1. Tell the stalker “no” once and only once, and then never give him the satisfaction of a reaction again. The more you respond, the more you teach him that his actions will elicit a response. This only serves to reinforce the stalking.
2. Get a dog. The Los Angeles Police Department’s Threat Management Unit says this is “one of the least expensive but most effective alarm systems.”
3. Block your address at DMV and Voter Registration. If you don’t, anyone can get it for the asking. This is how Robert Bardo found actress Rebecca Schaeffer and was able to murder her at her front door.
4. Never give out your home address or telephone number. Get a post office box and use it on all correspondence. For those places that will not accept a post office box, change “PO Box” to “Apt.” and leave the number. Put this address on your checks.
5. When the stalker gets your home telephone number, don’t change it. Instead, always let an answering machine pick-up. Get a new, unlisted number, and give it to everyone who calls but the stalker. Gradually, only your stalker will be using your old number – it will become his private line. If it upsets you when he calls, put the machine in a room you don’t use. You can even have someone else monitor the tapes. This way, the stalker will think he is still getting through to you, although you will never make the mistake of picking up when he calls. Whenever you close off one avenue for a stalker, he will find another and it could easily be worse.
6. Document everything. Even if you have decided not to go the legal route, you may change your mind. Keep answering machine tapes, letters, gifts, etc. Keep a log of drive-bys or any suspicious occurrences.
7. Take a self-defense class. A lot of security experts don’t advise this, fearing that it gives victims a false sense of security, but we do. The best self-defense classes teach you how to become more aware of your surroundings and avoid confrontations, things that stalking victims would do well to learn.
8. Have co-workers screen all calls and visitors.
9. Don’t accept packages unless they were personally ordered.
10. Remove any name or identification from reserved parking at work.
11. Destroy discarded mail.
12. Equip your gas tank with a locking gas cap that can be unlocked only from inside the car.
13. Get a cell phone and keep it with you at all times, even inside your home, in case the stalker cuts your phone lines.
14. If you think you are being followed while in your car, make four left- or right-hand turns in succession. If the car continues to follow you, drive to the nearest police station, never home or to a friend’s house.
15. Never be afraid to sound your car horn to attract attention.
16. Acquaint yourself with all-night stores and other public, highly populated places in your area.
17. Consider moving if your case warrants it. No, it’s not fair, but nothing is fair about stalking. If you stay and fight through the legal system, you might get some justice, (although not necessarily your definition of it), but you almost certainly won’t get safety: There is no possibility of life imprisonment for stalkers. Research how to keep your destination secret. Stalking and victims’ organizations can help.
18. Don’t be embarrassed and think you caused this somehow. Stalkers need no encouragement. Your shame is your stalker’s best weapon. It makes you more likely to engage him or agree to plea bargains, which are bound to be taken as sympathy and we know where that leads. Instead, tell everyone you know that you’re being stalked, from neighbors to co-workers, so that when the stalker approaches them for information about you, they will be alerted not to divulge anything and will let you know he’s been around. One young widow moved to escape her stalker, a stranger she had never really met. Yet, after finding out where she moved, he was also able to pinpoint her exact location by showing her helpful neighbors pictures he had surreptitiously taken of her and her children, telling them that he was her estranged husband and she had kidnapped the kids.
19. Join one of the stalking victims’ support groups that are springing up all over the country. They can be invaluable resources for information in your community (such as how local law enforcement handle these cases) as well as provide essential support.

