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China Elevator Stories
Invisible Dangers: When Society Denies the Existence of Evil
Being made a victim doesn’t only happen through perpetrators, but also through the people victims turn to for help.
01/11/2025
Ruth Silbermayr
Author
Your neighbour, who sits in his home during the day stalking his ex’s every move, thinking about how he can kill her because she left him—when he greets you in the building, friendly and courteous—would you ever believe him to be an incel or a stalker?
Your brother-in-law, who doesn’t talk about being an incel or about his misogyny, and who treats women kindly and courteously when others are watching, but reads incel forums and treats women disrespectfully when others aren’t—as though they’re a disgrace—who isolates a woman from the family because he hates women, especially those who are independent and make their own choices—would you think he’s an incel?
I grew up believing in equality between men and women, never thinking I would one day wake up in Vienna and realize I was living in a world full of incels—particularly in this part of the world.
Some things aren’t visible to the naked eye, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Growing up, we thought Germany was free of Nazi ideology—at least most parts of it.
After watching documentaries about Germany, I realized that it certainly wasn’t as safe as it was made out to be, and that extremism was far more prevalent than many believed. This kind of extremism can come from different directions, including the far right. Not everyone involved in the far right looks like a stereotypical extremist—you might think of them as a lovely neighbour who does no harm, yet during the night this person is on far-right forums spreading ideas about killing all foreigners in Germany.
Are we supposed to run around paranoid, seeing an enemy or a radical in everyone? No. But we should look closely enough to discern a radical person from a non-radical one, and a malignant narcissist from someone who isn’t (if needed). I don’t think pointing out every malignant narcissist to people who aren’t truly interested in hearing it is helpful, but it’s something certain malignant narcissists do themselves.
Are we supposed to wear blinders and pretend stalkers and perpetrators don’t exist? No. I’ve had my experiences and authority outsourced to others—people spoke up instead of me, changed my story about being stalked, followed in Vienna, and narrowly escaping death twice when my ex hired someone online to set fire to buildings near where I lived. They made it sound as if I were paranoid, imagining things, insisting that what I experienced wasn’t truly my ex’s doing.
In short: people told me to my face that I wasn’t in danger—that someone was simply walking outside at the same time as me—even though there were at least ten instances where I noticed people following me. The pattern was always the same: one man would follow me for a while, and once I discovered him, he would be replaced by another. This way, the network, organization, or individual behind these stalkers couldn’t be easily discovered or reported to the police (not that the police usually believe a woman who says she’s being followed).
I was also followed by strangers who first flirted with me in cafés and later started stalking me when I wasn’t interested. I would simply leave to be left alone. I’m not interested in male attention; I’m interested in true connections—something that’s been impossible to form these past few years.
I’ve been far too busy with stalkers to truly live my life. Having one stalker is one thing, but having many is something entirely different.
When I ask others, most say they haven’t experienced the same. But I know people who’ve been stalked and had exes install spyware on their phones, showing up wherever they went. Often, these women didn’t even call it stalking—they either weren’t aware of the red flags or chose to see things through rose-colored glasses.
Some people have adopted a worldview known as toxic positivity. Toxic positivity means that unpleasant emotions or experiences are denied or dismissed, and everything is forced into a positive frame. If a person faces adversity, she’s told to maintain a positive mindset; if she’s being harassed, stalked, or threatened with death by an ex, she’s told not to view him so negatively, because others don’t believe he’s such a bad person.
For a victim, this mindset can be deadly. It can lead to her being killed because others don’t believe her, or to her reputation being ruined if people portray her as not credible when she speaks about a violent ex—as if she’s only saying these things for attention rather than because she’s facing life-threatening experiences.
To me, this is reality denial—taken to an extreme—and an escape from truth. Usually, people who act this way can’t face the fact that bad things happen and bad people exist. In my generation, such people are more common than ever, and women like me are harassed more than ever by incels suffering from erotomania—men who now have the tools (like spyware) and the protection of police who often defend perpetrators instead of victims.
