by Jennifer (Jay) Yoder
“I’m going to destroy you, and I know exactly how.”
That’s the sentence that started a two-year run for me, one from which I’m still recovering, of a feral, terrified, and isolated existence. That’s the sentence that launched my former lover, partner, friend – the most trusted person in my life, into my predator, stalking me quite literally, as his prey.
Yes, his behavior leading up to it had slowly descended into violence in all the stereotypical ways that embody the characteristics of an abusive relationship. And yes, the day that I left him for good was marked by his murderous and explosive violence, from which I was extremely lucky to emerge alive.
But it was that sentence that launched me into an existence so filled with terror it nearly resulted in my suicide.
From that moment on, any millisecond of peace or relief I found was interrupted by another threat, another attack, another reminder I was not safe, would not be safe in the foreseeable future, and maybe would never be safe again. That my life was in danger and that no inch or sliver of my life was my own.
From that moment on, he brutally and excruciatingly destroyed me, and he knew exactly how. And I learned that to stay alive, I could not let my heart beat even one beat of hope.
I read Lauren’s piece on OSU, and I felt every word in my body. If you’ve never experienced it, stalking is incredibly hard to wrap your head around. I’m sharing my story here partly to add to the chorus of voices and experiences so you know what it is that we as a church are investigating when we investigate Luke Hartman’s stalking of her, described so eloquently in her piece.
It deeply informs how we as the Mennonite church go about that investigation.
The day after my former lover nearly killed me was filled with police and chaos and fleeing. I took what I needed and I hid, still trying to absorb the violence, that he truly intended me dead, that I was almost a statistic of the very kind that I had built my passion and identity trying to prevent. Did I mention I work to end sexualized and relationship violence? My stalker would use this, the very heart of me, for his most intimate destruction.
I took a moment to breathe in my hiding place, with a friend whose home my stalker had never visited.
My mistake was to hope for safety. He found me and moved in next door.
Now not only was I terrified, my friends were scared for their lives and their pets’ lives. Our friendship did not withstand that pressure. I had brought violence to their home, their sanctuary.
I hid again, carefully, quietly, and did not disclose my new address to anyone, not even my closest friends in the city. I didn’t change my address with the post office, not on my voter registration, not on my driver’s license, not with my employer or credit card. I didn’t put my name on the utilities. “Trust no one,” I whispered to myself, “hope for nothing.”
I filed for a protection order, and found some support at a local organization that does advocacy work to end, among other things, relationship violence. I received victims of crime funding for a relationship violence attorney. We attended court date after court date. He procured a defense attorney and filed extension after extension.
Finally, we were to have the hearing for the protection order. I showed up with my advocate and attorney and a few trusted witnesses.
My mistake was to hope the legal system would recognize abuse, that my integrity and truth-telling would speak for itself.
My mistake was to hope that those who mattered and those who knew me deeply and well would recognize what was true.
Many of my friends and my dearest colleagues believed him. What had I ever done or showed them that made them think I was capable of that kind of violence? I reeled from the blow to how I saw myself, who I thought I was, who I thought my friends and colleagues were. “He said it,” I whispered to myself, “He told me – he knows exactly how to destroy me.”
One of the few places I found solace was occasionally singing and performing at a local bar. It was an outlet for my emotions, a chance for community, an escape from the terror.
My mistake was to hope for a space that was mine.
In the protection order hearing, he revealed he had been hired to work at the queer bar and was seeking to ban me from it. I never returned there again.
When I had a job that required me to travel a lot, I put my treasured camping gear in storage. Camping gear from my transformative summer at the social justice camp in Germany awaited my return alongside the gear I collected year by year to enhance my annual pilgrimage to week-long queer and feminist spiritual renewal in the woods with my beautiful communities.
My mistake was to hope that my beloved camping and its gear were mine to cherish.
He had my access to my storage unit revoked and removed my credit card from making payments. My unit was auctioned off. “Hope for nothing,” I whispered again, “and you won’t feel the pain.”
