My State Doesn't Care About Protecting Women from Stalkers

At the end of 2015, I met a guy who was the first person I'd met who was close to my age in my new town. He was charming, was a very good guitar player, and, according to him, had a pretty interesting life. I was lonely, so although I wasn't invested, I decided to hang out with him. It was literally months before we even had sex. To be perfectly honest, I'd gone along with our involvement to simply use him as a placeholder until I found someone I felt was better suited to me. Let's call him Jimmy.

About a month after we'd started going out and doing stuff together, there was a night of him acting totally fucking nuts after he'd been drinking. I mean, it was like a psychotic episode. I was a little freaked out but, after all the conversations we'd had, I understood what kind of traumatic experiences he'd had and decided to let it slide. It wasn't like I hadn't done the same thing at some point in my life. I had cameras on my porch and garage and I watched the videos over and over, trying to tell myself that it wasn't worth it.

Although he was supposedly a guitarist for a locally-known band and they toured, he sure was home a lot. His mother gave him money all the time and, I was not shy about expressing this opinion, their relationship was very co-dependent. She would call him literally non-stop while we were out together, he called her "mama," and she did all his laundry and cleaned his room...yes, he lived with her...and basically took care of him as if he were 10 years old. Why didn't I run then, you ask? Well, I was lonely and he said he'd talk to her about it. He claimed that she'd "ruined" several relationships in the past and he wouldn't stand for it again.

There was a music store I'd gone to with him a few times. I didn't get warm, fuzzy vibes from the owner and employee and I told Jimmy. He'd hang out there when I was working and he had nothing else to do. I wasn't going to tell him what to do but I did tell him I didn't really like it because something was off. To make matters worse, the owner lived less than one block down from me and Jimmy told him about the coincidence. Great. One night, he was supposed to be at my house at, like, 9. The music store closed at 7. He didn't show up and his phone was just going to voice mail. I just happened to notice his car down the street and went over. He was sitting in the living room drunk as fuck. He didn't even know where he was. All I said was, "Well, at least you're not dead in a ditch somewhere," and was going to go back home. He stumble-ran after me, begging me not to leave - at a very loud volume. Like, neighbors looking out the windows at midnight kind of staring. He was crying at this point and lunged at my feet, wrapping his arms around my legs, begging me not to go because he loved me so much. Yeah, drunk talk. Love had never been mentioned before, thank God, so I told Jimmy that it wasn't a true feeling and I was going home and he'd better unhand me. His friends pulled him off of me. I later found out the music store was essentially running a way-illegal bar out of the shop after hours.

There were a few more times Jimmy was MIA for various reasons, after which I cut off contact with him. One of those times he'd gotten arrested for DWI but tried to play it off as him just falling asleep and completely missing my calls. But his mother would call me and beg me not to abandon him because he was doing "so good" with me in his life. In fact, it was his mother that kinda let it leak that it was a DWI, which he vehemently denied. The woman was absolutely crazy, but I caved every single time.

He had a few more weird psycho episodes at my house and, each time, I'd call his mom and tell her that if she didn't come to pick him up, I was calling the cops and having him hauled off. She always did.

I should have left. But I didn't. Why? Because we found out he had gall bladder cancer. It wasn't too terribly advanced but he needed to have surgery right away. Yes, Dude had massive issues and I passed off a lot of them as changes due to undiscovered cancer. I really felt like I couldn't walk away right then. I'd done that years ago to a boyfriend who had just gone through an accident that blinded him in one eye, but he was borderline abusive and I wasn't going to stay with him and I didn't care about timing, but I've felt guilty ever since. Jimmy's cancer surgery went as planned and his recovery was pretty quick, although he milked it for months as an excuse to not find a job. I'd been urging him for quite some time.

I noticed that Jimmy's stories started getting wilder and wilder. Each one suggested that he was very important to a company, a band, a motorcycle gang, even had personal friends in the mafia in NJ who sometimes asked him for favors. At one point, I knew he was just straight-up lying about all of it, called him on it, but he insisted he wasn't. I just gave up. I mean, what was the point? And he put on SUCH a show, with fake phone calls that I'd "accidentally" overhear, or something similar. It was one of those nights that he went batshit again when I did actually call the cops on him and he ran out of the house and took off his clothes in my front yard and went running through the neighborhood in nothing but boxers. Why didn't I leave then, you ask? 

I did. 

But I guess he didn't get the message, because he ignored my "this isn't working out. please leave me alone" responses to his texts and calls sent to voice mail. He would leave notes on my car when I was at work. He had flowers sent to my house. At one point, he actually showed up with a fucking diamond ring and asked me to marry him, after knocking on all my neighbors' doors to have them witness the touching moment. Yeah. The moment where I ended up closing the door with him still on his knee and threatening to call the cops if he didn't leave. One of my neighbors did, but they didn't arrive until he'd left. I ended up giving them all of his information for possible future problems.

