Stalking and other traumatic memories

Zombie Lama has left a "request" for some of my life stories. There are many, mostly because I live in a college town and have the remarkable ability to attract soap operas. It's part of the reason I hide from people in fact. All too often, I get swept into someone's life and I end up dealing with police reports and 911. I am now incredibly paranoid and fanatically possessive of my limited free time. exmi can testify to that. It takes a crow bar to get me out any more.

Anyway, stalkers was the topic and I have dealt several. Since I am bored out of my skull with boredom here at work and the memories are percolating, I'm going to reminisce.

There are the 4 legged ones which I not only prefer, but actually encourage. That is how I got some of my cats over the years and managed to save several dogs from starvation. The 4 leggers are vastly cuter anyway, even covered in fleas and missing most of their fur.

The 2 legged variety range from the annoying but harmless type to the delightful "tried to run me off the road because I was driving the object of his obsession home." The harmless types everyone knows all about. That idiot who can't take the hint that you are not interested, and keeps coming around despite the heavy handed hints. When you tell someone that you need to clip your cats nails and can't join them for dinner followed by an evening at the theater, the hint should be pretty obvious. Or am I wrong?

The more serious examples range from the neighbor who took it into his psychotic head that I needed to die to the ex-boyfriend of a roommate who would not take the hint he was history. Probably the hardest to deal with was the neighbor. I can still remember the conversations my roommates and I had trying to figure out why he felt the need to try and electrocute me, drown me, run me over, threaten to shoot me, and the list goes on. About the only thing he did not do was try and stab me. It was not until he crossed a serious line by poisoning me and his roommate with tainted alcohol and really went too far with his "experiments" that the police finally took us "silly college freshmen girls" seriously.

My contempt for the local law officials stems from this point.

I've had the great joy of dealing with peeping toms, sobbing men who just can't understand "why doesn't she love me?", girls cowering in my closet as their soon to be ex rants outside. I've driven the neighbors to the hospital because they had an argument and managed to slice each other up rather impressively. (I drove mostly because there was no one else and they could not afford the ambulance.) There have been the 3 a.m. break-ins that left me a cowering wreck for the next week.

What is astonishing though is how none of this was as awful as the day I had to tell my boyfriend of 5 years that I would not marry him. That was a serious not fun moment in my life. It was better than waiting until before the wedding, but it was still horrible.

For those who know all involved and are reading this, remember, he was the best thing for me at the time. I was a wee bit fucked up at the time and having no one believe me but my roommates when I said the neighbor was trying to kill me - INCLUDING my family - was a major blow. Everyone, me especially, just needs to be grateful that I did wake up and realize that the world was an OK place and I would be utterly miserable if I married him.

By then, the soap opera was well on its way to consuming me and I realized enough was enough. No one was worth all the drama going on. So I moved away from everyone and met up with some really wonderful people, kept some of the previous bunch, and moved on.

Most of those I still know are those with some sense and rather strong personalities. Wonder what that says about me & them?