It was National Stalking Awareness Week on April 20-24th, and this year social media has been given special emphasis due to the Coronavirus lockdown. I started to think about what this means. For many years, I'd used a pseudonym on social media to avoid ex-partners I no longer wanted contact with. I did this at the time without questioning what it says about power relationships in the digital world.

Here I was, adapting my behaviour to accommodate individuals who I knew would peek their heads around the door, despite it having been closed in no uncertain terms. In the main part I was protecting my emotional and physical health from controlling and unreasonable behaviour. Believe me, if I told you the stories you would understand. But something about it jarred. When people asked me about the pseudonym, I felt that it was better to sidestep the question, as I did not want to divulge the details of uncomfortable past experiences, fearful that I would be blamed or criticised for my bad choices.

I was not far wrong. There is a lack of understanding in society as to why, women in particular, stay in relationships that are mentally, or even physically, abusive. When I was struggling to free myself from a toxic relationship, a psychologist I was seeing questioned why I didn't just move on, without acknowledging that moving on is just what the toxic person is trying to prevent you from doing.

It is one thing reading the literature, and another thing experiencing how such situations play on your emotions, as the person you trusted questions your perceptions, manipulates your feelings, and even deliberately sets out to ruin your best moments. On the other hand, they are very good at elevating you when it suits them. Too good to be true, in fact. If it sounds confusing, that's because it is. When you try to extricate yourself from the situation, you will no doubt be met with such phrases as: 'I'm worried about you,' and 'You've got it all wrong.'

Relationships are made up of plans, dreams, hopes, all of which can be hard to let go of. The toxic wheel of acceptance and rejection can go on for a long time. Blocking. Unblocking. Letters. Texts. Random visits. In its most unhealthy aspects, social media encourages voyeurism, a way of finding out where a person goes, and what they are up to. Most getting-over-your-ex advice will warn against the temptations of this. For most of us, it's just the lingering effects of a broken heart. For others, it's a way to regain control. In other words, stalking.

So far I've been non-gender specific, but Stalking Awareness Week is promoted by Women's Aid, so to ignore gender imbalance would be to ignore a large part of the problem. In the bog standard hetero rom-com, women are invited to believe that if a guy repeatedly leaves messages, turns up unannounced at her gym class, chases her through an airport, or even breaks into her house, it’s because he's the best thing since the Wonderbra and all she has to do is admit it and they'll live happily ever after. The message women are given is to hand over your power, because the guy knows you better than you know yourself? Really?

Perhaps the psychologist had a point to make about coming to terms with choices that haven't worked out (part of the healing process), although he didn't quite put it like that. But I saw it in gender terms: the onus was on me to change my behaviour, and not on the other party to respect my boundaries. This is so often the story. But it shouldn't be. The more we talk about these issues, the easier it will be to for anyone who finds themselves in that position to recognise what it is happening to them, without taking on feelings of shame and blame. Let the abusers hide, and not the victims.