His mom called me several times a day and left voicemails and texts, begging me to talk to him again, that his depression had put him into a self-destructive spiral. I ended up just sending her a text that said, "Please don't contact me again. I've made my decision." Then Jimmy started sending me private messages on every social media platform and when I blocked him, he'd just create a new profile and start over. I kept all of them because some were really creepy, some were alluding to violence without actually saying it. I told him I'd saved all of the messages, told everyone I knew what he was doing, and would hand all of it over to the police if he didn't stop.

And then he stopped bothering me.

Very soon thereafter, I met a really nice guy my age named Tom, who was in my same career field but with a different company and we totally hit it off. I knew by the third date that he was "the One." Later, he'd tell me he felt the same way.

That's when I started getting movement alerts from my cameras. Sometimes Jimmy would just pull up in my driveway when I was at work and just sit there. Sometimes he'd walk up to the door and knock, knowing I wasn't there, and get my dogs all riled up. Sometimes he'd just drive by super-slowly and sit in the street in front of my house - especially when Tom was there. There were times he would follow me. I'd gotten good at noticing the pattern of his headlights and had his plate number memorized. Of course, I always noticed when a car had been behind me awhile and sometimes made multiple, pointless turns and he'd still follow. When I contacted the cops, they told me that unless he was damaging property or entering the house illegally, there was nothing they could do. I told Tom what was going on because he deserved to know.

I've rambled enough; let's get to the disgraceful part. 

I researched everything I could about how restraining orders worked in my state and what I had to do to get one. I was shocked to find out what was required: 

1. conduct that he “knows or reasonably believes” the victim will perceive as threatening damage to victim's personal property, threatening bodily injury or death, either to themselves or a member of their family or household, including pets; and
2. places the victim or a family member “in fear of bodily injury or death”; and
3. would cause any “reasonable person to fear” bodily injury or death under the circumstances.

While the statute has been changed in recent years to say (paraphrase) that 'all the victim has to do is persuade the judge that it is reasonable to believe the defendant is going to hurt them,' it's been widely documented that judges are quite hesitant to award those orders to victims. Time and time again, the victim is expected to provide the burden of proof. A violation of any of the sections referring to harassment or threats does not automatically give rise to a criminal investigation, although those instances can be used to support a criminal complaint involving harassment or terroristic threats where appropriate. Above all, it's just a piece of paper and you'll see in a minute why the possibility of legal troubles was not something Jimmy cared about.

When he called every person he could track down that he knew was a friend or family to ask about my whereabouts and whatnot, I'd finally had enough. When he showed up at my parents' house, he was met at the door with a .45 ACP in the middle of his forehead. Dad wasn't having it! 

About that time, Tom had to take a rather lengthy job out of state and I decided to move and start over. If I was going to be alone all the time when Jimmy was well aware of my schedule, I didn't want him to be showing up again. And probably pissed off as fuck after the pistol thing.

Jimmy actually went to my office, claimed he was having car trouble and his phone was dead and used the company phone to call me. Of course, I answered. Caught off-guard, I didn't even think to use my call recorder. He told me that he was going to kill Tom if he ever saw him out alone (Tom is an ex-Marine with a concealed carry license so, yeah...) and he'd come for me next. Then he hung up. I immediately called the police and they asked me if I had proof of his threats. When I called the receptionist at the office, she said she didn't hear any of it. I wouldn't be surprised if he'd threatened her into silence.

So the cops wouldn't help. I ran a background check for our county and almost fainted when I saw that he had 21 arrests. Felony charges, ag assault, DWIs, making false statements to police, all kinds of stuff, going back years to when he was 22.

Then Jimmy found me. I don't know how, because my house was about 10 miles from work and there were a lot of turns, especially through the large neighborhood. I would have noticed, even if he'd hung back, regardless of what vehicle he was in. I never would have driven to my house if I'd thought someone was following me.

One evening, one of my favorite writers was having a book signing and I was so excited. Imagine my surprise when the librarian announced to the crowd that there was a call for me. Granted, my phone had been turned off and my father had been having some pretty serious health problems; my parents knew where I was. But it wasn't them. It was Jimmy. He said he was coming up there because he wanted to see me. I was so pissed at myself for letting him know I liked the author and that he found out she'd be in town. I told him no, he'd better not even dare. He cussed at me a little and hung up.

When I got home, there were 2 police cars in front of my house. The first thing I thought was, "HOLY SHIT. WHAT HAPPENED?!" But when I got out of my car, the police came to me and said we needed to talk. Long story shorter, "someone" had called 911 and said I had threatened a terrorist act against the County building I worked in and was planning on committing suicide after. 

