The Impact of Stalking

Living with stalking can be extremely frightening and can have a profound impact on a woman’s life. In common with other forms of male violence, the main aim of the stalker is to have, or to maintain power and control over the woman and perhaps her children, family and friends.

A woman who is being stalked may feel alone or isolated. If the stalker is not violent or threatening, she may have been told that she is over-reacting or even that she should be flattered with the attention.
But it is not uncommon for a woman who is being stalked to feel anxious, depressed, hypersensitive, to be afraid to go out, afraid to stay at home, afraid to answer the telephone or afraid of what the post may bring. And these feelings can remain even after the stalking behaviour stops because the woman may feel that she cannot be sure it will not start up again.

Often women’s children or other family members will be threatened or targeted and many women have chosen to move house, often to another area of the country, to escape the stalker. It’s important to recognise that stalking has a similar impact on women to other forms of male violence. This includes:

• Anxiety, nervousness and panic attacks
• Depression
• Resorting to medication for the psychological effects of the stalking
• Inability to sleep
• Fear/terror
• Eating disorders
• Agoraphobia 
• Nightmares
• Self harming behaviour
• Suicide ideation, suicide attempts or suicide
• Inability to trust 
• Deterioration in physical health due to physical or sexual assaults
• Post traumatic stress disorder

Sleeplessness/nightmares

Some of the physical reactions experienced by women can include sleeplessness or nightmares with women fearing sleep or being unable to sleep in their home alone.

What can I do?

You may have had to resort to medication to allow you to get some sleep, but if not you can try some relaxation or breathing exercises before going to bed. If you have a Stress Centre in your area you can speak to them about ways to help with sleeplessness.

If you are fearful of being disturbed by late night telephone calls you can unplug your phone or let an answering machine pick up any calls.

You can also ask a friend or family member to be available if you need to call her/him in the middle of the night for support.

Eating Disorders

For some women, control over their eating can be a way of coping with and expressing their emotions. Not eating, bingeing and purging can be used by women to ‘stuff down’ the pain they are feeling and to numb their emotions. Many women tell us they feel calm after purging.

The binge/purge cycle may serve a protective purpose; in particular, it seems to reduce the intensity of intolerable emotional stress, and provides an outlet for:

• expression of anger
• ensuring predictability 
• relieving stress and tension 
• establishing control 
• developing a sense of personal space 
• an opportunity to refocus

What can I do?

Often women who have eating disorders feel ashamed but it is a very common way of coping with the stress of abuse. Talking to a support agency can help, but it’s also important to recognise that your body is coping in the best way it can.

Using other methods of stress relief may help and if you have a Stress Centre in your area they may be able to offer advice. Also ‘beat’ (formerly the Eating Disorder Association UK) can offer advice and support. Their contact details can be found at the back of this booklet.

Self Injury

Firstly, self injury is not attention seeking. It is a way of coping with emotional pain: it’s a release when the pain becomes too much to bear.

Women who self injure are not insane or dangerous; they are just trying to cope with the pain in their lives without hurting anyone else. It’s important to recognise that women who are self injuring need to have space to talk about their experiences, need to be believed and most importantly, need to be free of judgment. 

What can I do?

You can talk to a specialist organisation – to Rape Crisis or to Bristol Crisis Centre for Women who have extensive knowledge about self harm and who have a helpline that covers the UK.
You can read about it - there are books that offer support and advice to women who self harm and these can be obtained from bookshops or can be borrowed from the Rape Crisis Centre library.
There are also a number of ways to keep yourself as safe as you can when you are self injuring:

• Use clean blades if you are cutting and never share with anyone else. 
• Have a well stocked first aid box where you can get at it easily.
• If your wounds become infected, get to your doctor as soon as you can.
• If you’ve cut too deeply or cut a vein or artery by mistake, get help immediately.
• If you have burned yourself, dress the burn as quickly as you can. If it’s a large burn, get medical help as quickly as you can. Put the burn in cold water as soon as possible.
  

Panic Attacks

Panic attacks are sudden, unexpected anxiety attacks that can include sweating, tightening of the chest, shortness of breath, numbness, tingling of the hands and feet or needing to go to the toilet, your mouth may dry up and you may jump at even the slightest noise.

When you first experience a panic attack you may be confused, not sure of what is happening to your body and frightened that you can’t control it. But panic attacks are another way your body has of coping with your experiences.  If your body feels threatened, it responds with the ‘fight or flight’ response and a panic attack is an exaggerated form of this.

What can I do?

Although panic attacks are your body’s way of coping with the stalking, there are some substances that can make it worse. These include:

• Alcohol, nicotine and caffeine and some drugs can make panic attacks worse. Also some prescription drugs can bring the attack on more severely. Withdrawal from some sedatives can have the same effect.
• Your blood sugar levels being too high – this can be caused by junk food, overeating or too much fasting.
• Hyperventilating caused by stress can make a panic attack worse.
• There are some ways to help with the effects of a panic attack.
• Breathe. When you are having a panic attack you stop breathing normally and this can cause a pounding in your head, dizziness, shaking, sweating, and feeling faint. If you can start breathing normally the feelings of panic will lessen.
• Take time to recover. It will take a while for you to feel yourself again so give yourself permission to take some time to get back to your normal activities.
• Get some support. If you have a friend, family member or a support worker who knows about your panic attacks, you can choose to talk about your feelings anytime you need to.
• Stamp your feet or clap your hands loudly.