In January, I casually checked my Instagram direct messages as I always did. I expected the usual — friends sparking conversation from my Instagram stories, acquaintances commenting on the photo I posted of my dog playing in the snow. Instead, I found hundreds of incoming messages from someone I hadn’t seen in five years. I assumed this was someone maybe a little too drunk, maybe needing help, but “Typing…” never disappeared from my message requests that night and for months to come.
What followed was nearly four months of receiving unprovoked, many non-sensical, yet uncomfortably personal messages from someone I no longer knew. But he knew me — my job, my partner, my best friends, my Instagram posts, anything and everything I ever posted on the Internet, and some points, I felt him slithering into my unconscious, invading my dreams and turning them into nightmares. I pictured him at my window, showing up at my doorstep begging me to not tell anyone what he was doing. He pleaded, persisted I do not ruin his life. I was his saint to grant him forgiveness.
Dazed, I often wake up believing he’ll stop. I picture him comprising with me, but these memories fracture into my mind and I began to forget his apologetic nature. Opening my eyes to the morning sun and my partner lying next to me, I’m reminded of my cloudy reality. He’s made nearly nine different accounts to try to contact me, making a new one each time an old one is blocked. When he can’t send me any more messages, he messages my friends. He provokes them about me. They don’t answer, but he finds more ways to infiltrate my ecosystem. He follows an old SoundCloud account, a YouTube account I didn’t know I had with high school projects and photos on it. Weeks later, he sends a message to my former workplace telling them I can’t run from him. He tells them he will ruin my life. I seek out help, but when I do he finds out and posts my picture with an X across it like a voodoo doll; under it, he writes something that implies he wants to kill me.
From the brutal police killings of Black men and women in America to the lack of empathy law enforcement has shown for victims and survivors, I constantly question if the police will provide me protection. I am fearful of my harasser, but I also fear the system that should protect me. Many times, dealing with law enforcement feels as if l I am exposing myself more to him. I feel he’s gotten the best of me, and I’ve given in to the power he’s been seeking. Putting his name against mine on public records feels more unsafe than just fading away from the Internet.
If I obtain a restraining order, legally a harasser, stalker, or abuser cannot contact me. But the order exists on the basis that the perpetrator will be afraid to violate the order — and many times they aren’t. It’s only until the abuser steps over a line or goes too far, will “protection” go into effect. I want my harasser to stop doing this to me, but I also want him to get help. With the police on my side, will they help him, or will he only get more ferocious? Will it stop only after I’ve been hurt? What harm will he face?
I feel guilty and pressure over this man’s life. On one hand, he could ruin mine if he continues what he does, but on another, I feel could ruin his with charges and restraining order. I’m tasked with a difficult decision: if I don’t seek protection for myself, how far will he go? If I do seek protection, what would this do to his life?
I’m off the Internet now. Well, under my real identity. I’ve deleted my profiles without much of a trace. My name still appears when you search it, but my links no longer work. Because I have grown up on the Internet, in a way I feel a part of me has died. Admittedly I’ve spent too much time on it and debated getting off it in the first place, but I didn’t imagine it would be for my own safety. As a writer, he’s taken away a part of my livelihood. I don’t know when I’ll be back on as my real name, but this is my own little space for now. In some ways, I feel I can write without the fears and judgment I felt under my real name, but I’m not sure I’ll ever truly feel safe here.
s.j.
