i just spent the last 6 days helping a friend out who has a murderous ex who is the craziest of all the stalkers i've seen, and that's saying something bc every women i have ever known has had stalkers. i spent a while with my friend pouring over the FDS manual and this subreddit. ladies, thank you, it was the handbook that we were able to use to discuss how we arrived where we found ourselves. she broke it off with him 21 years ago over "shocking, crazy porn" that he was hiding, making excuses for, and she sent him packing. it was about a 10 month relationship. This year he popped up from the past with a veterinary "emergency" that tricked her into "helping", bc he knew she'd respond to a video of a little hurt dog. he gained entrance into her home, via the sympathy he elicited. the next day he attacked her and she cut off all contact, realized he'd been the one to torture the dog, then use it to gain contact. then she looked into his social media and found out he'd been obsessed with her for 4 years. found over 2,000 videos he'd uploaded about killing himself, her, her family. the police were dismissive of her complaint, and when she showed them videos of an obviously mentally ill man sobbing and screaming about killing her, he said, "well i wasn't the one that dated him". it took me two days to analyze the scope of it, then another 4 to make the plan, file the protective order for the SECOND TIME since the first somehow got lost? we lamented, if we had only known then what we know now, that the desire for men to harm women is everywhere and that we never did need them, and modern porn is a gateway to mental illness. just had to vent. she's had to quit her career teaching, move across the country, and stop taking any calls except her closest contacts. i could murder someone right now.