Incels are everywhere—more common than most would imagine. Ask them if they’re incels, and they’ll deny it. The only way to truly grasp how many exist is to see how many have joined these forums—or to have been harassed by enough of them to know how widespread the problem is. Just like with stalkers, there are warning signs: a man who harasses, bullies, threatens, or intimidates women for no reason is already showing he could be an incel.
With some men, I can only guess they’re incels; with others, I’m certain—because they reveal what they try to hide: their true view of women, their contempt for those born female. It’s not hard to recognize once you’ve dealt with extreme incels daily, just as it becomes easier to identify a stalker once you’ve been stalked for years. You start noticing their speech patterns, their shared behaviors, and one thing that gives them away—their false blaming of innocent women, their refusal to see women as equal, and their perpetual victim mindset. They present themselves as victims even when they are the perpetrators—men who rape, grope, harass, and destroy women’s lives, driven by the toxic beliefs they’ve adopted in these groups.
Many of them have learned to act differently in public—pretending to be polite or enlightened—but in private or online, their true selves emerge. Some are performers, even public figures, who degrade and devalue women while claiming to seek love or relationships. They’re easy to identify through their behavior: constant blame, contempt for women, and denial of women’s rights.
I’ve also experienced that some people have no problem talking about their own suffering, but see someone else doing the same as a threat—as competition for attention or authority. Real authorities—women who’ve lived through violence and studied it to protect themselves—are often undermined, by both men and women. Some women don’t want others to be seen as more credible or experienced, and so they attack them. Often, we share our stories not to seek attention, but to seek help.
This is part of why victims of violence often can’t get help: society has become so competitive that when a woman receives attention because she’s been stalked, she’s seen as a threat by others—male or female—who are competing even when she isn’t. This constant competition is draining and numbing. Why compete when the goal should be solving problems? Perhaps because, for those watching from the outside, solving problems isn’t really the goal.
These days, I constantly feel that competition. It’s exhausting. Whenever I blog, people—both strangers and relatives—try to control me by telling me what I should or shouldn’t write about. But did they ask permission to comment? No. That’s rude, and it’s censorship to tell me indirectly not to blog about certain topics because someone might get hurt or for other manipulative reasons meant to control me.
Don’t want me to blog? Well, it’s my right to do so. Your need to stop me says more about your need to control or censor others—or to prevent uncomfortable truths from coming out.
People compete with me over who writes better, who’s the better teacher, who’s the better parent, who’s suffered more horrific experiences. (I often “win”—though for those who have suffered worse, my deepest condolences. I wouldn’t wish anyone to go through what I have.) Some who’ve experienced similar things either never talk about it—because it’s too shameful or traumatic—or are already dead! (Lol, actually, it’s not that funny, duh!)
Coercion over another person’s freedom is often visible, even when people try to hide it. When you tell the truth—about being stalked, harassed, or surrounded by incels—don’t expect empathy, but envy, jealousy, and cruelty instead. That’s the world we live in—at least, that’s what it’s like in Austria.
In China, people’s reactions depend more on the individual. I’ve found some peace here—people sometimes understand how hard life can be and don’t immediately shame victims. They keep the blame where it belongs—on the perpetrator. That’s how it should be. A victim shouldn’t have to constantly justify herself or be interrogated into repeatedly telling her story because others doubt her experience (this, by the way, is called gaslighting—portraying you as if you don’t know what happened to you, as though we’re dumb like that), or be made to feel responsible for others’ actions. Secondary and tertiary victimisation are far more common than most imagine. Maybe you live in a utopian country where people are kind and compassionate, but for me, Austria has become—or perhaps always was—a dystopian place for real victims of crime.
If you’ve gone through something similar, please speak up. We need more truth tellers—people who dare to say what’s really going on, to describe their experiences without sugarcoating evil, without erasing what makes others uncomfortable, without deleting pieces of reality. Having masses of incels may be an uncomfortable truth, but it’s still the truth. The same goes for the existence of stalkers. And if you don’t believe me when I say my ex tried to kill me—that’s your choice. But I know him better than you do, and I know what I’ve experienced.
Outsourcing my intelligence to someone else—so they can tell me what I’ve lived through? No, thank you. I’m intelligent in my own right, and I can see with my own eyes.
Have you ever encountered similar patterns?