Chthonic Wildlife Ramblings

While I'm hopeful my stalking problem may finally be coming to an end, it's perhaps appropriate to give a perspective on this. It's now February 2012. I first became aware of my stalking problem in mid-2010.

Here's a few things about stalking you may or may not know

1. Men can get stalked too. It's not as common, but it does happen. Stalking is probably an under-reported crime and it's plausible men under-report more often. Men are more likely to have their complaints dismissed by authorities or face more suspicion that they encouraged this behaviour.

2. There are gender differences. Woman are more likely to be violently assaulted by a male stalker, men are less likely to be assaulted by a female stalker. On the other hand, law enforcement agencies are less likely to intervene against female stalkers. If you want to get a complaint registered to your local police, you may have to be persistent. There are no guarantees your first contact will take it seriously. (I'd recommend taking someone in with you to reinforce the seriousness of the situation).

3. Stalking has psychological costs . Despite what people may think, there is no evidence that the psychological harm to a man from a stalker is different or less than a woman. It is seriously going to screw you up. Increased anxiety, lack of trust, withdrawal from social events, insomnia etc are all part of that package. At its height I was compulsively checking the web almost continuously just so I would know what the stalker was up to. Now, there are some things about being stalked that are almost comedic in its absurdity. But there are other things which are very disturbing and very distressing.

Just a reminder- this is what about 24 hours of blogging from the stalker looked like. I suspect most of you could not read to the end of this:
The Blogging
And this is what a mere 48 hours of emails looks like:
The Emails

Multiply that over nearly every day of every week of every month for nearly a year and a half and you get some idea the scope of the barrage.

4. Ignoring it won't make it go away . A lot of advice I got was to simply block and ignore it. This works against people with an agenda who have decided for whatever reason, to be pissed off at you. It doesn't work against a stalker. A proper stalker only stops if they are arrested, if they finally get the mental health help they need or they're dead. That's it. A little thing like you trying to ignore them doesn't stop them.

When my stalker decided to pretend to be a lawyer and make official complaints to both Massey and the Minisyry of Education with a litany of odious accusations of professional misconduct, ignoring her wasn't viable. I couldn't put my hands over my ears, hum loudly, and tell my employer that I was going to ignore this as my response.

5. Stalking isn't caused by lax internet security . I have somewhat remarkably, kept the identity of my direct family off the web. Throughout this whole episode, my stalker never learned the actual names and details of my wife and family. Someone who is stalked doesn't invite this. It's an irrational connection the stalker makes, largely on details they make up. Dawn convinced herself that I was a divorced, cryptic Christian who had an intense, passionate desire for a relationship with her. That's got no resemblance to reality.

6. Being stalked isn't flattering . It's not based on who you are, it's based on a fiction that the stalker has created and seeks to control. It's in fact humiliating and distressing to be reduced to a masturbatory aid to some deranged woman you've never met and are disgusted by.

This bird is a bit of a survivor. Count the legs

This shot is of the heron springing into flight at Okarito.


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We had a good family expedition over the Xmas-New year period, getting as far south as Fox Glacier. Along the way I took a lot of photos and generally stayed away from anything to do with computers (Hence the lack of blog updates)

Well, the delight of moving 1200 photos from my memory cards to PC has been accomplished, and the slower process of processing and editing photos has begun.

I thought I'd begin with pair of juvenile kotuku (white herons) at their nesting site in Okarito. Okarito lagoon is the only location in New Zealand where this species breeds.


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Hope you enjoy