Life Uncut - Beyond Baby Reindeer: The Reality of Stalking with Nicole Madigan

Episode Date: June 11, 2024

In the past few weeks, the Netflix show ‘Baby Reindeer’ has been the number 1 TV show in the world. The bio of the show reads “When a struggling comedian shows an act of kindness to a vulnerable woman, it sparks a suffocating obsession which threatens to wreck both their lives.” This show provided quite a nuanced look at the insidious nature of stalking and a lot of the complex emotions that the victims can experience. Joining the podcast today is Nicole Madigan. Nicole is a journalist and the author of “Obsession”. Nicole was stalked for over three years. It wreaked havoc on her life and trapped her in a constant state of fear.  In this chat we speak about: Nicole’s story and how a stalker infiltrated her life The emotions experienced by victims of stalking  Whether Baby Reindeer on Netflix was an accurate representation of what stalking is like How stalking and harassment isn’t taken seriously in our worlds or by law enforcement How difficult it is to prove that someone is stalking you and where authorities come into it The 5 different stalking types What percentage of perpetrators are men/women and the gender break down of victims Misconceptions of stalking You can find more from Nicole hereWe mentioned a previous episode that we recorded with Dr Angela Jay hereYou can watch us on Youtube Find us on Instagram Join us on tiktok Or join the Facebook Discussion Group Tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friend and share the love because WE LOVE LOVE! xxSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi guys and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. Today on the podcast, Nicole Madigan is joining us to talk about something the entire world has been talking about off the back of Baby Reindeer. If you didn't see Baby Reindeer, it was the Netflix phenomenon on that was based on a true story. Richard Gad is the creator and the actor and a woman that stalked him in real life. Now, some's fictional, some's non-fictional, but it did get the world talking. And Nicole Madigan is a journalist and the author of Obsession. So she was stalked for over three years and it wreaked absolute havoc on her life, trapped her in a state of fear. In this episode, we talk about a multitude of things, but a few of the big things is the fact

that Nicole was actually stalked by a woman. And as we know, statistically, men are more commonly stalkers. Secondly, Nicole goes into a bit of detail about the five different types of stalking, which I had never heard about and I found super fascinating. And we also talk about the misconceptions surrounding stalking and the complex emotions that are involved, which is, I think, why Nicole could relate so heavily to baby reindeer, because it's not just about stalking. It's about the emotions that are attached to it that a lot of people won't understand unless you've been in that situation. So let's get into the chat with Nicole. Nicole, welcome to Life Uncut. Thank you for having me. Happy to be here.

Firstly, I want to ask how you feel about this Netflix show, Baby Reindeer, which has completely taken the world by storm. Like the number one trending show, I guilty watched it, was very frustrated, but watched it through to the end because I was hooked. How do you feel as someone that's lived that experience. You've lived a stalking experience. How do you feel about a show like that getting so much global attention? I'm actually surprised that it has got this much attention because when I first watched it, it caught my attention when I first saw a trailer for it quite a while ago. And I was like, oh, I'm going to watch that. And when I did, I was just struck by how realistic it was compared to most other stalker obsession movies or TV shows I've

seen. So I really liked it because it was so realistic, but I was surprised that everyone else got on board, but I'm glad they did. Cause I think it's opened up a really important conversation. We spoke about it recently on the podcast. It was my recommendation for viewing a couple of weeks ago. But one of the things that really stood out is that we don't often talk about stalking when females are the perpetrators of it. We usually speak about men. And I think that that's a more common conversation. And especially at the moment when there's been so much talk about violence against women, but we never really speak about what it's like when the person who's perpetrating the stalking is a woman, as it was in your case. Can you just take

us back? What was happening in your life at the time, where you were at in the time before you met? I mean, you call her Carissa, but that's not her real name. But before you came in contact with Carissa? I think you're right. It is difficult to talk about as a female, I think, to even talk about female stalking, especially when, like me, you're quite engrossed in that male violent space and it just feels a bit icky to talk about sometimes. But, you know, nevertheless, it does happen. I also guess that people who do experience, say, your situation probably feel as though it's almost a bit invalidating. Like when a female is a perpetrator, it's sometimes not taken serious, even though it can be very serious. Yeah, that's right. And I think that can even expand further to

all kinds of non-domestic violence related stalking because there's a kind of a different kind of feel to it. But to answer your initial question, yeah. So before that time that I met her, I was going through a separation with my husband of 12 years. So it was a really unpleasant separation. So it was ongoing and seemingly never ending. And at the same time, I was trying to get my independence back and rebuild my life and focus on my kids and things like that. So that was sort of where I was at when I first came across her. So the first time I came across her was sort of just like a bit of a blip on the radar that I, you know, came back into my memory down the track. But I was at a football catch up. My son played AFL and we were

at a football catch up at one of the coach's apartment blocks. That person was Adam, my husband. But at that time, I didn't really know him very well. And there was a bunch of people there. So I was taking some photos of the kids playing cricket and things like that. And I kind of heard a voice say to me are you taking photos of Adam and I kind of looked up looked around and and I saw this woman walk past me and I didn't know if she was talking to me and I just kind of said to her um I'm just taking photos of Beau that's my son and looked at the woman next to me as if to say oh was she talking to us or me and she kind of just shrugged and I didn't think anything of it for the rest of the day just went through the day went home later that night it was

