Such a Tangled Web
Jealousy and Competition
Parasitic personalities and copycats
It’s a sad moment when someone is so desperate they try to
mimic ones humor. Yet, there it is. This is one of a long line of crossed
boundaries, envy and other negative behaviors.
Stalking is a behavior not a mental disorder. Where mental
disorder does play a role in stalking, its contribution varies greatly
depending on the nature of the symptoms experienced, the context in which they
are experienced, and the role of other personal and environmental factors.
Stalkers present with a wide variety of mental disorders, with psychosis often
playing a role for those stalkers.
Dr. Paul E. Mullen, professor of psychiatry at Monash
University in Australia, who runs a clinic that treats both stalkers and their
victims, said that 70 percent of the victims suffered from a form of
post-traumatic stress disorder, marked by chronic anxiety, depression and sleep
disturbances. Nearly one in four victims has considered suicide, he said.
In addition to former boyfriends and husbands, stalkers
include casual acquaintances, disgruntled employees and business associates,
vengeful neighbors and total strangers, as well as former girlfriends and
wives.
What prompts someone to stalk need not be as traumatic as a
lost love or job. A retired couple reported being stalked by a business
acquaintance after a minor disagreement. And a woman in her 70's was stalked by
a woman of similar age for reasons she could never discern.
Rather than a disorder itself, stalking is a behavior that
falls under the umbrella of symptoms for various disorders. According to a 2012
study published in the journal Aggression and Violent Behavior, “Motivations
for stalking include a delusional belief in romantic destiny, a desire to
reclaim a prior relationship, a sadistic urge to torment the victim, or a psychotic over-identification with the
victim and the desire to replace him or her.” ” And stalkers can fall under a variety of diagnoses, including psychotic
disorders; personality disorders, such as narcissistic personality disorder;
and delusional disorders.
In a 2014 survey published by the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, 80 percent of stalking survivors reported that they
knew their stalker in some way. There’s also some evidence that stalkers are
often men in their 30s, and their targets are frequently women in their late
teens and early 20s—although not always. Other studies have found that anger
and insecurity, often stemming from childhood, are also common among stalkers,
as is impulsiveness.
Stalking is a form of abuse. Stranger and acquaintance
stalkers’ behavior can be just as, if not more, persistent and damaging as that
of former partners, even if it does not involve physical violence in as many
cases. Delusional stalkers often don’t realize that what they’re doing is
wrong. While their actions can be severely damaging and traumatic, they’re less
likely to be physically violent than other kinds of stalkers. For one thing,
they’re typically easier to spot than more insidious kinds of stalkers, as
psychosis involves a break from reality and, often, unconventional behavior.
To be continued...