Yeah.

They said they had to take me to the hospital for a psych evaluation at that time. After trying to talk them out of it and letting me just go in and go to sleep so I could go to work in the morning, they still wouldn't let me. You could tell they really didn't want to take me, and that they could tell it was a bullshit call. I even told them who made the call and why, but they said it was a zero-tolerance policy and they didn't have any choice especially because their sergeant was watching, and nodded to the other police car. I was crying at that point, but they put me in the back of the Tahoe and took me to the nearby ER. It was clear I wasn't making it to work.

Everybody in there was annoyed because they knew I didn't belong there, but they still had to follow certain procedures. After MHMRA came and interviewed me and left, I was able to go home. At that point, it was past noon. Insult to injury: I had to call a cab to take me home.

I was called into the admin office immediately the next day. They were putting me on paid admin leave until they could conduct an "investigation." They took my laptop, credentials, and all my employee stuff and banned me from accessing any County building or the computer systems. There were a number of roadblocks keeping me from returning to work; mostly that they wanted me to get a psych eval from a psychiatrist. It was taking forever and, at that point, I'd been out of work for two months. I insisted they allow me in to clear out my cubicle because I had no idea, truthfully, if I'd ever be going back.

I got a lawyer. It was messy. Even presented with a full incident report explaining what happened and all the background to go with it, I wasn't allowed back to work. The County made a lot of mistakes in how it was handled and the police unlawfully transported me, so that lawyer and I have been discussing what kinds of steps to take. It's been since August that I've been in my office. Look at the publishing date on this. No! It's still not resolved!

Then Jimmy started calling again immediately after the incident in August. He came by the house. He texted me constantly. I mean, I literally felt like I was a prisoner in my own home for fear of running into him somewhere. Not that I really wanted to leave anyway. Depression gripped my soul. I put the cameras up on the outside of this new house.

Phone calls to the police netted the same response as before: if he hadn't threatened me, injured me, damaged personal property or the like, there was nothing they could do. There STILL isn't anything they can do. I feel helpless. The only recourse I have is to arm myself. It's not a deal; I've been shooting since I was a child, but I never wanted to test those skills on a human.

The sad reality is that, someday, I may need to. Jimmy knows me well enough to know that I will not hesitate one second to neutralize any threat who breaks into my home. He knows that he's included in that. As soon as someone forcibly enters my home without an invite, I don't care how I know you...unless we're kin or close friends, you're done. People don't break into another's house with the intent of doing something good. My only regret would be having to relinquish my security deposit because of the ruined carpet and sheetrock.

But I pray it will never come to that. I'm wary of any weird situations outside in the front. My neighborhood is graveyard quiet, so even hearing voices is odd. If the dogs alert for a reason I don't see, my heart starts racing. On occasion, something bumps the back door from the outside, always at night. I've never found out what it was, even when I've jumped up and opened it immediately. But now...now I start wondering if it's HIM. I notice any little thing out of place, like the fact that there's a bird singing in the tree outside and it's freakin' 2am. A different car in the driveway of a house on my street? Already saw it. I know the make and model and a ballpark on the year. I've played out the various scenarios over and over in my mind. I want to know that, if it happens, regardless of how it starts, I have a plan for how to proceed. It's no different than a fire safety plan for your house, really.

He called me again today from a burner phone number. Even hearing his voice curdles my blood when, at one time, his baritone southern drawl made me weak in the knees. Every time it happens, I call Tom, my parents, my therapist, and the police. I've started keeping a log of everything, including my feelings after it happens. I figure that might be important at some point.

I put up a good front; my friends back home say they're in awe of my strength and fearlessness. (I'm totally alone again - still? Tom is out of state again working for an estimated 16 more months.) I am NOT strong and I am most definitely AFRAID, but I know I can stay calm if shit hits the fan; I'm just like that.

Since I am about two weeks away from being fired - I'm guessing - I've been picking up side-hustles as often as possible. I have a private tutoring session for a couple of kids new to the country. I guess their English is so poor that they can't comprehend classwork, but I speak French so it's going to be fine. A gig paying me a handsome rate for two kids, twice a week? Not enough to get me by, but it's a start.

I try to look at it that way: each day is a new start. Maybe it'll be the day where I can START being carefree and unafraid. Maybe it'll be the day where I can quit holding a grudge against the lawmakers in my state, who aren't concerned with making a sensible and logical process to get protective orders in place. Maybe it'll be the day when I can get back to the business of being Stillie; the strong, snarky, firecracker of a bitch she used to be. Only time will tell.

. Until then, I am...
.