about nine o'clock I got a message request from a woman's name and it just said like oh hi you know sorry about that comment I made I didn't mean anything by it I was just wondering if you were taking photos of the kids I wanted to post it to a page and I was like oh okay she must know them she must have been part of the group so I just kind of sent back a nothing response cool no worries okay like see you around and that was it at that point so at this time I mean you you said Adam who's now your husband what was your relationship with him at that point in time so at that point in time he was my son's football coach from the year before so I had met him through the football club and we'd say hello how you going that kind of thing but it was like a

group sort of like a school mum's catch-up I guess but there were dads there as well so it was like mums and dads the footy kids all catching up I would certainly say hi or whatever but we weren't friends at that point maybe just acquaintances so yeah it struck me as odd that she had said that And then obviously that message later that night was even more strange. Yeah, you don't ever think that like, because I think how many times I've got a DM from someone that I have come into contact with briefly that could be just anything, great to meet you, whatever, like whatever it is, you don't ever think that that's going to result in like three years of absolute torment. There's no part of you that would have been like, that's weird.

She's probably going to stalk me. No way. And about a week later, I got another message from her as well to say, can I ask your question and I said okay sure thinking this is a bit weird now but she's gone I'm just wanting to know if you're married I'm just trying to figure out if you're married and I sort of just said oh can I ask why because I thought this is kind of odd and she said oh we were just like we um we were just wondering whether you were married Adam thinks yes and I think no and I just said look I don't know why you're asking these questions but um you know I'm just going through a lot of stuff at this time and you know I don't really want to talk

about it basically. Of course. And also you're in a period of time where you're going through a divorce. So those questions themselves are way more triggering. And that's why I didn't answer them. I was so vague because we were separating, but we hadn't told lots of people and we hadn't even told our kids. So it was literally right in the midst of it. So I just deflected it and she sent one more message and then I just ignored it. And then about probably a week or two later, I was away with my mom and my kids and we were just escaping from all the drama. And I got one more message from her saying we're still trying to figure this out if you're married and I mentioned it to my mum I'm like this woman just keeps messaging me these strange things and my

mum's a quite a cautious woman and she said this is just you don't need this right now why don't you message that football coach and tell him that this woman that obviously knows him is bothering you so I did that and he sort of wrote back really quickly oh my god I'm so sorry she's prone to doing these kind of things and that's why we're we're not in each other's lives anymore it was that kind of awkward embarrassing explanation and I just sort of thought oh poor guy like this must be embarrassing for him yeah well so to set it up Carissa this woman was in a relationship with Adam yeah so at that time I wasn't sure I thought she must have been but when I messaged him he said that they had been dating and they were no longer and this is the reason why kind of thing you know

he didn't go into detail because we didn't really know each other that well at all so within this time because you ended up marrying Adam he's now your husband so things did progress there so you had this interaction with someone who I guess at that time when he messaged you and he was like I'm so sorry this is an ex of mine she's a bit woohoo like that in itself did you maintain a relationship talking to him at that time did you maintain connection with him or did that just kind of dissolve until later on it dissolved for a little while and it was a funny thing because we used to joke and I guess this goes back to what I talk about in the book about joking about the word stalking and using it so trivially we used to say initially when we were first talking

stalking got us talking because you know a couple of weeks after that he sent me a message to say look I'm just checking in to make sure you weren't being bothered by Carissa anymore and I said nope haven't heard anything all good and then maybe a couple of weeks after that we exchanged a message message about the football or the kids and then just over time we just messaged more and more and more and got to know each other that way and it was probably like a good few months before we sort of talked about like maybe catching up for a drink yeah without the kids yeah it is such a colloquial word isn't it like I think of how much I would throw the term around without thinking about it when you say oh I'm gonna go on and have a quick stalk of that guy or you know like when

you've seen someone on a dating app you go I'll go stalk his Instagram so like there's nothing malicious about it but I guess the idea is I'm gonna go and find out every single thing I can possible about that person. But maybe after, I mean, after you as someone that was using that term colloquially, and now you've been in that position, do you feel different about the way you use the term? Yeah, I do. Yeah, I do. I used to use it all the time as well. And I think the problem with it, and as you say, no one's doing it maliciously, but the accidental outcome of that is that your mindset thinks of stalking as something that's not that serious. It minimizes it. Yeah, it minimizes it. So it makes it even more difficult to talk about. Like

you're almost I didn't ever use the word stalking until the police officer did three years down the track I used any other word that I could think of because it just kind of sounds like a joke I also think though we genuinely don't think that women can be stalkers we often just attribute that to men and I think it becomes it's part of like the threatening nature of it women are deemed as being less threatening how long was Adam and Carissa dating for before their relationship was no longer? I was about on and off for about 18 months. At what point was it once you'd started dating that she started to creep back into your life, that she made herself known again? So it would have been about a year after that first interaction, but it would have been maybe

