Finally Feel ready To Talk About This ...

I was 18 and working in a bar when I got chatting to a friend of my then boyfriend. Me and the boyfriend parted company a few months later. The friend in question said he was there for me if I needed anything. He made sexual advances towards me
and I told his girlfriend (who was a friend of mine). The man then became obsessed with making my life hell. His girlfriend had dumped him as it wasn't the first time he had attempted to cheat on her.

When I now look back aged 23, I realise I was the prime target for him, I had no family nearby and he knew I didn't have  anyone to help me. He would come into the bar and tell me he was going to 'have me raped and cut into tiny pieces.' He
said he would burn down my house whilst I was sleeping in it.

Nobody believed me when I told them what he was saying. On the outside, he was charming and funny, everybody liked him. He had a lot of friends, nobody would believe what hell he was putting me through. He used to text me up to 100 times a day  making threats at me. He would hang round by my home, jump out of doorways at me in public and smashed two of my windows.

He also threatened to inject me with a drug filled or aids contaminated needle.

He never physically attacked me, it was always a psychological game to him.The more fear I showed, the worse he would act.

He would follow me round in public and make slicing motions across his throat as he was looking at me. I eventually went to the police, they told me until I had reported three separate incidents, they couldn't do anything as it didn't amount to
harassment or stalking. I would start to physically shake whenever I saw this man.

Everyday I woke up believing that was going to be the day that I would die because he would kill me. I even contemplated suicide as a way out from that living hell but in a logical moment, realised that if I done that, he had won.

He rang me up telling me that one particular night was my last one as he had a gun and was going to shoot me. He was stood outside my home and fired a gun off. Still, the police didn't take any notice.

He tried to pay someone £2000 to throw sulphuric acid in my face. Only then did the police realise what I was up against.

The only reason they acted was because I went down to the station in hysterics telling them that if they didn't act on what I was saying, I would kill him before he could kill me. At that point, I was six months into the stalking, my nerves where
in bits, I couldn't eat, sleep or function properly and I quite happily could of done 10 years in jail in order to get a  peaceful life and not have to face the man. By this point, I was mentally broken and believing all the horrid things he called me and said about me.

I ended up quitting my job and leaving my home to go to an area where I didn't know anybody and vice versa. The police  eventually arrested and charged the man with malicious communications, threats to kill and harassment.They bailed him and
he fled. He has not been seen since.

Only when he was arrested did people start to believe what I was saying. By then, it was too late, the psychological damage had been done and I didn't (and still don't) trust anybody. This man put on such a good act that people thought he was decent,
they also believed him when he said I was lying.

To this day, I still live in fear, partly for myself and partly for women he will have met after he fled. For a long time,  I blamed myself for what had happened. I have now realised that at 18, I was naive, he was 29 and should of known better.

I get angry when I think about how my life was destroyed but yet he has been able to just get on with his. His behaviour still has an effect on me to this day, I have a phobia of the dark, I don't go out after dusk and I'm frightened of new
people.

On the bright side, I can't imagine ever going through anything else so terrifying, so I am proud to say that even though I am still affected by what happened, I came through it, I'm getting to be a survivor.

If anyone else has had any similar experiences, (or just has any sensible advice to offer me) please let me know how you overcome it. I have spent years blocking out the memories of this experience and I know I have to confront it and move forward, I just don't know how to.