Episode #58: A Conversation About: Online Stalking and Harassment
June 26, 2025
The X-Podcast: Real Conversations About Mental Health
A Conversation About: Online Stalking and Harassment
Listen to all episodes at https://blubrry.com/studio_talk_mental_health/
Episode #58 Online Stalking and Harassment
My public statement 2/25/24 on my professional social media accounts:
Official Public Statement Regarding My Online Stalker and Harassment
2/28/24 Update: In a good-faith effort, I have agreed to remove this original update in exchange for securing my safety and well-being, my family’s safety and well-being, and the safety and well-being of my clients. It will remain archived as documentation.
According to Durham University
https://reportandsupport.durham.ac.uk/.../what-is-online...
The Definition of Online Harassment is:
Online harassment can be defined as the use of information and communication technologies by an individual or group to cause harm to another person repeatedly.
This may involve threats, embarrassment, or humiliation in an online setting. This includes expressions of discriminatory attitudes and beliefs, such as sexism, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, or ableist prejudices. It also includes online sexual harassment, cyberstalking, and image-based sexual abuse or other unwanted online conduct of a sexual nature.
Online harassment is also known as cyberaggression, cyberbullying, cyber-harassment, cyberhate, cybervictimisation, and deviant online behaviour. It takes place in various contexts, including social media (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and Twitter), SMS, instant messaging (via devices, email provider services, apps, and social media messaging features), and email.
Examples of online harassment include spreading rumours, ridiculing, and/or demeaning others harassing others because of their race, religion, sexual orientation, disability, or transgender identity seeking revenge or deliberately embarrassing a person online engaging in unwanted behaviour of a sexual nature via text, email, or other electronic and/or social media, including using intimate images or recordings of another person impersonating others, even through their accounts, with malicious intent sending inflammatory, inappropriate, rude, and/or violent messages or comments about someone to provoke responses from other users exposing others to unwanted or offensive content in digital groups or meetings.
https://reportandsupport.durham.ac.uk/.../what-is-online...
Thank you for your concern and supportive messages. We hope to resolve this matter soon without incident.
Xiomara A. Sosa
https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=definition%20of%20cyberstalking%20
Stalking impacts nearly 1 in 3 women and 1 in 6 men in the United States. Yet, there is no stalking hotline, no stalking crisis centers, and it is often difficult for stalking victims to recognize what they are experiencing and/or know where to go for help. Our task at the Stalking Prevention, Awareness, & Resource Center (SPARC) of AEquitas is to “help the helpers”, making sure that the victim service providers (including domestic violence shelters and rape crisis agencies), campuses, law enforcement agencies, and other places where stalking victims come for help and support have the training and resources they need to better respond to victims and survivors.
What is online harassment?
According to Durham University
Online harassment can be defined as the use of information and communication technologies by an individual or group to cause harm to another person repeatedly.
This may involve threats, embarrassment, or humiliation in an online setting. This includes expressions of discriminatory attitudes and beliefs, such as sexism, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, or ableist prejudices. It also includes online sexual harassment, cyberstalking, and image-based sexual abuse or other unwanted online conduct of a sexual nature.
Online harassment is also known as cyberaggression, cyberbullying, cyber-harassment, cyberhate, cybervictimisation, and deviant online behaviour. It takes place in various contexts, including social media (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and Twitter), SMS, instant messaging (via devices, email provider services, apps, and social media messaging features), and email.
spreading rumours, ridiculing, and/or demeaning others
harassing others because of their race, religion, sexual orientation, disability or transgender identity
seeking revenge or deliberately embarrassing a person online
engaging in unwanted behaviour of a sexual nature via text, email, or other electronic and/or social media, including using intimate images or recordings of another person
impersonating others, even through their accounts, with malicious intent
Sending inflammatory, inappropriate, rude, and/or violent messages or comments about someone to provoke responses from other users
exposing others to unwanted or offensive content in digital groups or meetings
The kinds of unwanted behaviours described above can provoke a range of physical, psychological, and emotional effects:
stress, anxiety, and/or panic attacks
loss of self-esteem
feelings of powerlessness
changes in sleep and eating patterns
hypervigilance and increased anxiety
fear for personal safety
Reduced academic and professional performance
What is cyberstalking?
According to womenslaw.org
What are Smear Campaigns and Reputational Abuse?
https://youtu.be/za-a9h4fP7o?si=QeX5t3MnlhOH4_N1
Callie Sorensen YouTube channel
REPUTATIONAL ABUSE IS A FORM OF EMOTIONAL ABUSE that most people never see coming — until it’s too late. When someone rewrites your story, spreads lies, turns people against you, and makes you look like the problem, that’s not gossip. That’s a smear campaign, and it’s strategic, controlling, and devastating.