30 Things I Am NOT Okay With:

Paper cuts, jet lag, bloating, holes in my socks, Large Gas Guzzling SUV’s, Republicans that don’t know politics worth shit, rednecks, PC’s, MySpace, Meat, Los Angeles (sorry Liana!), Hard Liquor, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Dallas, TX, Reality TV, Stupid Girls that are famous for no reason, Crocs, Heroes (TV show),
30 Things That I’m Okay With:

Fuel Effecient Cars, Ernie and Elphaba, Facebook, Democrats, Macs, IPhone, Twitter, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Wheat Beer, Lisa Ling, San Francisco, The Office,

We left a very rainy Atlanta at 9:00 AM to start the longest road trip we’ve ever had. Let me preface this post by saying, I’m soooo glad Sara was with me. She was an awesome driver that knows to check her blind spots before changing lanes. Trust me, I’ve ridden with people who has almost sideswiped semi-trucks for failing to do this simple task. A snowing in Kentucky and it snowed even harder in Illinois. After 8 hours in the car, we stopped in St. Louis to find food. Punched in a GPS location, and of course the restaurant that we wanted to go to didn’t exist anymore. By this time we were starved and ready to get the fuck out of the car. So we settled on TGIFridays.

Denver

I guess things started the first week I was here.

Starving for asian cuisine, a coworker suggested I visit Federal Blvd by work, aka Vietnamese town. After work one day, not being use to the bitter Colorado cold, I went in search of Pho (Vietnamese Soup). Printed out directions from work: Right on Alameda and left onto Federal Blvd. As I turned onto Federal, my eyes lite up as well as my stomach. Asian restaurants everywhere. Which restaurant should I go to? There were so many of them! I tried my chance at a small restaurant. I walked in and was immediately seated at a booth as I sat there to wait for my server, HE walked by – If I would’ve known what I know now, 6+ months down the road, I would have never entered that restaurant. But like my best friend, Keri, likes to say “Hindsight is ALWAYS 20/20″.

The family who owns this restaurant just recently opened it. They were so nice to me, taking time to chat and ask me where I was from. I decided that night, this is going to be my favorite Pho restaurant. I was going to let everyone know what a wonderful restaurant this was.

My third visit to this restaurant was the turning point. I walked in and they were very busy. The only seat was at a table where HE, I will refer to him as “The Mistake”, was sitting (not working but grabbing a bite to eat as well). He stood up to give me the table and I told him to sit and we can have dinner together. It was that very moment and this very conversation, that I knew my days in Denver would forever change. We talked, the owners came by and talked and joked with us. He asked me so many questions and he was so charming. We went outside for a smoke break and he asked me what I was doing later that night. I told him, I didn’t have any plans. He got my phone number and said he would call that night. And everyone knows, in boy time that means 2-3 days. That evening we went out to a bar called the Santa Fe Tequila Company. I had so much fun and I would like to think he did as well.

For the next few weeks we didn’t spend much time together. I was working really late nights at my new job and his job at the restaurant left him too exhausted to do anything. July 4th weekend, he quit his job and had plans to go to Vietnam to visit his ailing mother. We spent an entire week together before he left. Things were great until the night he left. We went to Blackhawk Casinos and came home at 3AM. I’m not sure if it was because we were both hungry and tired but we got into a huge fight. Probably the biggest argument I have ever been in. I made him walk home from my house (6 miles). I didn’t care, I hated him at this point. I knew he left the very next day and I had no problem not saying goodbye.

Exactly 2 days later, I get a text message from The Mistake, “I’m in LAX and on my way back home and I miss you and I’m sorry for the other night”. So, like a stupid girl, off I went to pick him up. The Mistake explained to me that he made it to his connection in Korea and then decided to come back to the States because something didn’t feel right. Mind you, before he left “his sister, Nhu” called constantly for him to come home. But for some reason, he didn’t go. Several conversations later and many days and nights with me, a long road trip to Las Vegas, he finally explained to me everything about his life.

So before you judge us and our decisions, his life as a child must be explained:

Before he was born, he was never wanted. By his mother or his father. His mother, pregnant with a child never took care of herself or the health of her son. When he was born as a result he had pnumonia. Maybe she had postpartum depression. Or maybe she wasn’t ready to be a mother at all. For the first year of his life, he was shuffled from family member to family member never knowing a real home. The more men she dated, the more irrelevant he became. At one point, still a baby, she left him on the doorsteps of a hospital. Luckily his uncle saw her in the process. She was sent home.