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China Elevator Stories
Understanding Stalkers and Their Behavior
I have never met a stalker who wasn’t a narcissist, but dealing with a stalker is still different from dealing with a narcissist who isn’t a stalker.
01/03/2025
Ruth Silbermayr
Author
Stalkers are individuals who disregard personal boundaries and invade another person’s privacy. While they may remain secretive about their own lives, they expect unrestricted access to yours, inserting themselves into your relationships and personal affairs without consent.
They often comment on your relationships and actions, despite having no legitimate place in your life. At the same time, they withhold information about themselves, maintaining secrecy while demanding openness from you.
A narcissistic stalker, in particular, may constantly monitor you, criticize your every move, and attempt to control your actions. However, they will not provide any insight into their own life or demonstrate how they handle things themselves. Usually, this is because they don’t handle things very well or are incompetent, but they won’t allow another person to see this.
Extreme behaviors of a mentally ill stalker
A stalker with severe mental illness may escalate their behavior to extreme levels. Some key warning signs include:
Identity theft: They may try to impersonate you, interfere in your projects, and disrupt your ability to complete tasks by injecting negativity and distraction.
Infiltration and control: They force their way into your life, sabotaging what is important to you, including your relationships and goals.
Smear campaigns: They may spread falsehoods about you and those close to you, attempting to isolate you socially, so that you’ll either spend time only with them or that you won’t be able to tell those who used to be close to you about the stalking and the sick behavior.
Obsessive monitoring: They insist on constant attention, refuse to respect your space, and react negatively when you set boundaries. They may use spyware to monitor every conversation you have, and may even watch your private video calls.
Manipulation and emotional blackmail: They attempt to coerce you into compliance, using guilt, intimidation, or false narratives to keep you engaged with them.
If you’re dealing with an extreme stalker, be aware that they may severely violate your boundaries and, in some cases, even pose a life-threatening risk—such as threatening to kill you when you reject them and following through with actions that confirm their intent—particularly if they are a malignant narcissist.
They may try to learn what is important to you and, when you focus on those things, sabotage them, take them away from you, or otherwise attempt to destroy you or infringe on your freedom. You may soon feel trapped, as if locked in a cellar with someone like Fritzl, though the stalker will likely never admit to being as sick as that individual (even if they are—I have encountered some of the most mentally deranged people imaginable). This behavior can involve preventing you from maintaining relationships, launching smear campaigns against you and those close to you, and ultimately embedding themselves in your life, refusing to leave you alone, seeking constant access to you, and denying you your rights and your freedom. If you’re dealing with a mentally unstable individual, this situation could persist for years, as I have personally experienced.
They may not be exceptional themselves, but if you call out their lack of professionalism, competence, or other deranged behavior, they will blame you for being rude and disrespectful, even though you simply pointed out their rude and disrespectful actions. With a narcissist, know that you have the right to speak openly about their horrendous behavior—and that you should, so people aren’t kept in the dark. This is why many people get into relationships with narcissists in the first place: they don’t understand the level of evil that exists, and many women don’t talk about the horrific things they’ve experienced at the hands of cruel, conscienceless, sadistic men.
He won’t respect your privacy and may try to force you to approve of his misogynistic behavior. If you refuse to allow an incel into your life, he will accuse you of overreacting and insist that you don’t have the right to cut contact with him. He may even claim that you lack good social skills if you go no-contact, calling you a narcissist who is giving him the silent treatment or shaming you for lacking self-confidence because you don’t constantly talk loudly.
He won’t allow you to take a break to simply be, enjoy life, stay present in the moment, and relax—the way introverts naturally do—without provoking others by being loud and obnoxious. He may try to convince you that you’re not as great as he is, projecting his own insecurities onto you by claiming that you need him—when, in reality, it’s his need to stalk you. He may place himself on a pedestal, expecting unwavering love, loyalty, and appreciation—especially from you—even though he’s a complete stranger and a creep you would never willingly allow into your life.
I am supposed to be grateful when a stalker forces his way into my life, pretends to be my boyfriend (despite being incapable of forming real relationships), steals everything from me, and then reports me to the police. Even after that, he refuses to leave me alone. Reporting someone to the police when you are the actual stalker is an extreme betrayal and demonstrates just how disturbed they are—it is not an act of kindness.
He may also believe that the relationship between you and him (which, in your eyes, is nonexistent) is extremely close and real—like that of a couple or close friends—while simultaneously putting you down, criticizing everything you do, degrading you, or otherwise making it clear that he doesn’t understand you at all. In reality, the closeness he imagines is neither appropriate nor real, largely because he is incapable of true intimacy or connection. The relationship he believes he has with you is also imaginary. He may be living in a fantasy relationship with you in his head and then try to force you into the role of “his girlfriend,” even though he is incapable of having a functioning relationship with anyone due to his deranged social behavior (many stalkers lack good social skills, particularly those who are sociopaths).
