One of the incidents that took me away from this blog last year was my very first stalker. While the incident in question was brief and quickly resolved, the stress and trauma lingered. Before I begin, I would like to clarify that this is for illustrative purposes only and is based solely on one young woman’s experience with a creepy neighbor leaving a weird note on her car. This is absolutely not meant to judge anyone else’s reaction to a similar situation. We all do what we must do you feel safe. This is also not meant as an invitation for advice or consolation. I have already received plenty. Anymore, especially from strangers on the Internet, would be unwelcome and extremely overwhelming.

The cost in time:

• One hour spent frantically calling your parents asking what they would do. A note on your car is just over the line enough that you are spiraling into terrifying and dangerous possibilities. You can hear the fear in their voices too. They are 1200 miles away and cannot protect you as they feel compelled to do.
• One night spent quietly alone in your apartment not lost but exchanged for a night of getting drunk with the friends who were kind enough to let you stay over on such short notice.
• One morning lost to the hangover.
• One hour of working on your ongoing issues in therapy lost to this new and terrifying situation. And asking a mental health professional how to deal with a crazy person (crazy person is not the word you use. In therapy you say “potentially dangerous” and “unstable”)
• One hour of your afternoon of your Saturday afternoon lost to filing the police report. Crying in the police station because you did not expect the officer to be so understanding.
• Two hours on a weekday evening pricing out doorbell cameras home alarm systems and privacy film for the windows.
• Half an hour installing doorbell cam
• Two hours installing alarm system
• Four hours installing window films on all windows

Monetary cost

• $200 doorbell cameras for front and back doors
• $250 (on a 30% off promotion) for home security system
• $30 a month optional monitoring for security system. Who knows how many months you will feel this is necessary?
• $150 for privacy window film. Most important for windows the directly face your neighbor’s apartment. You want nice ones that you will enjoy looking at. You don’t want your house to feel like a prison. You’ve done nothing wrong, after all.

So there you have it. Six hundred dollars up-front and an ongoing cost of $30 a month and over 24 hours of my precious time lost to some piece of shit who at best thinks he is entitled to my attention and at worst has taken the first step down a path to putting me in physical danger.

I have not had any issues with my neighbor since the incident, but I think it is important to talk about these kinds of things so that people know they are not alone and should never be made to feel unsafe.

-Erica