The problem with ‘unfriending’

Having a stalker can be a living nightmare: preying on your mind every waking minute, but hard to prove to the police. And social media, where everything and everyone is just a click away, may be making things worse. Most Facebook users will have felt the urge to browse an ex’s photographs or look up an attractive acquaintance. Taken to extremes, however, this kind of behaviour can have similarities with stalking.

While celebrities Noel Edmonds and Alex Jones were in the news this month after suffering at the hands of stalkers, the vast majority of similar cases do not attract any media attention. Even the police can be oblivious. Out of the spotlight, thousands of ordinary people experience what has been described as a form of psychological rape.

Take the case of Frank Mendoza, who booby trapped his ex-girlfriend’s car with acid bottle bombs designed to explode when she turned the ignition. His relationship with her began in 2008 in Florida, but rapidly became abusive. He once broke into her apartment and covered her bed in newspaper while she slept, then threatened to burn her alive unless she agreed to resume their relationship. When the victim fled to Connecticut, he began a campaign of harassing and threatening phone calls to her and anyone who knew her.

Mendoza then followed her across America and planted bottles of hydrochloric acid in her car. But when the victim later approached her car, she detected signs that it had been tampered with. Mendoza was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2014.

The reasoning in some stalker’s minds appears to be: if I can’t have you, then no one else can. Rejection leads to narcissistic rage when a need for control reveals a fragile ego.

Possessive desire means the other person becomes an object to be owned and controlled. Adolescent love starts out possessively, yet this can also reflect a quasi-religious mindset which views women as chattel. But men are stalked, too, and the incidence of various forms of obsessive love might be increasing.

It may be that modern social media encourages fixation. Before the internet, when you broke up with someone, it was difficult to “follow” them or uncover what they were then up to. Facebook ensures that it’s tough to avoid being confronted with how quickly your ex-partner is getting on with their life. Many may find this painful or provocative.

In an attempt to understand fixation in the internet age, we have undertaken the first prevalence study of online stalking in Britain. We surveyed 4,000 people to ascertain the answer to, among other questions, whether cyber-stalking is a new phenomenon or simply another tool in the stalker’s armoury. The disturbing results will be released in collaboration with anti-stalking charity the Suzy Lamplugh Trust during National Stalking Awareness Week in April.

The chief constable of Durham has spoken out about forces being swamped by complaints of online harassment through social media which are putting a strain on their resources. There is a pervasive sense of uncertainty about how to respond to what is depicted as a “new” problem.

Yet at the heart of any doomed fixation has always been a failure to grasp that romance requires us to ignite desire in our lovers, rather than just seeing them as a vehicle for our own longing. Thanks to the internet, however, perhaps passion means learning to let go as well as adore.

Dr Raj Persaud is a psychiatrist in private practice in Harley Street. His novel Can’t Get You Out of My Head is due out in April. Proceeds will be donated to the Suzy Lamplugh Trust. Dr David James is co-founder of the UK National Stalking Clinic