What do you say, later, to explain the strange twist in your CV?

Do you know?

I had no idea. I didn’t even know what was happening at first.

Next, which is a very bad idea, I kept it from my clients for a long time, simply because I depended on them for my income. There were only a few left by that point.

Later, I found myself saying that the person who was constantly hacking into all my equipment and picking the locks was autistic and that this was merely a way for him to have someone in his life, to reassure people. I still don’t know if that was true or not. It sounded more reassuring.

I couldn’t really talk about it with anyone any longer after a while. One woman, who’d been there from the beginning and who’d been stalked herself, had to choose for her own family after a while. I understood that. She’d just had her first baby. She was in the same country that I was in, and I was often scared, really really scared because awful and scary things were happening in my life, were being done to me without me having any recourse.

I was a migrant in a town and country where I didn’t know anyone. I had nowhere to go, nobody to talk with and I was often scared, so so so scared and so powerless and desperate. I didn’t always manage to keep it all bottled up, though.

Another woman, someone with who I had cooperated several times as she too was self-employed, was bipolar. I needed to shield her, so I put a positive spin on the crazy stuff that was happening in my life. I don’t remember what I said. I think I said that they were a group of Buddhists who were trying to be helpful but had lost the plot, something like that.

I couldn’t keep up the facade. In order to shield her and also prevent that she would be contacted and turned into a flying monkey, I decided to cut off contact. I had to. I knew that I had done the right thing. She later confirmed that in a phone call.

My life got smashed to pieces. My network, too. There was nothing left. What was I going to say to people from then on?

I felt that the easiest thing would be to say that I had been with a violent or controlling partner who had not allowed me to work. I don’t like lying and I didn’t like the idea of needing to remember what I’d said.

So now, I usually say that I was the target of community abuse for a long time. I was. But it was not the whole story. It brings on pity and disgust but at least people are willing to believe it and it doesn’t freak them out one way or another. They can see that something about you is off and it concerns them. Now they have an explanation, so then they can be happy and dismiss you.

If you try to tell the whole story, you make things a lot worse for yourself. It doesn’t just bring on disbelief and/or disgust and/or fear. People will want to distance themselves from you as soon as possible.

If you’re being stalked, most people will abandon you. Your husband, many of your friends, most of your clients, several relatives.

What will you tell your clients?

Here’s a much better question:

Wouldn’t it be better to try to ensure that you will never have to tell them a thing?

I made a course that helps you do that.

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