them a single chance, they will abuse & harass you again). Don’t try to negotiate anything, the aggressor will never ever accept your terms. All they want is to manipulate you into TOTAL SUBMISSION and 100% LOSS OF PERSONALITY. Yes, they want to kill you. Admit this. They would do this physically, but this would mean imprisonment. This is why they will try to hypnotize you with their “OBEY” messaging and destroy you as a person. If you let them do it, hehe. Stay the course. You have an unhealthy maniac chasing you and looking for a way to use and abuse you again. This sucks, but they do it because you are a VALUABLE PERSON FULL OF ENERGY. The Dracula just cannot resist it. Okay, this vampire is not invited into your life. Ignore them — please your most adorable self!
Create a support circle for yourself
The abuser used to exploit your need for warmth and support pretending to be your most passionate caregiver. This is how they won your trust, heart and soul. They played your friend or most loving partner, a soulmate, but in fact gradually started to torture you. This is why you feel so upset. Someone went out of their way to win your trust and then betrayed you WITH PLEASURE. This is what makes even super strong people collapse and grieve for a long time.
However, you can REPLACE THE ABUSER in your life with someone decent. There are great, generous hearts that are ready to give us the appreciation we need. Go to a support group. Call your friends and family (yeah, the abuser has isolated you from them previously, it will be tough to re-establish these connections, but it is worth doing!). Find someone loving you, not using and abusing you. Even if you don’t have trust in people anymore, find a way to communicate with horses, dogs or cats. You need company, validation and acceptance. Don’t expect the abuser to ever give these to you.
The predator wants to be the only caregiver to manipulate you into a servant, but if you have enough support from someone else, you’ll be able to laugh at them. The support circle is important — you will have bad days while healing after abuse, and please do remember that abuse victims commit suicides. Have someone to call whenever you need. Go out with friends. Find a therapist. Do what supports you and gives you pleasure. HAVE ENOUGH SUPPORT AND WARMTH TO SEND THE HARASSER TO HELL WHEN THEY ARE BACK. (I SAID “WHEN”, NOT “IF”…)
Work with your fear & control it
After the truth about abuse is revealed, you get shocked because you could have never imagined anyone who is CRUEL TO SUCH EXTENT. You see your personal Hitler, your very own Ted Bundy exactly as they are. You start feeling unsafe because TORTURE IS POSSIBLE and now you know for sure that these sadists, these sexually perverted MANIACS EXIST. I remember a sad example: where a healthy person sees just a box, a traumatized individual rushes to check if there are suffocating kittens inside…
You start to admit cruelty more often than kindness. This is called hyper-vigilance, and this is a symptom of PTSD that is common for moral harassment and emotional abuse victims, same for physical abuse, rape and catastrophes of any kind. This needs special treatment. Whatever you start with, EDMR, CBT, yoga or swimming, make sure you are not exhausted by fear. You will continue to have high cortisol for a while. Take care of your calmness.
Take actions to prevent the harm
You cannot do anything about the maniac’s existence, they are alive and enraged. However, you can work with your attitudes to them. You can choose whether you want to become a complete paranoid and end up in a mental facility, or you can stand up for yourself. Don’t be silent and be open about all facts of stalking, don’t feel uneasy because of it. Please be sure — your abuser doesn’t feel unwell because of smearing your name and spreading dirtiest rumors about you. So spilling the shit-smelling truth in front of people who can help you is the right thing to do.
Ask your friends to accompany you to the places where you can meet the harasser. ASK FOR SUPPORT AGAINST YOUR STALKER. Don’t remain silent, VIOLENCE LOVES SILENCE. Go fear-free. A bad person hurt you, good people will help you. And, somewhere deep inside, BELIEVE IN YOURSELF, YOU CAN COPE WITH IT! DON’T GIVE IN TO YOUR ABUSER, SHOW THEM YOUR POWER.
Document everything related to abuse
Document every move of the abuser. If they damage your property, the house or the car, take pictures, check your video surveillance camera recordings. If things happen at work, record conversations, make screen shots, put down important dates & facts. Try to get witnesses and evidence for everything. Do not feel bad because of it, life has thrown special circumstances at you, and you need to remain cold-headed and firm in your decisions.
Yes, it’s tough to be “cruel” to someone whom you once considered your soulmate, but they forced you to be their enemy, and you cannot win this war by just lying on your sofa and crying. COLLECTING EVIDENCE WILL DISTRACT YOU FROM INVESTING YOUR HEART AND SOUL INTO THE ABUSER BECAUSE OF THEIR MANIPULATIONS. NOW THEY ARE THE TARGET.
Visit a good attorney specializing in harassment, stalking & abuse
At some point, you might also need legal support. If you nave a good attorney, this might be not enough — abusers, harassers and stalkers have personality disorders, so their logic might be very different from a healthy person’s way of thinking and acting. Consider hiring a survivor who also suffered from abuse in the past and now specializes in helping abuse victims. It’s essential to turn to someone who can trust you and realize that these covert manipulations are real. Get advice on collecting the evidence and what to do and not to do.
Your legal advisor might connect you to the relevant organizations that help abuse & harassment victims. If you don’t have enough money, you might also need to raise funding from a charity foundation. When you know what to do, it is much easier to calm down. WITH THE ATTORNEY’S ADVICE, YOU WILL FOCUS ON HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF, NOT ON SUGARY LIES USED TO RE-VICTIMIZE YOU.
Get a restraining order (if appropriate)
If abuse continues and escalates, you might need to leverage social institutes created to help people in such situations. You can work with anti-harassment organizations and check what can be done in your case. You can also try to go to the police and obtain a restraining order that will prevent your harasser from stalking you. After you get such an order, the abuser will break the law by merely approaching you. Sooner or later, this person will have to leave you alone and let you enjoy peace of mind. Be consistent, stay the course. KEEP YOUR NO A “NO FOREVER”. THEY WILL RESPECT IT OR GET PUNISHED.
Conclusions
In short, this excuse for a person wants to rob you of your life and make you live in fear for decades. This is why they pop up here and there and dance around you victimizing your friends and family (or at least trying to harass them, too…). Don’t let them think they can succeed. Abuse is a known issue, and there are many good people and organizations working to prevent and stop abuse at work and at home. There are great communities of survivors, fantastic kind-hearted activists and merely people with warm, not cold hearts. You’re a survivor, which means that you are already super strong and can beat this evil. High fives, we’ll win!