I have read up on stalking and seen documentary about it, the worse known cases that would lead up to jail time. That the reasons behind someone taking to stalking is due to past trauma and abandonment issues, then steaming from childhood. Both the stalker or former stalker and its victim were interviewed to give both perspective.

In the past I was in a romantic relationship with someone who long before we got to date had me what I like to call "map out". Map out to me means he put down the time and effort to find out who the other people were in my life and to then work on them to get to me. Get information, photographs, befriended them. One could say all of this was natural. He would always say first time we met it was "love at first sight". I did back then not feel the same way. At the time I was also in no hurry to be in any relationship or share intimacy with anyone. Over time I warmed up to him, we began to date, I thought I fell in love and the relationship progressed. I got to know his family and friends.

It got to be incidents here and there, some so close to not be detected, that gave me the message even if he was not with me I was being watched. He had his friends to do that for him. He would let me know through for instance text messages that he knew my whereabouts and other things and the only way he could have done that on such seclusive events was if he was having it reported back to him from someone, or several others. Or have put up a camera. This happened too years after the break up with no contact in between.

Some time after the parting/break up he would start to contact me and his attitude would be unpleasant and try to intimidate, force, quilt tripp, what ever it took, to make me talk to him. It did not work.

He had a pretty long time before the break up been treating me in a strange way and withdrawing. During the split he had chosen to behave in a way as if he was set to humiliate me and prove to me he was the boss, and complicate everything he could. Before that to me he had been strange and not involved in us a pretty long time before the break up. Something was up, but I did not know what nor did I have any desire to find out. I was in secret unhappy with him for a long time before it ended. It was a relief once it was over. I felt so much better. But him keeping on to try to be in contact with me and the unpleasant and somewhat mysterious and I think even illegal ways he was doing it was hard to prove it was him behind it and it took a mental tool on me, but I was not having any hallucinations nor paranoia, and I was not sick listed. I got back up on my feet. Before that I knew I could potentially have lost all credibility as I began to develop anxiety and had few panic attacks, the panic attacks occurred as I thought I was out of the relationship and he began to try to pull me back in, and I was getting scared. I still refused, had to face my fears, meanwhile as he was creating new ones, and I went to see a psychiatrist and later a counselor. None of them thought the way I was, the way I viewed reality was twisted, and instead explained that the symptoms of anxiety, the panic attacks was due to the mental abuse he had placed on me during the relationship, as well as after. I got it under control and later on I was free of it. Me going against him took everything I had. I had been his "prisoner" for so long. It was time to get out of prison, though. I think I had done more than serving my time there. I believe had I gone back there, it was primarily out of fear, as I had no love for him, I did not even like him, and then I rather had my fear in freedom, and not be his, and become even more afraid. I think the abuse would have continued after a while and I believe it would have possibly even gotten worse.

There would also be incidents where after the break up I would suddenly be interrupted, if lets say I was in a store looking at an item, minding my own business, by a complete stranger, always male, that would say something to me, that was really off, and connected to my ex, and then just leave. It was so many "fog"-incidents where I could not tell if it was the ex behind it or random or me having a taste of what it was like to have paranoia.

When I would notice other things, I can't get into describing these incidents or people involved, I would withdraw or cut off contact and remove myself physically. It would for instance occur that had I began at a new job that I would find out checking my new emails that he had written. When that would happen the text he had written would become a blur to me and I could not help but physically take steps back from the computer. I can not explain the feeling of what it was like when I knew he had found me again, he had found a way in, or just let me know he was still watching me. This too would happen years after the break up with no contact.

When I had been in the relationship with him he would take to sudden mood shifts, become aggressive, interrigate me about people in or out of my life, at the time I thought it was because of jealousy, and I would answer best way I could. He would work himself up in to a frenzy. I have memory gaps because of the stress was too high for my brain to keep on registering what happened part into these so called interrogations. I would be cornered, locked in, trapped. He was much bigger than I was. I did not want it let known I got to be afraid of him. Perhaps he was expecting a "Please" or an apology but he was not gonna get either, I think. There was never no witnesses around when he got like this. It's all about control, in the end. I hadn't done anything and I had not flirted with the possibility of doing something. It didn't matter. I have to later come to think that maybe he was involved with something that made him nervous and for this reason did not want me to be contacted by someone, so then it was not just or down to jealousy.