we would have been dating each other, maybe say six months or so. And we had a function at his place and hosted a couple of photos to Facebook, like both of our accounts are private, but somehow she must have come across those but it was that night that I got the first lot of messages but they didn't come from that same account that she had messaged me on a year before it was a fake account and it was pretty awful and pretty vulgar and gross and at that time even though that had happened the year before it hadn't made a big impact on me so I could see that someone was messaging me that obviously was unhappy that I was dating Adam but I didn't straight away think of her. Obviously, Adam had been married before. He had a couple of kids. And I just put it to him

hoping really very much that it wasn't his ex-wife and the mother of his kids, which it wasn't. I know you said it's pretty vulgar, but were the messages threatening to you? Were they trying to start malicious lies to break you up? Yeah. So the first ones were more just, how are you enjoying my sloppy seconds? Enjoy the sleeping in the bed we fucked in. I used to wear that shirt here's a couple of examples of things we used to do and things he liked you know just kind of graphic stuff like that that's how it started I sort of group it into two sections for the first six months it was all pretty much messages and she was messaging Adam and me at the same time to him she was messaging just a lot of things about me just disparaging comments and

rumors and lies and things like that to me it was more a lot of sex stuff a lot of insulting me and that kind of thing which I generally well I ignored all of them and she started texting me from her private account again so I knew who it was and she made no secret of who it was Adam at that time wanted to reply and just tell her to leave us alone but I just had this idea in my mind that it's just someone trying to get attention so let's just ignore it like surely she'll stop yeah we went on like that for a while and then things started to change again so she had contacted my ex-husband then she contacted my mum then she made a fake account in my name and created some message exchanges that she sent on to some people so it was starting to become

oh okay like she could cause some serious trouble and at the time I was still going through that difficult time with my ex you know that I really didn't need that at that time and it made it more complicated and difficult so at that point is when we first contacted police so Adam had a police officer friend so we thought we'd just get some advice and that officer advised us to write a formal letter to her and warn her to stay away essentially it was really specific and detailed sent it to her by email he never heard from her again and I didn't hear from her for about four months until it started back up again and then it completely changed in terms of its apparent motivation and the style of stalking and it was just all directed at me in a different way

so adam was sort of left at this point and she just came attacking you and was it ramped up from what it was the first six months yeah so the first six months it seemed juvenile like trying to break us up but then it started to involve other people and impersonation so i got anxious about it and nervous and it was it was almost like it became her obsession became kind of my obsession i was thinking about it all the time i was worried about the ding ding ding what was it going to say who was she going to message? Anytime someone called me, I'd be panicking that she'd contacted them and said something, you know, terrible or gross about us. Cause she was saying kind of like spreading rumors and things like that. She set up some accounts like in my name and sent messages

to herself. She was putting a lot of public posts up. So these became public posts where she was tagging me and putting a lot of vulgar memes. And when it became really scary, I suppose is when I realize she was finding out things about us and we couldn't quite figure out how so and she started to post those things like our home address and details of where we had been at one time even where we had planned to be so we didn't quite know how she was getting that information and why she was putting it out there. Did you ever find out how she was getting that information and I say that because I know a tactic a lot of people use in these situations is to hack into your emails or something like that you don't even know that person's in there and I mean now that's

why we have all these multiple verifications on Instagrams and emails but we never used to have that do you think that she was infiltrating your personal emails or Instagram account to find out because how else would somebody know those details before you'd even done an event before you'd even been somewhere it was funny because you sort of try to become a real detective and learn how insidious social media can actually be. For example, and I don't know this for sure, this is just some of the conclusions we drew when we were trying to figure this stuff out. So she had posted details once we were engaged and getting married about the wedding, where it was going to be in the date. And when we first saw that, I just shook. I was thinking, how is that

possible that she would know this? Do we have friends that still know her that we haven't click to, you know, that kind of thing. But I did a couple of Google searches and this is a really thing and how naive you become when you're putting things on the internet. But we created this cheap kind of dodgy website. It was free. It was called The Knot just to invite people to the wedding and keep people across it. It was, we didn't put much thought into it. We just put it all together and put it on there. But when I did the search, you know, my name, Adam's name, nothing came up. I put my name, Adam's name and the word wedding and that website came up and it had defaulted to a public website which didn't even occur to me at all when I set it up so that's all I could think

of you know I thought maybe she's just you know because she seemed to put a lot of time in like if I would post something for work when I looked back to see her posts they would be seconds after I posted it it felt like it was her full-time job to just watch what I was doing and and respond to it. Did you ever feel frightened for your own safety? Yes and no so it was really weird I guess that's this this is what i think that show baby reindeer projected really well is that you can waver from feeling like you're overreacting to underreacting there were some stages where i thought like calm down like this is just some woman like saying mean things about you just like relax let's ignore it who cares like and then other times i was like she is going to be

outside my house and like throw something at me or something like cover my face in acid like your mind starts to really run away with itself. So it was a, it was a strange experience of not knowing how I should react. Was there ever, and I think that this is when I watched Baby Reindeer, for example, the very first thought that I think a lot of people have is why don't you just change your phone number or why don't you just like get off social media? And I know that that's very like blaming the victim mentality, but was there ever a moment where you thought, well, if I just remove myself from this digital space for a period, maybe that will be enough for her to lose interest or lose obsession around this? Yes, I did think about that. One of the emotions that I experienced out