Transcript
Introduction to Reputational Abuse
Many people talk about smear campaigns, how someone spreads lies to destroy your name, ruin your credibility, and turn people against you. But almost nobody talks about the bigger picture because what you're experiencing it's not just gossip; it's reputational abuse, and it's one of the most overlooked forms of psychological and emotional control.
Reputational abuse is when someone tries to destroy your credibility. Isolate you from support and poison how others see you, often while appearing
calm, innocent, or even concerned. And once it spreads, especially when it's online, it can feel unrecoverable.
What is Reputational Abuse?
Reputational abuse is when someone intentionally damages your name, your character, or your credibility as a way to control, discredit, or punish you. It's often part of a larger pattern of coercive control, and it becomes especially vicious after you try to leave a relationship.
Speak up or set boundaries.
It's not always loud; sometimes it's whispered.
Sometimes it's half-truths, implications, or quote-unquote concerns that they have about you.
But the goal is always the same: to control how other people see you, so that you lose power, support, safety, and your mind.
A smear campaign is one of the most common tactics of reputational abuse.
It's a way of damaging your name and reputation on purpose to control the story before you can tell it.
If you've ever felt like somebody rewrote your story before you even had a chance to speak, that wasn't drama.
That was a smear campaign.
Tactics of Reputational Abuse
So let's talk about how reputational abuse shows up, because it's not just about public shaming or viral callouts.
It can be loud and obvious or subtle and strategic.
Some overt tactics include lying about you to your friends, your family, coworkers, or spiritual
leaders, people in your community.
Accusing you of things that you didn't do, cheating, abuse, or being unstable.
Posting about you online: sometimes vague, but sometimes obvious, and always damaging.
Emailing your boss, your clients, your therapist, to "warn" them, or act as if they're concerned, but it's calculated.
Threatening to expose your private information or history.
Labeling you as manipulative, a narcissist, or dangerous. Twisting the story and positioning themselves as the victim so that you look like the abuser.
DARVO
Some of the more subtle or covert tactics may include saying things to others like,
I'm just telling you this because I care about them.
I'm worried about them. In a tone that can see doubt, it may sound like they care about you, but it's designed to undermine you.
Another example is telling people, “They're not doing well”.
I'm worried they're really unstable lately.
Sadly, they've been spiraling since the breakup.
With just enough implication to raise concern without sounding malicious.
Quietly building alliances with others.
So by the time you speak up, the room's already turned against you.
Positioning themselves as the calm one, the ones who tried while making you look irrational or unstable.
They control the narrative before you even get a chance to open your mouth, and by the time you speak up, the room's already been primed to doubt you.
Motivations Behind Reputational Abuse
Why do they do it?
Reputational abuse is a control tactic.
It's not just a slip of the tongue.
It's a strategy, and here's what's usually underneath it.
Sometimes it's about punishing you for leaving.
When a controller loses access to you.
They don't just want closure, they want punishment, and reputation is one of the fastest ways to hit back that is devastating.
Also, to discredit you before speaking up.
They rewrite the story before you can tell the truth.
This is preemptive damage control.
If they smear you first, no one will believe your side.
Also, to isolate you from support, if they can convince others that you are unstable, toxic, dramatic, or abusive, you are left alone, and isolated people are easier to control.
To protect their image.
Many abusers are highly invested in looking good, especially to outsiders.
Their public image matters more than your experience.
Smearing you protects the illusion that they are the good ones.
In the end, it's not just about destroying your name and reputation; it's about keeping theirs clean.
The Impact of Reputational Abuse
Why do reputation abuse and smear campaigns hurt so much?
Because your reputation is survival.
Biologically, we are wired for belonging.
Being believed, trusted, and accepted isn't just emotional.
When your reputation is destroyed, you don't just lose credibility.
You risk losing your entire safety net.
You might lose your job, your relationships, your community, your financial stability, your mental health, and your sense of reality.
Instead of healing from what was done to you, you sometimes feel forced to defend your character to people who don't even know the real story.
And online, a single post, a vague caption, a voice note, a screenshot that's shared, taken out of context, it can ripple through your entire life.
And the worst part, they don't need proof.
They just need an audience willing to believe whatever sounds convincing enough.
So why do you feel so powerless?
Because you can't fight a whisper campaign.
