Has anyone here ever been on the receiving end of harassment? How did it stop? How did it end?

[SMJYellow]

I have a sister who fell out with members of the family, one by one including me.

She sent other members of the family some abusive messages over the past year if not more, but nowhere near the level that I received from her.

She has sent me thousands of messages including threats and intimation. I change my number over two years ago. She went to email for a little bit and then fake Facebook profiles. Then there was other stuff too. Like she created an ad on a selling site with my details.

I changed my number but she got my new number earlier this year and it all started up again.

I was apprehensive about going to the police but enough was enough and I made that move during the summer time. The officer I spoke to was shocked reading my phone and said if I was to take the full legal route, it will come out in papers and it would be talk of the town. I agreed with him. He said more often than not, an informal warning is enough for many people to stop this kind of carry on and we agreed to go down that route.

It cooled off for a bit but unfortunately it didn't stop. Last week I got a new round of abusive messages from her threatening to get my boyfriend involved. I thought she wouldnt follow through but she did. My boyfriend showed me the messages he got on messagner from her. The object was to humiliate me, paint me in a bad light and sabotage things between us. Whatever has gone on in our family went on in our family. She had no right to drag him into things.

I feel sick. She's not backing off. She wants nothing more to do with our family but she won't move on with her decision.

She's someone who finds offence with everything where there is no offence meant and she creates all this drama. Like our mother had pictures of my niece up in the kitchen. My sister doesn't get on with the brother and doesn't know the niece and she offence to pictures of her niece up because there was no pictures of her up. Things like that. Battles in her own mind.

Anyways, I'm at my wits end here. The last things I want to do is to take the full legal route by making a formal statement and getting her arrested.

My money is tight with me so for now I won't be able to go down the route of obtaining a court order. Changing my number won't fix things either. Not now at this stage considering she will find other routes to get to me as in through my boyfriend or whatever.

I haven't responded to anything from her to date because there is so much anger and hostility from her and it will only just fuel her anger.

I'm nearly ready to blow though. I find it very stressful and I'm at a loss as to what to do.

I'm really sorry to say this, but I think you have to get the police involved. She is clearly troubled, and by the sounds of things requires some kind of MH support. The authorities may allow her to unlock something of that nature.

Why is she so angry? I've heard about cases like this before, but it's often where one party has genuinely been the victim of abuse or scapegoating in the family. (I'm not suggesting you are the abuser or the scapegoater - sometimes the anger isn't focused on the person who did the damage, but on others).

Me, years ago, wannabe boyfriend. The police paid him an informal visit, scared him witless from the sounds of it, he never bothered me again.

In your case, having exhausted that option, I have to say that I would escalate and go for formal police involvement... I would rather be "the talk of the town" for 15 mins than suffer ongoing abuse and harassment for years.

I response to your question - why is she so angry?

I don't know. I suppose it's just her way or her personality.

No abuse occurred in the family. We had an absent father and there was hardship growing up but our mother did the best she could do. I'm guessing it could involve around that. Our mother did a lot for our three brothers and maybe she feels she wasn't wanted or something. I don't know.

I hear what you are saying about scapegoating. That isn't it.

Also we are not ganging up on her and taking sides or anything like that. We just don't have time for the anger she carries about and the drama it causes. Like for instance, I have two brothers living abroad in Australia. She fell out with one of them. He wasn't contacting home much when he first left and she picked up the wrong end of the stick and claimed he wants nothing to do with the family and sent him abusive messages around that. They never made it up at all since then. He went on to have a child with his partner and she couldn't drop whatever her issue was and expected an apology from him in the form of a christening invitation. Nothing less would have done her.

Falling out with much of the family has been similar. She took offense to slightest of things. She's so quick to cut us off and say she wants nothing more to do with us. I reckon she's having difficulty moving on with her decision to cut us off.

I have to seriously consider the formal route with the police. I can't continue on like this getting hassle regularly and the fact she's involving my boyfriend now and he has stresses in his own family, he doesn't need this.

"No abuse occurred in the family"

With respect, you don't know that. She's clearly very angry about something, although it does sound as though she has MH problems. Whether or not that stems from abuse, you don't know and you may never know.

However, she needs to address her own demons and you can't really help with that. I do agree that you need to take this further. You may be the talk of the town, if indeed you are, but that'll last no time at all and people will quickly forget about it.
What you need to do is to stop this before it escalates.

Yes I don’t think you really have any option but to go back to the police really. Especially when she’s persistent enough to find you again when you change numbers etc. When the police spoke to her before was it an informal chat or did they issue her with something like a PIN for harassment?

I have been harassed and to this level. I involved police who said action could be taken under malicious communication act etc. it went on for about a year. In the end what stopped it was not the police, but not reacting, although this is incredibly hard thing to do, but the minute I started to ignore it and all new attempts to bother/contact me they got bored and it stopped. I do think this type of behaviour is usually about much deeper issues within themselves and the harassment is their outlet (not condoning it)

It was a phone call and an informal chat/warning from a police officer.