of all of this, which I had never experienced to this degree, was a really intense amount of anger. I didn't quite know what to do with it because, you know, you feel, especially as women, I think we're accustomed to feeling like sadness or, you know, anxiety, intense emotions, but anger can be a really difficult one to grapple with. And I was really angry at this person for doing this to me and myself for just idly letting it happen because I really didn't do anything about it for so long I just let it happen but also I think people don't know what they can do like I mean you would never know what to do in a situation where someone it's so close because it's happening you know within your surroundings to your friends to your family to people in your network but it's

also so intangible because it's online and they are not physically in your orbit yeah even that it's easy to look back with hindsight and say oh my god how did I let all of this accumulate for so long but at the time you dumb it down to it's a few messages because at the time that's what it is right like when you look back over a three-year period you're like that was crazy but at the time you're like okay so she messaged me again whatever like there's no part of you that probably thought okay this could turn into something violent or really scary and really serious yeah it's strange because you sort of entrap yourself so at the beginning you sort of you're taught all the time ever since you're a little kid just ignore someone ignore the bully and they'll go away

and that's how I approached it but as time went on like we're talking actual years this was sort of in my head and mind almost all day every day because there would be something that would happen sometimes multiple times a day sometimes multiple times a week then it would stop for a while and I'd start to think oh it's gone away and then it would start again and it was really intense I was embarrassed that I felt so sort of terrorized by it so I didn't really talk about it a lot because like you say even the way you describe it you know it's just some messages it's someone doing this some of the posts you know you could even describe you know if you were outside looking in that'd be funny like they were sort of graphic memes and using images and

all kinds of things to to illustrate a point but for me it was just awful but over time you know you ignore it for so long and then it starts to escalate and you start to become scared and then you're sort of like now what do I do because it's been two years and I haven't said anything or done anything and how do I even begin to explain this to somebody now I also think like the thing that we don't realize about stalking so much is like how insidious it is and that the person who's being stalked ends up becoming as obsessed with figuring out and not with the person who's doing the stalking but with the being stalked they become obsessed with the fact that they can't feel safe that they can't feel like they can trust what's happening around them because there's this

feeling of like well someone's always watching me or someone's always got like a foot ahead of what's happening in my life like how did you deal with that did you speak to family and friends like what was your support system like in that time I didn't speak to many people about it because all the content was so vulgar and distasteful I found the whole thing embarrassing I didn't want anyone to see it it's also really hard to use words like stalking and obsession oh this person's obsessed with me or my partner's ex-girlfriend is stalking me it kind of sounds ridiculous and it's hard to talk about so I spoke about it to my mum and to Adam and that was pretty much it for a long while like at the very beginning when it was happening I started to tell a couple of

friends but it seemed to me that their response was like you would expect it's kind of like oh like a juicy kind of goss like this crazy woman is out there and it didn't feel like that to me I found it so traumatizing that I just, we just stopped talking to people about it. Maybe that's the good thing about Baby Reindeer going so viral is because so many more people will take it seriously now, will understand what it can be like, because I feel like we've got a real insight into what it is like if you're in that situation. And like you said, it was the realist stalking documentary that you'd seen. Had you ever physically seen Carissa? Was any of it face-to-face dialogue or physical harassment where she was turning up, putting things in

your letterbox? Or was it all purely online and on text? It was all online and on text from what I knew. There was a couple of times where she'd post something that seemed to suggest that she'd seen me somewhere, like she'd mentioned where I had been, like at the shops. And also that she'd moved to my suburb. She kept sort of tagging her new home as I was in my suburb and saying she lived around the corner. And so she alluded to that, whether that was true or not, I'll never really know you ended up getting a private investigator what was the purpose of that if you knew who she was like what were you trying to do in that situation I was trying to get some police response back then so I tried the first time with the officer that we knew so that was

an official and his advice was don't make a formal report because you can you know we hear this a lot with in domestic violence cases don't make a formal report because you might just make them angry and then they'll do something more and you've got to be able to prove it and all of this So I thought, okay, well, we're on our own here. So we wrote that letter. When it started again, it was via text messages. So text message numbers that were unknown. So the language was all the same, but it wasn't attached to her name.

So I thought to myself, this was just the idea I had at the time. If I can prove that those text messages are coming from her, then I can piece together something a little bit more and maybe the police will go and warn her to stay away. So that's why I tried the private investigator. I saw this little deal online that said, you know, they could track down the owner of the Sims for a couple of hundred bucks. So I thought, oh, it's worth a try. I'll try that.