You can't refute every single lie that was told about you.
You can't unpoison every relationship.
You can't prove your innocence to people who never even asked for your side.
And that's what makes reputational abuse so brutal.
You're not just defending your story, you're trying to defend your character in a world that's already been told who you are.
And the truth is, most people won't take the time to hear both sides equally.
They won't ask for context, they won't look for receipts.
They've got their own lives, their own distractions, and all humans have biases.
We're wired to choose sides fast, especially when the story is told with emotion, urgency, or confidence, even if it's not true.
That's what makes reputational abuse one of the most helpless, disorienting, and rage-inducing forms of harm.
Because it's invisible, it's quiet, and by the time you realize what's happening, your name has already left the room without you.
Steps to Recovery
So what can you do about it?
Here's what I want you to know.
If this is happening to you, you're not crazy, you're not dramatic, and you're not imagining it.
You're in the aftermath of image-based warfare, and the hardest thing to accept is that you can't undo a smear campaign with logic.
Why?
Because it was never about the full truth and context.
It was about control.
Many controllers want you to spiral.
They want you to panic.
They want you to chase every rumor and lose your mind trying to explain yourself to people who have already made up their minds.
Because the more unstable you look, the more right they seem.
So here's what recovery can look like.
Some people are stuck in their biases, and no amount of explaining will change that.
Trying to correct the record with everyone will only cost you time, energy, sleep, and peace.
So instead of chasing people who've already made up their minds, focus on the people who already know your heart.
And let your actions speak over time.
Rebuild your life around truth, not damage control.
Here are some steps that can help emotionally and practically.
Document what's been happening for your own safety, for future legal purposes.
Surround yourself with safe people who reflect to you the truth of who you are.
Let your values be visible; quiet consistency will say more than any defense ever could.
Shift your energy inwards, healing, nervous system work, community, creativity, truth.
Rebuild your life, not for revenge, but for restoration.
And in some cases, you might wanna consider taking legal action, HR reports, whistle blowing or restraining orders.
They might be appropriate just depending on the context, but make sure you're being strategic and not reactive.
Get professional support because your truth matters, but your peace is what matters more.
You don't need to chase your reputation.
You need to reclaim your identity, not for them, but for you.
Abuse using technology
Cyberstalking means misusing the internet or other technology to stalk and harass someone. A stalker may contact you by:
email;
social media sites;
a messaging app; or
through other online spaces/websites.
The person may do any of the following:
post messages about you;
spread rumors about you;
harass your friends or family;
recruit other people to harass you;
impersonate you;
share your personal information or pictures of you online to harass or scare you;
use technology to find/track your location and to monitor what you do online or offline; and
create fake images or recordings of you (“deepfakes”).
A stalker or harasser may also target your friends or family. This is a risk factor for the stalking getting worse. You can learn more about risk factors at the Stalking Prevention, Awareness, & Resource Center (SPARC) website.
Even if your state does not have a criminal law specifically against “cyberstalking,” that doesn’t mean it isn’t a crime. In most states, repeatedly contacting or harassing a person through the internet or other technology is still considered a crime under the state’s stalking or harassment laws. It’s important to know that even if you were originally okay with the person contacting you, it could still be illegal if you make it known that the contact is now unwanted. To read your state’s specific laws, you can go to our Crimes page and enter your state in the drop-down menu.
Risk Assessment and Safety Planning According to stalkingawareness.org SPARC
Stalkers can be unpredictable and dangerous. Whether in person or through the use of technology, stalkers use a variety of strategies to invade the lives of their victims. Most stalkers use multiple tactics and can escalate their behavior(s) at any time.
Stalking situations have unique risks and considerations for safety planning. The Stalking & Harassment Assessment & Risk Profile (SHARP) is a tool designed specifically to examine and assess stalking. SHARP is a 48-item web-based assessment that provides an assessment of the “big picture” of the stalking situation.
It also provides a situational risk profile that consists of 14 factors associated with a wide variety of harms, including physical or sexual attack, harm to others, ongoing and escalating stalking and harassment, and life sabotage. SHARP is free to use and provides both a narrative of the stalking situation and the risk profile, as well as information about stalking risks and safety suggestions.
We encourage responders and stalking victims to work together to complete the SHARP assessment and use our Safety Planning Guide below to develop safety strategies.
#TheXPodcast #MentalHealth #Counseling #Therapy #OnlineStalking #Harassment #Stalking #Abuse #AbuseUsingTechnology
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References
https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=definition%20of%20cyberstalking%20
