Fighting the past

You leave the grocery store, do you know what's happening and who's around you? You go for a walk, do you know who drives by? You go to your job, do you know who is watching you?

Life is easy to be focused on what you are doing but do you really pay attention to your surroundings? It's easy to be lost in your own world.

Now let's think about this...

You walk out of the grocery store and reach for your car door, which you have already unlocked with your keyless entry and a hand jets past you and grabs your door handle.

You receive phone calls from a guy you worked with and he doesn't seem to take the hint not to call anymore and when your husband calls him and tells him not to call it only pisses him off and makes him more persistent.

You pick up the local paper to find an article that explains a that a child has received an award and it mentions that the man that won't leave you alone and you, yes, YOU are his parents.

You go to work and have to duck into a doorway leading somewhere the general public can't go because this person is lurking around.

You are on your way home after being escorted to your car and look back as you enter your garage and find the person is driving by.

Scary, huh?

So you install an alarm system. You pay the extra hundred dollars for the key fob that activates your alarm, just in case. You keep your blinds closed. You don't allow your children outside to play. You lock your door, then check it repeatedly. You change your phone number and have it unlisted. You take a concealed carry course because somehow you think this will make you feel more protected. The police chief gives you pepper spray, just in case they can't get there in time.

What does that mean, just in case? Just in case, he throws you in your own vehicle. Just in case, he gets in your house. Just in case, he...

This is what you live with when you have a stalker. The fear. The panic. The unknowing.

Calling someone and bothering them across state lines is a felony. Bothering someone inside your own county or state is only a misdemeanor. Being on the receiving end of a stalker is a life sentence.

Being stalked is a horrible, horrible thing. It tears away at you and makes you vulnerable. Noises that never bothered you before make you jump out of your skin. The mere sound of the phone ringing sends chills down your back.

I have came to realize that I have a psychological problem that came from being stalked. I realize now that my weight issue is from that. Somehow in some little part of my brain it believes, "If I'm fat, nobody will pay attention to me. Nobody will see me. I'll be invisible." Sounds crazy, don't it? It's true though. I have discovered that I keep telling myself that if I lose these pounds that I put on then I will become subjected to this terror again. Now that I know this, I will be able to help myself.

I have decided that I will not let this happen again and if I keep the weight on then he wins. He wins because me being overweight is still making me a prisoner. Being overweight will ruin my health and eventually cause health problems that could kill me. So it's like he's killing me. I can't stand for that. I'm a fighter. I'm going to take my life back!! I will stand tall again. I will live to fight another day.