But their conclusion that they drew was they seem to be burner phones. That's how they described it, because there was no way of tracing who they were from. It is affecting your life. It is affecting your ability to live freely and to have any sort of sense of safety or sense of self. And yet the police's response is like, well, it's not bad enough for us to do anything about it. And then the problem is there's so many people who go to the police, but because it's not bad

enough, nothing's done until it's too bad. And then you're in a situation where someone's been murdered or something horrendous has happened. We know that things did progress and that there was some justice that was provided to you. But when you're coming up against the police saying they can't do much about it, what was then the next step? I was so upset when that police officer left because I just thought there's literally nothing I can do I have to just put up with it and also I got no advice either like when I researched Sorkin later there is a whole lot of things you can advise someone to do in that situation to arm them with the evidence to pursue this later but I wasn't given any so I just kind of broke down and thought I'm just going to have

to put up with it and I literally did that for quite a while I just did nothing for quite a while while it just kept happening when it started to get a bit more personal I thought I should probably do something and I guess I contemplated a few different options I thought you know do I do I do something do I fight fire with fire here and actually start to start to retaliate which I chose not to do so I actually ended up putting in a cyber crime report I had no idea what else to do and I thought when I'm talking to people I'm not articulating it well clearly and again And that's why I really related to that very first scene in Baby Reindeer where he's all sort of coyly trying to talk

to the police and he shows this message. I think it said something like, I just ate an egg and the police is like, what are you talking about? And he's embarrassed because like, oh, it's all a bit awkward and that's how it comes across. So I put it all down as much as I could in this cybercrime report and then it would have been like at least a month, probably more after that, that I got a call to say

that it had been referred to the local police station. And I got a female police officer and her approach to me was just completely different to anyone else I'd have ever spoken to. She was so understanding. And the more I told her what had happened, she was actually responding to me like something terrible had happened. So I didn't feel so ridiculous. I felt like, oh, yeah, it's okay to be reporting this and saying all of this.

But then the difficulty that was then she said, okay, like I'd like to pursue it, but we need proof and evidence. That's the process. so fortunately I had all of that so I'd been keeping everything so I had three years worth of stuff not in any kind of order I just had it all I knew I had it all around so I had to gather all that together and provide that to her this is the funny thing about stalking so over time a language develops between the two people where they can send you a message that nobody else understands and you do if that makes sense so for example in my case she had developed a few couple of

nicknames for me based on all the things she thought I looked like and that's how she started to refer to me so I kind of had to go right back from the to the beginning where she was specifically saying you look like a rat or you look like Gonzo or whatever it was that the names were at that time and link them all up together so that I could prove that to show the patterns. Yeah. That these, these messages and posts were all for me kind of thing. So it wasn't easy. And I think there would be a lot of people, you know, my job is a journalist, so I had some advantage to be able to do all that. But I think if you, you didn't have those skills or you didn't know, you're really going to be left in the lurch. Did you learn anything about the psychology of her

or her mental state? I guess I think sometimes we can, we can prescribe that people who are stalkers must be mentally unwell. We try and attribute these mental illnesses, which often is just not the case. But did you find out anything about what her mental state was like that might have been a motivator for her to behave like this? Not really. Nothing official. The only thing I found were a couple of outbursts that she'd had because she didn't have a huge social media presence. There wasn't a lot I could find out about her. At one stage, I googled her phone number. There are these websites, I don't know if they're still around, but there are websites that report numbers of scams and things like that.

But her number came up a couple of times and it was a couple of posts saying, oh, Carissa, I met on Plenty of Fish or this other dating app. And if you say the wrong thing to her, she latches on and she harasses you and stalks you. A couple of messages like that. Did someone end up reaching out to you saying they'd had a bit of a running with her that was similar? Yeah, I was sitting down working one day and I got this message request and it was just from a female name and my instinct straight away when I get those messages is like oh shit like what now because I've had so many of those from different names as well as her name over that last three years it was just all the time but I clicked on it and it was this yeah really long

message from someone who had said they were a relative of Carissa's and they had they hadn't had anything to do with her for 10 years because of a whole host of similar reasons so like they believed they'd lost their job because of this person and that had their wedding plans cancelled on her behalf and things like that that had happened and she sounded so scared like she was saying her hands are shaking as she was typing and she hopes that I don't go and tell anyone that she's reached out to me she doesn't she's scared of her house being burnt down so it was kind of like scaring me more but also like here's someone I can maybe just talk to about it and we were able to do that. And she was actually instrumental in me getting a charge in the end

because she provided a witness statement for me. And she contacted me because she'd identified me from all of these public posts that Carissa had been making. So she was still like this, this relative of Carissa's who'd experienced her stalking herself was still across her social media. She was still across what she was doing. And she reached out to you off the back of that. Yeah. So she said to me that a mutual friend had contacted her and said, oh my gosh, Carissa is posting all this stuff. She's obviously got someone in her sights or something like that. So then she went and had a look and figured it out, figured out that it was me. And she said she was just doing that because she knew what it was like. And she just felt that

it was such an isolating experience and just having someone that had been there might help. And it actually did. Did it have any impact on your relationship with Adam? It was hard. Yeah. Mostly because like, well, in the beginning it was sort of like, do I want to deal with all this crazy you know like obviously it wasn't right at the beginning so we had established quite a nice relationship by then and the kids had got involved with each other so it was established enough that I was invested yeah but it was also new enough to think like is it worth all this hassle crazy but then there was a part of me that thought too like you know I'm not going to let this person just rule my life you know and that was in terms of the way I

