The college I attended, Mount Holyoke College, is idyllic. It's campus is gorgeous and serene, the students brilliant and hard working, activities abound, and darn, the food was among the best in my life. I am 45 now. I would do just about anything to move back to that oasis of intellectualism, inspirational peers and faculty, and a lifestyle that, for me, has been unmatched.
By that, I'm sure you could see no one could have pulled me away from that campus, a place where I studied challenging material, enjoyed my new peers, and worked on the side to earn some money. My whole life was there. My parents were about 1.5 hours a way, also divorced. I loved and missed them very much, but I was a "big girl" and was enjoying building a life away from home. I returned home on vacations, summers, and maybe for a weekend every 5-6 weeks. In the midst of that, one or both of my parents would save me the trip and come see me for some family bonding. Thus, I didn't disrupt the million things I had going on, but still saw my parents.
This continued as I graduated from Mount Holyoke (waaaaaahhh) and then went on to grad school at Harvard. Cambridge is great. I was making new friends. As a young adult, especially since I was from the Sterling/Princeton area, the world was suddenly big, open, and full of amazing opportunities. I knew I was lucky, and occasionally craved a visit home. But, I was so busy. School and work obligations don't always end at Friday at 5:30. I had a job at a library that I enjoyed, and taught 2 7th grade classes.
Another similarity to VM - I have a chronic disease that reared itself at birth. I have logged many months in hospitals. During college, I was on a wealth of meds and was continually monitored. And yes, when I became acutely ill, I did miss my parents more, but left for home only if I could manage to miss days at school/work. I had also gotten used to taken care of its ins and outs over the years, for what it's worth. As a working professional, I didn't have time to travel home, and honestly the travel could exhaust me and I'd sometimes return sicker than when I left...
That was status quo for many years.
But then...I got a stalker. It was my senior year of college and she was a freshman. It was a female and she tormented me night and day. At first, it was little gifts and notes, and then things became stranger...She learned my schedule and was standing outside my classes, for example. She started dressing exactly like me. The school put me in the infirmary until I could make other plans, but she somehow sneaked into the infirmary, which set me off. It was at that point I felt I was in very serious trouble. I no longer wanted to be at my idyllic campus...even though graduation was near. I began going home more frequently, and at one point stayed a week and worked on schoolwork from home.
One day, a friend from back at school said my stalker had been gone for two days. My family went on alert. End of story - she had taken a bus, then a cab to my town and was asking around at small stores (again, we lived in a Princeton like town) where my family lived. We were very well known in town bc my dad coached numerous youth teams. Within hours that day a cab came up the driveway. Behind it, a couple of cop cars. From there, she was kicked out of school and sent across the country where she lives and I have never heard from her again.
It is amazing what stalkers will do. One of her notes told me that I just didn't know that I loved her yet, but I would soon.
I could go on and on. In VM's case, we are privy to no such stories, but when that was happening, my health was plummeting. I ended up in the hospital for acute respiratory problems, and even spent a few days in a "rest facility" trying to peel back the terror and paranoia I'd been feeling for so long.
Through all of this, I was a 4.0 student, looked healthy, smiled and laughed at people, and "seemed just great"...The things we don't know about others' lives...
These remembrances keep me tuned into VM, and I am consistently running through options. The addition of social media, I think, would have ramped up my situation, but this was back in the 90s. My stalker would have had more pics, more info, more ideas where I would be, who my friends are, scheduling, etc...Obsessive people will stop at nothing for just another shred of that person's life, one they feel is partially, or even completely, theirs.