Thing is, I haven't responded at all to any of this. It began in 2015 and the first abusive message I got, I saw there was a lot of anger and hostility in it and I knew there was nothing I could have done or wrote in response to fix things. She persisted and I continued to ignore the messages she was sending and there was a lot of them very heavy. I changed my number for peace. The abusive messages started back up again earlier this year. I still haven't responded. There were many times I felt like responding but I didn't. She should be bored of this and not getting a response but she's not. If anything, ignoring it all is making her more angry with me.

What sort of stuff does she have to tell your boyfriend that you hadn't told him yourself?

Escalating it is your only option. You may not be he talk of the town, it may not get picked up by the local paper or just get a few inches. Anyway people get over it, people in my town have had much worse in the paper about them and manage to go on living normal lives.

She made a threat last week to me of contacting the boyfriend. I ignored her. I filled him in before on the struggles we have within the family with her but I didnt tell him just how bad things are from her because I find it hard to talk about it and what can I say. There were instances this year where she sent me selfie pictures of her naked breasts with words like - 'hey, jealous of these c*nt?' Like how do I tell him that?

She sent him messages rehashing old arguments we had going back years.

Our fallout began about 3 years ago. She was being very negative and I gave out to her. I tried to apologise in the aftermath but she didn't want to know. She stuck her nose in the air and snubbed me'.

To this day she will not let it go. She's demanding for apologies from me. She got one but t wasn't to her standard or she still wasn't happy with it.

So she is rehashing all this to him in her messages and really painting me in a bad light. Never mind about her part in things.

If she's sending all these messages, they must contain some clue as to why she's angry? Why is so much directed at you? Why did you fall out?

I appreciate you don't want to give too much away on here, but it all seems so strange.

If she does have a genuine grievance, whether you believe her or not, maybe you could try talking to her and see if it gets you anywhere? Unless you think she would be violent? Otherwise, like the others have said previously, I don't know how you get her to stop without further police involvement.

Yes. Step one block numbers on all things.

Delete social media

Call 101 and report.

I would contact the Police. She is stalking you and it isn't going to stop until you take action.

At 16.03, I replied to another reply and details are in there.

Why so much directed at me?

At a guess,
She was so quick to cut us all off and I reckon she's feeling the brunt end of her decision now with lonliness perhaps. She probably sees me as the soft touch in the family.

^ that was for whocansay

Also, I thought about the idea of a mediator and perhaps seeing if she would be interested in meeting with the involvement of a mediator. When it came to writing a letter and sending it, I just couldn't. Shes done far far too much for me to want any sort of a relationship with her. Not only that, I don't think she would be interested. Not only that, I don't think a mediator would help because so much of what's happening is a battle going on in her mind.

Surely you can block her number etc. So you don't see all these messages. Your boyfriend can too.

I’m sorry to say that the police often make comments like ‘it will be in the papers’ etc for a number reasons. One is that some people are very sensitive and make complaints for very little reason, so it’s way of making them back off. They hate getting involved in family disputes, and recognise that their involvement may make things worse. And sometimes they arrest and charge and CPS decide not to prosecute, which gives people the message that they can carry on and get away with it. As a first step the police can issue a PIN which is a notice to say that they are aware of the situation and the other person should stop what they are doing. If the harassment continues they can caution if the other person admits it or prosecute. In your shoes I would go back to the police and say you would like to pursue a complaint.

You need to go to the police OP, otherwise it will never stop. If she has MH issues it may help her get the support she needs.

Herbcake, I have a budget smartphone and I'm not able to block numbers. I rang the network customer service and they were useless. Even, blocking number probably won't help as such any more considering she's taking other routes at making contact with me. My sister doesn't have my boyfriends number. She contacted him on Facebook messenger.

Thanks for all the replies.

I'll need to organise my time to go back to the station but I hope to get around to doing that as soon as I am free. It will be into next week.

I was told in the summertime that if I go down the route of making a formal complaint, my phone will be confiscated. I hope to get a loan of an uncle to buy a new smartphone.

The one thing that really stands out here is the fact that’s she’s sending your BF numerous messages. At the first pass he should have blocked her. I’m not negating your situation at all OP, but I do believe there’s more you can do to ‘disappear’ than just change your number. From what you’ve told us, this doesn’t sound salvageable in any sense until your sister is ready to meet you half way. In the interim you can disappear better. Really shit that you have to do that, but it’s that or let the harrasement continue. With both phone numbers you should have blocked her immediately. It’s easy to do. You shouldn’t have 100’s of texts as evidence. She’s only harassing you by text/email etc and hasn’t escalated to anything more serious and as you haven’t replied or responded she’s not even aware you’ve engaged etc so just block her immediately.

I told my boyfriend the trouble in the family from the sister. I had something at the back of my mind that it would only be a matter of time before she would find out about us, even though our lives are private and nothing on Facebook about us. My gut instinct told me she would find out and sabotage us. I never told him the full degree of things so he never really understood just how serious this is.

She threatened me last week of getting the boyfriend involved and 'telling me how nasty I am'. A family row, ignoring abuse and harassment and moving on with my life constitutes as nasty in her eyes.

My boyfriend woke up one morning last week to have all these messages. He more bewildered than anything else. He told me about them and showed them to me and then he deleted them and blocked them and never responded.