used social media and in terms of my relationship with Adam but obviously when something's going on for that long yeah it has its moments you know and we know we shouldn't do this but it's hard sometimes not to say to the other person like you know what were you doing like you know why were you how did you know a person like this like you know and obviously that's a terrible thing to say and and it's nobody's fault but it's like it can be in the moment when you're dealing with it it's hard to keep those emotions in check. So what ended up happening with Carissa? I supplied all my evidence to the police and to cut a long story short, they were able to use that evidence and the statement, the witness statement supplied by the woman who contacted me

and that was enough to charge her with unlawful stalking. So she was officially charged, which meant I didn't really have to do anything after that. Once that happened, it was down to the courts and the justice system I guess and it was a really long time before it actually got to court it's a long process and she requested adjournment after adjournment after adjournment that ultimately she pleaded guilty so her consequence was a two-year probation order and a two-year restraining order for me in that period so it's funny because I did go to court I didn't have to go to court but I chose to go to court because I just really wanted to get that closure and it was a strange day it was quite a confronting day because that was the first time I'd laid eyes on her since that

day at the footy club more than three years earlier and it was weird because it's a stranger essentially she's just a stranger to me but she seemed to know how to get to me so well she just seemed such an expert at it anyway hers was the last case being heard that day and every case before hers were these awful horrific domestic violence cases and not one of those offenders got any jail time and some of them were quite like they were violent repeat offenses so as shocking as that was even just from that perspective i just thought we're gonna get laughed right out of here by the time it gets to her because you know there wasn't any physical violence but in the end she got a similar consequence to those men which is actually

just so disgusting it's so infuriating because we hear about unfortunately we hear about especially now the domestic violence cases that end in death we don't hear how many cases and how many women are going to court for help and being thrown out with nothing multiple repeat offenders like to hear that that you know that you saw that happening is infuriating it was disgusting obviously my mom came with me and we were just our mouths were just open the whole time like how is this actually happening no wonder we're in the crisis that we're in now yeah because nothing gets done and so this restraining order ended in January this year that two years was up have you had any contact with her since and what was the feeling like coming up to that day it was really strange because um that

feeling of is something about to happen weirdly it just doesn't go away so once she got charged and I knew she couldn't do anything that feeling still was always there I'm still always sort of checking and looking and and things like that I think because it went on for so long but she did kind of disappear for a while there was no sign of her on on social media at all until about maybe a month before the restraining order finished someone had told me oh by the way you know I've seen this pop up it was an Instagram account and it seemed to be some kind of countdown so it was a bit disconcerting like it seemed to be counting down to that date which I sent it to the police there was nothing mentioning my name and they couldn't do anything but they just said we'll

make a note of it. It's good to know that that's happening, but the dates come and go on and I haven't heard anything. And what happens if you do? If something does happen where she starts to contact you again, if this behavior reignites, what happens? Are you able to lodge another restraining order for her? What is the next process if this does continue? Yeah. So this is really frustrating. And I think this is something that's a problem in a lot of different areas that crosses over with domestic violence, as well as this kind of stalking and harassment because you're literally back at square one. The previous history and all of what's happened makes no difference and you have to essentially start

again. It's really frustrating because I tried to look into extending that restraining order once I saw that countdown just to make it easier, just so I don't have to worry about it. But they told me, no, no, that was a consequence for a crime. Once that consequence is up, it's done. You're clear and you're starting again. It's just crazy because if you think about that in terms of, I don't want to brush over your situation with stalking, but also in terms of domestic violence, if somebody has held on to an obsession and to an anger for two years and then reignites that after the restraining order is finished, I would say, and this is only anecdotally and subjectively, but I would say that that makes them so much more dangerous that they

have waited to be able to start that again. I would say that everything that they've done in the past should be, if not more valid, because it means they've had two years to think about their actions and to repent but what they've done is they've spent two years waiting to have their opportunity to harass you again and that should speak tenfold volumes exactly exactly it's it's terrifying to think people hold on to this for so long that is terrifying in itself and also even just in terms of these behaviors to other people like there's a lot of talk about whether we should have a domestic violence register or some way to let people know that these people have behaved like this before. And I think past

behavior does obviously influence future behavior. Also like allowing people to understand what it is that they're getting into a relationship with. Even if someone has been a perpetrator of domestic violence, for example, and yet now they are reformed, I would hope that people who are choosing to get into a relationship with them still have the opportunity of choice. They're still afforded the opportunity to choose whether they want to be in a relationship with someone who has done these things in the past, not just to seem as though those behaviors are a completely wiped slate. You've done so much research yourself on stalking in order to write your book Obsession. Can you tell us what are some of the complete misconceptions that we have in society around

stalking or what might be the traits or psychological attributes of someone who is a stalker? Yeah, I think the biggest misconceptions are that are the two extremes. So on one side of it is that research shows that people's attitudes towards stalking are really sort of trivial so people think it's not a big deal some people think it's romantic other people think it's funny or it's humorous or things like that so it's dismissed generally and that's why we talk about it in that kind of colloquial way like we're talking about stalking people all the time we kind of brag about it like I'm if you need someone to stalk your ex you know I'll do it kind of thing yeah I know how to infiltrate their life yeah I'm an expert if you if you think they're not on social

