Fighting the nightmare: my experience with and advice for dealing with a cyber-stalker

It's 6:30 am, I wake up to the alarm and adjust to the daylight breaking through my window. I head downstairs and turn on the tv grabbing some coffee and making my son's lunch for the day and heading to the couch where I grab my tablet. My heart races as I turn on the screen and am greeted with 20+ attempts to gain access to my

Twitter account, my passwords being attempted to be reset for my email and a new video or post about myself, and let's not forget the random emails talking trash.

It's noon, the same thing repeats.

It's 4 pm, the same thing again. it's 9....12... and so on until bed.

My name is Lilliana Spellman, and I WAS the victim of cyberstalking.

in the months I spent being tortured online I have lost a lot of weight from not eating, I stopped going out, stopped doing my makeup, stopped talking to a lot of people.

I've cried more times than I can count, skipped all of my usual watch along, tried to distance myself from people who I feel could be affected.

I have new scars to add to old, bald spots and black rings under my eyes from stress.

I've lost ALOT of sleep. my birthday was spent being harassed and much much more.

I felt so alone, hopeless.

all I ever wanted was some friends, to write about nifty stuff and watch cool things with weird people.

instead, I got an endless nightmare.

it began months ago with something as small as disagreeing with an offensive opinion and blocking the person. from there it became daily occurrences of attempted hacking, fake profiles of myself on various platforms, my photos being stolen and used, my likeness and name being used in slanderous posts and videos, the person

even went so far as to make a 2-hour video attempting to mock me. I reached out to friends, family, and more, and 9 out of 10 times I was told to block them and move on

with my life, which I tried, I blocked the profiles, I ignored the emails and I thought I had taken steps in the right direction and as you will see I was half right. the harassment

continued through youtube and other platforms as well as through people who I thought had been good friends. a daily occurrence that only a few were privy to the full

details of as it started to feel dangerous and when I found out they had been doing the same to others for years it felt hopeless. it felt never-ending and the more I asked for help the fewer

people replied. it took me a long time to realize that calling them out, talking about them, was EXACTLY what they wanted and I was feeding them with my pain and struggle. I decided it needed to end and I put everything into not letting this shadow hang over me anymore. I think and I plan and I decide and I do and now...

It's been three weeks since I enacted my plan...

It's 6:30 am, I wake up, get my coffee, make my son's lunch and turn on my tablet.

I smile and play a game. that's all.

and I want everyone reading this who is suffering from a cyberbully or stalker to take solace that you can too.

Step one:

Something important that I have learned is to walk away from a bully, like nancy at the end of a nightmare on elm street, but you have to keep walking or you'll get

sucked through a door like nancy's mom. no one wants to be eaten by a door, so walk and keep walking. Block EVERY single contact point they have to you and never look

back. in my case I had videos being made about me, I would see them and get sad that someone was doing this AGAIN but you can block channels on youtube so you don't

see them anymore. one thing to remember is that the person doing this usually has little to no actual interaction on their posts about you and the videos likely get in the

The 20s or a bit higher, those numbers FEEL super high to you at the time but in the scope of things 30 people is no one. no one cares about what they are saying, no one cares

about the hate they spew, they count on the fact that YOU do though so blocking absolutely everything and never again checking is a major step towards gaining the peace

you need. It's very tempting to check in and see what they are saying about you or what horrible thing they have been trying to do to you but it's very important that you completely block yourself from everything they are involved in. don't get eaten by the door.

Step two: Engage yourself outside of the internet. sure you have a blast with your mutantfam, horrorfam, Troma freaks, etc on Twitter and Instagram, and hell yeah it's

great to check out some of the cool stuff people do over on youtube but after what you've been going through making sure you take time away, even just a few hours, is a good thing. it grounds you and reminds you that there are things outside of the net. maybe your like me and you don't get out often or don't keep a lot of IRL friends and the internet is your escape from that, but by getting off and cleaning up, having a meal you wouldn't normally make, grabbing a coloring book or reading, etc you will eliminate that need to check your phone every so often which in turn lessens your thoughts of what your stalker might be saying about you, etc. Blocking and walking is a

great start but remember, you need to KEEP walking to avoid that trap door, and distancing yourself from the tool they use to harass you is a part of that. at first, you'll

be bored and kind of feel like maybe they won but when you realize your time is your own and you can watch movies, sleep, eat, play a game, read, write, draw, whatever you want then you'll realize what they give up to do this to you and it feels better.

Step three: Stop talking about it. this is VERY important to success in this endeavor as all you are doing is feeding your bully and slowly pushing away friends.

You are going through something very stressful and sometimes scary as well as very hidden, as often as you will feel that people don't care that is not the case.

More often than not I've found that people don't want to get involved out of fear of being attacked as well BUT an important part of it as well is that you likely have been

talking about it a lot. maybe attempting to defend yourself, maybe calling out your harasser but ALOT is still a lot. it is not that they are sick of you or the problem it's just that

after so long sometimes people have no idea how to help anymore so they kind of turn away from the problem, but they aren't turning away from you. the next time you

feel like that reach out to a friend and just have a chat about anything but your harasser and I'm sure you'll see that they were just stressed, the way you are. people care

but people get confused. I know this step is a lot smaller than the others but it honestly is something really simple that I majorly missed when I was going through it myself.

Step Four: Give it time. do not expect to feel better right away, don't expect it to even feel like its working right away, it took about 2 weeks before it wasn't a

daily struggle to follow my steps but the other day someone asked me about the situation and I realized I had forgotten it happened. it was a moment I cherish and I

want to share so badly with all of you struggling as well. so please hang in there, I know you'll wake up and still have the same feelings, I know you'll be tempted to ask someone else to check for you, etc but don't make excuses, follow the steps and have faith in yourself and your ability to beat this monster the way you've seen so many

final girls and guys do themselves. this is your movie, your story and you can choose how each act ends. Shoot Michael Myers, Burn Freddy, chop up Chucky. I know you can

do it.

It's been almost a month and although I feel infinitely better I still have lingering problems, I still have trust issues and self-esteem issues but it's getting better each day that I don't have to wake up in fear of a new day of hell. I know what it's like to wake up every day afraid of your phone. scared to talk to friends and worried about posting anything, to hold yourself in and back because of someone

else's greedy need to inflate itself with hatred but I PROMISE you it can get better, it may take a lot of work and it may not feel good at first but it will work out in the

end.

And to the people who know someone going through this, be patient. your friend needs you, they don't need you to fight for them or to take a bullet, they just need YOU.

remember that when they are rambling for the thousandth time about the newest terrible thing the asshole stalking them did. it might be easiest to explain your feelings

as well so that they don't feel ignored or abandoned. you'd be surprised how well "that's fucked up and I'm super sorry that happened but I literally have no clue how to deal with it, want to talk about (INSERT TOPIC) instead to get your mind off it" can help. these folk is suffering most of the time in private and if they are reaching out then

the situation is at a point where emotions are high, helping them understand WHY blocking is important and different ways to fully block would be much more helpful then

just saying "why don't you just block them" and feels less like an attack.

At the end of the day, the internet is a cool and sucky place filled with cool and sucky people and we all have the right to enjoy that, I hope that my story and tips can help

you do just that. Remember, you are NOT alone, you GOT this shit and it WILL get better. all it takes is a little bit of effort and willpower and a whole lotta good movies ;)

It's 10 am, I'm writing this, watching a movie and smiling thinking this may help someone else.

-Lily Spellman