Stalking is not affection. It is not persistence, and it is not someone simply having trouble letting go.
It is a pattern of unwanted attention, monitoring, contact, intimidation, or threatening behavior that causes fear or makes you feel unsafe. It may come from a former partner, someone you dated, an acquaintance, a family member, or even a stranger.
Sometimes it is obvious. Other times, it begins with things that appear small:
- Repeated calls, messages, or unwanted gifts
- Showing up at your home, workplace, church, or favorite places
- Following you or repeatedly driving past your location
- Watching your social-media activity
- Using other people to gather information about you
- Tracking your phone, vehicle, accounts, or location
- Damaging property or threatening you, your children, pets, or loved ones
One incident may be dismissed by others as a coincidence. But you are the one seeing the pattern. You are the one feeling the fear.
Trust what your instincts are telling you.
You Are Not Overreacting
Stalkers often depend on their behavior being minimized. They may disguise control as concern, threats as jokes, and surveillance as coincidence.
You do not have to wait for someone to physically attack you before taking the situation seriously. If someone’s repeated behavior is making you afraid or forcing you to change the way you live, it matters.
This is not your fault. You did not cause it by ending a relationship, refusing contact, setting a boundary, or continuing with your life.
Begin With a Personal Safety Plan
There is no single safety plan that works for everyone. A domestic-violence or victim-services advocate can help you create one based on your circumstances.
Consider telling a few trusted people what is happening. Give them the person’s name, description, photograph, and vehicle information if it is safe to do so. You might also establish a code word that means “call for help” without requiring an explanation.
At home, check locks, outdoor lighting, windows, cameras, and garage access. Tell neighbors or property management whom they should not allow inside. At work, consider notifying security or a trusted supervisor.
Changing your routine may sometimes increase safety, but you should not have to disappear from your own life. An advocate can help you decide which changes are useful without unnecessarily isolating you.
Do not meet or confront the person alone. If you must exchange property or handle necessary contact, ask an advocate or law-enforcement officer about safer options.
Document the Pattern
Keep a record of every incident, even when something appears insignificant by itself. Include:
- The date, time, and location
- What happened and what was said
- Phone numbers, usernames, email addresses, or vehicles involved
- Witnesses who saw or heard it
- Photographs, screenshots, messages, voicemails, and security footage
- Police report numbers and officers’ names
Preserve original evidence whenever possible. Store copies somewhere the stalker cannot access, such as with a trusted person or in a secure account created from a safer device.
Documentation can be emotionally exhausting, but it may reveal escalation and help advocates, law enforcement, or a court understand the complete pattern. The Stalking Prevention, Awareness & Resource Center provides a free stalking incident and behavior log.
Protect Your Digital Safety Carefully
Technology can be used to monitor location, read communications, enter accounts, control connected devices, or track a vehicle.
If you suspect your phone or computer is being monitored, use a safer device—one the person has never accessed—to seek help. Before changing passwords, disabling location sharing, removing tracking devices, or resetting a phone, speak with an advocate when possible. Sudden changes could alert the stalker, destroy useful evidence, or cause the behavior to escalate.
Review:
- Email and social-media account access
- Passwords and account-recovery information
- Location sharing and family accounts
- Phone plans and cloud storage
- Bluetooth trackers and shared calendars
- Vehicle apps, navigation history, and connected-car accounts
- Smart cameras, doorbells, speakers, locks, and home Wi-Fi
The Safety Net Project’s Survivor Toolkit offers guidance about phones, accounts, stalkerware, location tracking, connected vehicles, and smart-home devices.
Ask About Legal and Confidentiality Options
Stalking laws and protection-order requirements differ by state. A victim advocate or attorney can explain the options where you live, including whether you may qualify for a protective order or an address-confidentiality program.
A legal order is one possible part of a safety plan, but it does not physically prevent someone from approaching you. Continue taking threats, violations, and escalating behavior seriously.
You Deserve to Be Believed
Stalking can make a survivor feel watched even when no one appears to be there. It can steal sleep, confidence, routine, and peace. That fear is not weakness—it is your body responding to a continuing threat.
Please do not carry it alone.
There are people trained to listen, help assess the danger, and build a plan around your needs. Reaching for support is not surrendering your independence. It is taking another step toward reclaiming it.
Faith does not require you to remain within someone’s reach. Setting boundaries, seeking help, and protecting the life God gave you are not acts of cruelty. They are acts of wisdom.
If you are in immediate danger, call 911 if it is safe to do so.
For confidential U.S. support:
- National Domestic Violence Hotline: 800-799-SAFE (7233)
- Text START to 88788
- Visit TheHotline.org
- VictimConnect Resource Center: 855-4-VICTIM (855-484-2846)
RADV does not replace emergency services, legal counsel, or professional advocacy. We are here to help survivors find the bridge to trusted resources and remind them that they do not have to walk this road alone.
We Are the Bridge.
Your best miles are ahead.
—Dave Beatty
Founder, Riders Against Domestic Violence
RADV.org