I got to be aware while in the relationship that he was working behind my back which people he allowed into our or my circle and who was out. He could manipulate so well that he could make other people reject so and so, who in reality had done nothing wrong, at most said hi and smiled or talked to me. This sounds insane. It was insane. I have no other way to describe it. It didn't take much. As some people were cut off I would ask around, not knowing why. I was told one time why, but this only because that someone happened to become a witness by accident, having walked in on him and this other person he had now excluded. He never told me. He never told me anything. I began to worry for the safety and the reputations of other people. I would be quilt tripped. I would look down and not interact socially with people as I did not know if he would think something of it. I wanted them safe. I somehow thought if I could show him he could trust me he would lay it off, and that it was somehow my fault, even if I knew I had not done or wanting to do something. Still so I was manipulated, I was being quilt-tripped. It was also so that I felt quilt for the victims, and I would get anxiety, not wanting him to do something, that it was better then he punished me. This why I did not say anything. He made me fear because of a previous strong reaction he had that he was gonna come after someone.

I think he wanted me afraid, that way he would have thought he had gotten to me, I was under his control, and then he could sweet talk me after that. Control is the key here to understand all of his tactics, behavior. Unfortunately for me I think, especially when I was younger, that my soft side made some people think I would be more easy to control, and me having empathy. There is surely a soft side to me. But I also possess other qualities about me where it gets to be difficult if someone tries to control me.

I would around the time of the break up have enough and threaten him with the law. I had by then decided enough was enough. Even if I at the time would have difficulty getting an attorney, pay for one, I knew I could handle this particular case on my own, and he would look like the foolish one, if that particular issue went to court. He backed away, somewhat, temporarily, but I think it could also have been done so if a family member, his parent, would have learned of this and would have been on my side, and still had some influence over him. I knew if I did this I would unfortunately also make his parent look bad, and this was someone who I knew was not like it's son, but I knew even so I had to do it. For me it was by then a matter of principle, and besides, I knew I would have won. I was ready to fight. Before then I had been nothing but civil to him while he had acted out.

I never felt a real connection with him, except a fear-connection, then it was as if his masks fell off. I think it is possible that his secured imaged self was a mask to try to hide how insecure he really was. His energy to me was heavy. He would have difficulty keeping it in. I walked on egg shells around him.

I use to keep a very low profile and would seclude myself because of him, the people that are in my life, are close to me, I know he has not gotten to. Or at least I hope not that he has moved in closer with anyone of who they know.

He is someone who was extremely well on reading people and manipulating people. He was seen as someone nice. He had brains. He had the "right background" (God, how I dislike that phrase, but what ever…). I do think he had an abandonment issue, and I was not the reason for that, I think this went way back to childhood. He also had this great need to socialize with other people and in preference other men. If I am gonna try to analyze this as an amateur I think it was his relationship with his father that was broken in a way and like his father he was trying to copy that life style. Only his father had the life style he had because he was dependent on having all these contacts, these people, for business reasons. It was a difference. I think it made him feel as if he belonged, was just as "worthy". To me he had the wrong priorities in life, but that was his choice. He was constantly on this hunt, needing more and more, a kind of restlessness if having to stand still, and he seemed to have been plunged into extreme boredom in our home with me around. He was not like I would be when I was home, I would be at peace, but around him I was not but still pretending to be fine. It was as if my real brain had gone into sleep for protection reasons and the other brain was functioning on this practical level.

What I have now and then now noticed is that, and I can not get into the details, there are other men who I believe he knows who then come in contact with me when I am thinking they shouldn't. This is very difficult to prove. I think he is manipulating them. He use to have really cool guys, friends, that I knew of before, and I have nothing bad to say about them, but I also know he had other male friends that I think were secluded, away from me. I do not know their character. One of the things where I noticed something being off is the difference when I say only my first name and not full name. When I say my full name I am suddenly in a connection with so and so, higher up, where I shouldn't be.

I am fearful he will work this up. This is how he use to do it before. I know of someone else that it has been unlikely that we would both know, and where a relationship with that someone would only make things difficult on him, but still the ex has hung on to that someone, that is now cut off out of my life.

Before I had to cut off lots of people, even people that were suppose to be "mine", as he would go through them, to get to me.