No, this isn’t about someone watching your social media and supporting it with a reaction. This is someone who is going beyond that into dark territory.

The relationship has ended, but they won’t let you go. Sometimes, a person will employ tactics as an attempt to keep you tied to them. They don’t care how it may impact you.

What Is Harassment?

Let’s be real, misogyny has made it difficult to distinguish between safe behavior and unsafe behavior, so it is crucial for me to define harassment.

Harassment is when an individual repeatedly engages in unwelcome behavior against a victim. It is typically recognized by its unlikelihood in terms of social and moral acceptability and can be behavior that mocks, humiliates, or embarrasses a person as means to hover or crowd a person at all times. These actions appear to be distressing, threatening, or unsettling in a legal sense.

Harassment comes in many forms, which is why you may not even realize that you are being harassed.

Some of the most comment types of harassment include, but are not limited to:

• Stalking – an ex partner could stalk you (and your loved ones) at your home, appear at your work against your wishes, and follow you around to visit places that you frequent as a means to bump into you coincidentally
• Sexual harassment – these include unpleasant verbal or physical actions, as well as unwanted sexual advances.
• Cyberbullying – this form of harassment occurs online, which includes hacking social accounts (or phone to get to said accounts) to access personal information or images to share them without your consent
• Psychological abuse – this is also known as “emotional harassment”, this includes threats and passive aggressive behaviors; this is most often enacted through an abuse of power by leveraging resources to make a you feel cornered physically, emotionally and mentally
• Hate crimes – racial prejudice, ethnicity, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, and disability stereotypes all have an impact on this kind of crime.

How To Cope

First you have to identify what is happening to you and to what degree. There is a difference between an annoyance and what constitutes as harassment.

An annoyance could simply be repeated phone calls or emails to you. If your ex calls you frequently to find out if you still miss/love them, it may not be considered harassment yet.

Take a look at the list above and see if what is happening to you fits into any of the categories. If you are in the midst of a smear campaign, click here and take a look at the steps in the video.

Sometimes it is as simple as blocking and changing your own behavioral patterns.

Do not be afraid of enforcing your boundaries, but learn how to decipher what deserves your attention and what doesn’t.

Keep a strong support system at all times. If you do not have one, keep your line of communication open with God.

Journal. Journal. Journal.

Cut any chords of all energy. Energy is not restricted by time and space. Often times, we think that we have rid ourselves of the problem simply because we are no longer in the relationship.

Find a way to fortify your safety, buy utilizing different tools to work in tandem with the locks on your doors.

If it escalates, reach out to authorities.

Never be afraid to relocate and start fresh because sometimes this is whats needed.

Final Words

I finally watched the movie Missing starring Nia Long and Storm Reid. It really made me sit back and think about how even the most subtle of actions can snowball out of control.

When a relationship has ended, I close out the energy. However, that hasn’t always been the case with the people that I have dated.

I know you’re probably like, “Girl, what’s the problem with him/her taking a quick gander at your Instagram to see what’s going on in your life?” Yeah, that sounds innocently enough, but it escalates into worse.

Let’s be real, it’s dreadful when someone you dated (or a person connected to them) has power, connections and resources at their disposal. You could find yourself being harassed on all fronts like your every move watched, necessary resources delayed, and people feeling like they know you because of smear campaigns.

In most cases, I move on and don’t even truly mention the ins and outs of what happened. I also hold people’s secrets for them because exposing them doesn’t really do anything to enrich my life. Let’s be clear, when I need to set the record straight — I do. I talk about what happened to me and how it impacted me — that’s the difference. If I do search, it’s to see why I am being targeted (the projected lie at the moment).

What’s intriguing about it is their need to act as if no one desires me, but they can’t seem to stop sitting at their tables plotting, mentioning my name to women or meddling in my life.

No, seriously.

I’ve never been legally married. You know with documentation to signify a formal union, but for some reason they think I have been because people are apt to believe everything that comes from a man’s mouth.

The smear campaigns have even included hacking my phone and creating fake accounts of me as a defamation of my character.

I don’t have any business partners, but that hasn’t stopped them from making fabrications.

Imagine someone never being intimate or even being in a relationship with you, but holding animosity because you told them you don’t prefer texting all the time and they couldn’t catch the hint? I kid you not.

The funny thing is — these are different men. I could keep going, but I’d rather not.

I know what you are thinking though: “Well the common denominator is y—” Me. Yes, I know. When men are involved why are people more inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt though? Why do we okay harassment and blame the woman? Yeah, check that patriarchy at the door.

There are women whom I don’t even know that know of me because of a man’s game of triangulation.

Some men can’t handle rejection of any form, so they seek to smother you by making you feel cornered in on all fronts of your life.

James, in the movie Missing, didn’t care about how his actions emotionally impacted Ava at all. He had a vendetta against Grace and wanted to punish her in any way.

I want you to focus on your happiness though.

Focus on the smile on your child’s face and how the simplest of things, such as running like Naruto through the park, brings him/her joy.

Sometimes you are there to show them that in a world full of people filled with negative intentions, there are imperfect people like you who would rather spend their time focusing on their future and not on the demise of another person.

Don’t let it turn your heart turn to stone. You deserve genuine love — not a ghost from the past.

It may be hard, but extend them grace. I am not saying to not express yourself. I am saying that it is by giving grace that you free yourself from their low vibrational energy.

Grace always wins (no pun intended).