media like I'll find them kind of thing and then on the other side people have this idea of the you know the the predatory kind of stalker that's kind of hiding in your bushes outside waiting to stalk you for a little while like we see on the movies and eventually kind of come and kill you for no apparent reason so I think they're probably the two misconceptions whereas most stalkers are probably lying somewhere in the middle I know you said earlier that you tried not to talk about it too much because you felt embarrassed which is crazy being the victim but I totally understand it what was the general reaction like from you every time you tried to voice what was happening yeah I think in my case I just didn't voice it really until there was an outcome and I felt

validated by it but in writing that book I spoke to dozens and dozens of stalking victims and almost every single one had a story to tell about either telling someone and being laughed at or telling someone and being dismissed or trying to go to police and they didn't listen or something like that. Every single one of them also said to me, I don't know if my story is bad enough that you want to hear about it. And they were quite shocking. Some of them were terrible. They were awful. But people have this idea that it's not that bad and that they should look after it themselves. I think in terms of police, I think there are two kind of issues from what I've gathered from the research one is obviously they're humans as well so their attitudes to

things are like the rest of us so if you come in and say oh there's a woman who's sending me lots of bad messages they're kind of thinking okay well we've got more important things to do the other flip side of that is stalking is a really unique crime because it doesn't happen in one event so it's established over time and often it's a series of like coercive control in a way where all the behaviours or often the behaviours are all legal behaviours. So if you go into the police station and say, I've received 10 messages or I keep receiving flowers on my front porch and they say, well, keep an eye on it and let us know if anything else happens

and then people go away and a week or a month later they come back and they're talking to a completely different police officer and they say, this has happened before, now it's happening again and they get the same result. So there's no one to tell them that you have to establish that pattern and demonstrate that pattern. And in Australia, there is absolutely no support or guidance in that area whatsoever. How common do you think it is? Obviously, I'd say it's relatively uncommon to have a stalker in general, but how common do you think it is for females to be the perpetrators in this instance?

So the official statistics put it at 90% male stalkers and 10% female stalkers, similar the other way around as well. So 90% female victims and around 10% male victims. The experts that I interviewed put that closer to 80-20. So definitely still the vast majority of stalking perpetrators are men and most victims are female, but they suggest that it's probably around 80%, 20%. I think it's also probably worth noting that statistic, and I always find this really interesting when we talk about male violence because you know there's always that caveat of like well men also can be victims often those victims are from same sex relationships often it's still when you say there's you know x amount of men who are the

victims it doesn't always mean it's women who are the ones doing that exactly and that's such an important thing to keep perspective on as well because it can skew the numbers well that's right exactly so it just depends on that dynamic and what's caused that obsession or the fixation in the first place. I think what is something shocking that you just said, it's the number of people or women that wrote to you with their own stories. And they preface that by saying, oh, I don't know if this is bad enough for you. I think that is a very sad, direct reflection to how severe the crisis is right now that so many women are being murdered that all of a sudden a woman that is being stalked and harassed doesn't feel significant to us as women because we're

like, oh, well, there hasn't been an attempt on my life yet. So does anyone care? Is anyone going to listen you know but for someone like yourself that has had both sides of this story you have not been listened to by the police you've been ignored and you have had an outcome what would you say to women now that are experiencing this thinking that it's not bad enough and no one cares and I have to wait for something more severe yeah I would say speak to people and keep making noise because a lot of these women and they were being tracked followed you know threatened and a lot of of times by men. So it's, you know, whether it should or shouldn't be that, because I can feel more scary and menacing and things like that. And often it's, you know, it could be an ex-partner.

I think the stats are around 50% of stalking is an ex-partner. But I would say if you keep telling people, you will eventually find someone who takes you seriously. It might not be straight away. It might not be the first person or the second or the third or the fourth person or the first police officer, but eventually you will and you will eventually get help. But if you don't tell anyone and you don't keep any records and you don't do anything, you can be left completely trapped. And that's what can lead to some of these horrific outcomes because people are left completely isolated and self-protecting. Nicole, what are the five types of stalking? You've mentioned them in your book, and I think it's probably important for us to

tick off what can be those motivators and what are the things and the reasons why people do stalk. Yeah, there are five different kinds of stalkers. So the first one is the rejected stalker. And that's what we usually see in these kind of domestic violence scenarios they're not always relationships they could be someone who's been rejected by a friend or even in a professional capacity being fired or something like that but basically they're they're feeling rejected and their purpose of their stalking is usually to quote unquote reconcile but to get that relationship back and this is what Carissa's was hers was deemed as which is a resentful stalker which is someone who's just simply angry and seeking vengeance on someone for some reason so i guess

this situation was kind of complicated or a bit of a mix because it started off yes there's that rejected element in terms of her feelings towards adam but really after about six months or more you know he wasn't involved or hardly mentioned at all it seemed to become just an attempt to well i don't know what the attempt was i never really knew like what the end goal was apart from just causing problems really. So yeah, a resentful stalker is what the experts put her in, the category they put her in. And that is just someone who's just out to cause you problems. That's their goal is to cause problems and get revenge. So that's the second kind. The third category is the intimacy seeker. And that would be the category that often may have some sort of