I occasionally went out to restaurants for some distraction with the friends who hadn’t been recruited to believe that I was a sexual abuser. For a minute, I could hear about others’ lives and stories: funny, sad, exciting. I could feel “normal,” for a moment.
My mistake was trusting anyone – my friends or community members in the restaurants around me.
Without fail, he would show up where I was, and I wouldn’t know if it was the friend I was meeting or a random customer nearby who had alerted him. “Trust no one,” I reminded myself, “hope for nothing,” and a new realization, “never leave the house.”
Work and home were my only two spaces now, my only friends my attorney and advocate, and staying alive my only goal.
The only peace I had anymore was knowing there was nothing else he could take from me. He had taken my friends, my spaces, my camping, my singing, every space but work and home.
My mistake was in hoping there would ever be an end to his obsessive destruction.
One day when I returned home from work, there was a letter in my mailbox with my name on it. No one had my address. My pulse quickened. I ripped it open. It was a lawsuit threat letter. He had put together a list of every Chipotle burrito and Five Guys burger he had ever purchased for me, and he wanted his money back.
The lawsuit threat didn’t even register. He knew where I lived.
He knew where I lived. Was he watching me right now? Had he been following me? For how long?
The world blurred, and my heart beat only fear, only terror, only the knowledge that I would never be safe, that I would always feel like this.
I forwarded it to my attorney and asked how could he know? How could he know?
She called me. “I have brought your case to my colleagues,” she told me. “We all agree. He is showing an extremely high level of obsession. Statistically, in a case like yours, you are at a very high lethality risk.”
It took a moment for the words to register.
“I’m going to die,” I realized. “She’s saying I’m going to die.”
On the phone, my lawyer was still talking, saying something about safety plans and leaving the city.
“I’m going to die,” I thought.
Numb, I hung up the phone.
Hopeless, I collapsed on my floor, face pressed to the carpet, finally simply accepting the inevitable.
“I’m going to die.”
I crawled to the bathroom. I found every pill I had and sat back down onto the floor. I googled lethal doses.
“If I’m going to die,” I thought, “it will be on my terms.”
I crawled back to the soft carpet and laid still, pills clutched in my hands.
Before I took the dose, I called a suicide hotline. They talked me through surviving the night, and I wish I could tell you it turned everything around and the rest of the story was a hopeful one.
But hope would be a mistake. Do not let your heart beat hope. You will be caught off guard by the next blow. You must be prepared. You must accept that it will never end.
I looked for a job in another town. A domestic violence shelter called me back. I interviewed by phone. I interviewed in person. In the interview, they promised me the job.
My mistake was to hope I could escape, to hope I could continue my career.
Days stretched by with no contact. I called, and they did not answer. I e-mailed, and nothing. Then a form rejection letter arrived in my inbox. Through the few anti-violence professional contacts I had left, I discovered my stalker’s allegations had been passed on to my potential employer.
This is my story. And it continued like this until I was able to pack up and leave town. There were more threat letters. I couldn’t go anywhere without him showing up. If I managed to make a new friend, someone would approach them in the most surprising places: a hallway at work, in the coffee shop, on OkCupid, and tell them I was dangerous. I was a predator.
I spent every waking moment making mental escape plans from any room I was in. I thought through what I would say to keep him from killing everyone so that he would only kill me. I imagined every word, every glance, the tone I would take – would I beg or cajole? I imagined the bullet ripping through me – I knew it would be a bullet. He was a former Marine and he’d attempted suicide by firearm once in his life.
I banished hope and thought only of preparedness. I spent more than my rent on learning defensive violence and disarming techniques.
Were you still hoping for a transformative ending? That’s not how stalking works. The impacts on the psyche are lasting. Surviving requires hopelessness and preparedness.
If we’re going to investigate it, as MC USA, it has to be in a process directed by survivors and their advocates and experts. There is no other way forward to a future where hope becomes an option.