If you assert your rights, they will deny them entirely. They will refuse to share any details about their own life while expecting you to divulge every private and intimate aspect of yours.
If you are dealing with a truly unhinged individual, they may resort to intimidation and coercion, forcing you to devote all your time and attention to them. They will isolate you from your own life and relationships, essentially trapping you in a twisted existence with them, making you feel insane due to their own sickness.
If they are particularly deceitful, they may pressure you into becoming as shallow and superficial as they are. Should you reject this and insist that you don’t want such a person in your life, they may resort to emotional blackmail until you submit.
Typically, cutting off all contact is the best solution when dealing with a stalker. However, if they are particularly persistent, they may have embedded themselves into every aspect of your life and interests. They may even have studied narcissism while you did, using that knowledge against you. If you go no-contact—which is essential when dealing with someone mentally unstable who has forced you into a caretaker role—they will accuse you of giving them the silent treatment, insisting that you are selfish and unhealthy for refusing to communicate. They will try to convince you that constant interaction with them is necessary to prove your self-confidence.
When dealing with such an unstable individual, everything becomes distorted—what is up becomes down, and what is down becomes up.
He’ll also try to force you into a “direct” relationship with people in his life, requesting closeness from you to these people—such as constantly talking about his dad, which I have no interest in. But thanks for elevating your father to god-like status, as if I now need to worship him. And he won’t stop bringing up his dad. That relationship he keeps praising? Well, people are capable of evaluating relationships critically, and no, I don’t need to become “naïve” or “dumb” just because you are.
Then, of course, he expects me to acknowledge how great his dad is for being an entrepreneur. Ha! What kind of kindergarten logic is that? Why would I want to be in a relationship with a stalker’s father, let alone take care of him emotionally from afar? This type of behavior is typically referred to as emotional incest. As an adult, you are responsible for acting like one—not as a child who is completely dependent on and enmeshed with his father, unable to form his own identity, particularly, if you are already in your thirties.
So, his dad is successful? Well, congrats! Am I supposed to be jealous? (Just kidding—why would I even care?). He tried to make me ‘love his dad,’ and when I declined, saying that was inappropriate and that he needed to be more independent from his dad, he pointed out that I don’t know how to have healthy relationships. Oh no, I definitely have enough experience with emotional incest and parent-enmeshed sons to recognize what healthy behavior towards a parent looks like—and what it doesn’t.
A stalker, when mentally ill, may want to get close to you through various means, without being able to form real relationships with women. These attempts at closeness, however, do not lead to genuine connections, such as in a real romantic relationship.
Some of these may include:
- Emotionally: A stalker may attempt to manipulate you emotionally by discussing topics or people in ways that pressure you to feel the same emotions he’s pretending he has. This can include speaking about you inappropriately, creating a false narrative where he believes his stalking constitutes a relationship with you. He may refuse to accept your boundaries, punish you for asserting them, and ignore your clear statements that you do not know him or want him in your life.
- Physically: A stalker might try to get physically close to you, touch you when you’ve clearly communicated that you want to be left alone, or even touch you inappropriately despite your repeated refusals. This may involve actions like trying to touch you when you’ve explicitly said “no”, trying to kiss you when you have declined his advances, or trying to have sex with you without consent.
- Sexually: A stalker may develop a sexual obsession, imagining scenarios where he has sex with you or even fantasizing about raping you. Many stalkers form romantic or sexual obsessions with their victims, often seeing themselves in a relationship with you that does not exist. This may involve constant discussions about sex, blaming you for not being sexually promiscuous (having sex with him), or trying to learn about your sexual history and preferences, including attempting to see you naked.
- Psychologically: A stalker may try to manipulate your thoughts, using psychological abuse and gaslighting techniques. He might try to force you into “fake” closeness (because real closeness is not possible with such a person), then control or brainwash you by convincing you that you want to spend time with him or that your own thoughts and opinions are wrong. He may try to isolate you from your own beliefs, asserting that your opinions should align with his, and deny you the right to have a critical opinion about him.
Not talking is healthy—especially for introverts. People have become so ignorant, at least those I have encountered in recent years. Many of them were malignant narcissists who were not particularly intelligent yet convinced that they were the smartest men alive!
Furthermore, the belief that a woman is not allowed to decline contact with a man (a stalker, no less), or constantly listen to him, is so widespread—at least in Austria—that I’ve found myself in more abusive situations than I can count on both hands.
Have you ever dealt with a stalker who drew you into unhealthy dynamics?
On a side note:
I had disabled comments for the past few years due to stalking. I’ve now reactivated them on all posts, so feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of the page. Please stay polite and respectful in your comments, or I will have to delete them!