This forum has been helpful for a number of things, and I have one question that some may know an answer from experience. Like many on one side of my family, my older sister shows strong schizotypal-like symptoms (voices, beliefs that people want to get her because she is so special, dabbling in curses on people, putting on a lizard-man act, etc). Her husband also brags about being diagnosed by doctors as a sociopath. Growing up, my older sister used to say I needed to be “equalized” because I was healthy, that I was Cinderella, the ugly duckling, and that she was Cain and I Abel (she used to say she would murder me if she could get away with it). She was and is totally fixated on me and wants revenge because I don’t have what she has.
Recently, it came to my attention that she has been calling my employers. She can be effective verbally until she starts talking in her lizard-man voice about weird things. I have moved to the other side of the country to get away from her and her family, but that doesn’t stop her from calling employers in the field that I work in, where I live. She doesn’t have a job, so she has a lot of time.
I took down my social media accounts. Is there anything else I can do? Is it possible to remove my address from the internet?
Hi @Otter . I don’t know that it is possible to remove your address from the internet. There are so many programs to find people… Perhaps you can tell the place you work at what is going on with stalking from your sister so they aren’t shocked if she calls and will alert you if it happens. One woman at my work who was being stalked by an exboyfriend successfully got help from the office manager and the Sheriffs office to stop him. Good luck.
Explaining your sisters mental illness to the management will help. So will putting her on a list of blocked contacts. (Without telling her or your other family members this.) Most offices are nice enough that when they get repeated weirdo customers it goes to an invoice/answering machine that they end up dropping off at the local PD. For yourself, this just means letting the message ring through and forwarding it directly to a safe location or inbox for further review when you want to pull it out as evidence against your sister. (Court of law wise, not between you and a HR rep) This was how they handled it for a friend who was going through a DV (Domestic Violence) situation. The calls were used against the stalker/source of harassment that means that they weren’t bothered by the person at work or at home ever again.
At worst, you might consider a restraining order. This is a form of harassment and it absolutely effects your work life and the impression your co-workers and bosses have of you. With that in mind, I hope more people can realize that protecting the mentally ill also means making sure their family members lives aren’t a guaranteed hell-scape. Notifying your employer and the HR team means they can and will try to protect you as much as they can. When it’s good HR is the group of people that have an iron grip on their gossiping urge. They protect you and many other people’s information without really having to think about it.