mental illness. So it's also known as erotomania and it's someone who might be trying to pursue a relationship with someone that they think reciprocates those feelings. So you might find those type of people stalking a celebrity or a member of the royal family because they convince that that person is in love with them and they're going to have a relationship. The fourth kind is the incompetent suitor. And again, that would be one that is more likely to have some kind of mental health challenge. And that's someone who's basically harassing someone to get a short-term outcome. So they might be trying to get a date or get sex or something like that and that's usually a shorter term stalking like a few weeks or a few months it's

like a cluster and the last type would be a predator and that's the kind we see on the movies so it's a stranger and they're stalking someone and that will often lead towards the most likely to lead to some kind of violent outcome a murder or a rape because it's a precursor it's like a jeffrey darmer like the people that for no reason would lay in wait for a woman to run past yeah Yeah, correct. Are there any networks or communities that you recommend people to go to to seek support and help if they don't feel like they're ready to go to the police, but they want a bit more advice from other people? Is there anything that you found as support systems?

Unfortunately, in Australia, no. We literally have no stalking support, hotlines, charities, or any such thing outside of a domestic violence context. And if you're not in a domestic violence situation like I wasn't. It doesn't always translate. It doesn't always correlate because there's so much more complexity and other factors surrounding someone who needs help from a domestic violence perspective. That's something I think needs to change. It has changed in many other countries. And there are people who are really passionate about raising awareness of stalking in the UK and America who are trying to bring that to Australia. And I think it's really important. We have some incredible experts in Australia on stalking.

I didn't actually realize there were so many people who were experts in stalking. But, you know, even the professor who created those five typologies, he's from Australia. And there's some incredible academics here who know so much about it and who are really actively trying to get that support for people. For anybody who, and when we mentioned this idea of like not knowing if it's severe enough, not knowing if it's problematic enough and having to try and figure out that yourself, what would you say is the tipping point between when someone is just obsessed or maybe they are too engaged in your life to a point where you would honestly feel comfortable saying okay that

is stalking behavior like how can someone recognize it and not dismiss all the red flags as just being something that's just not as bad I think it comes a little bit down to that gut feeling if you're feeling uncomfortable about something if you don't like what's happening I think that is the time to start making a note of it. You may not feel comfortable to report it yet, but you should definitely be keeping records of everything. And that applies to everyone at all times. If you get something unpleasant, it's just, I've discovered with this research and my

own experience, it's not worth throwing it away. A lot of people do that because when you get something that's unpleasant or awful, you don't want to see it and you don't want it around you and you tend to want to get rid of it. But it's a good idea to hold on to anything you get. And as soon as you feel uncomfortable, tell someone, whether it's, you know, a therapist or the police or a friend, at least let someone know about it so that someone's aware of what's happening. And if it escalates, it's going to make it that little bit easier for you to get help. Yeah, that's so important to make sure that somebody knows the problems you're going through and who you think it is.

Yeah, definitely. And don't be embarrassed or ashamed. You know, it's not on you to feel that shame or even to have to protect yourself. Obviously, we need to, like we're in the real world. we have to take steps to keep ourselves safe. But there's too much onus, I think, put on victims to find ways to protect themselves. We've actually spoken to, and this was probably two years ago now. So for anyone that might be new to the podcast, if you want to go back and listen, her name is Dr. Angela Jay. And she was a doctor actually in Port Macquarie, where I'm from,

who had an attempt on her life from somebody that ended up stalking her. He broke into her house and he ended up stabbing her multiple times and she credits the one thing that saved her life was the fact that she when she moved to Port Macquarie she was having a bit of trouble with this guy this ex that she very briefly dated and she went to her neighbor who she didn't know and she just said look I'm sure this is nothing but I'm I've had a bit of trouble with this man I am not seeing anyone so if you see someone at my house I want you to know they shouldn't be there if you ever hear anything like she's like I'm just you know being overly cautious and the fact that she ended up telling that neighbor that she screamed one night when he was attacking her that

saved her life the fact that she told somebody because she went with a gut instinct that something wasn't right totally so just if anyone wants to go and listen to that we can put a link in the show note as well Dr. Angela Jay and she speaks about it she's she's amazing and her story is truly incredible so yeah we cannot stress that enough to make sure somebody knows 100% yeah and this is another case where he had he'd done things like this before and she didn't know so you know people did have the opportunity to know this stuff it could go a long way to to save lives but i think yeah it's really important to to speak to people no matter how kind of embarrassed you feel as simple a word as that is i think that can lead a lot of people to

just keeping things to themselves perpetrators of all different levels of severity rely on the fact that people are too scared to speak that's why they do it so brazenly they do it under their own name they do it out in the open they do it in front of everybody knowing that people are too scared to do anything nicole thank you so much for coming and being part of the podcast for sharing your story and we will link everything about your book and more details in the show notes as well thank you thanks for having me We'll be right back.