AWARE Blog

The Andover MA couples were once friendly neighbors, but then things took a terrible turn.   William and Gail Johnson lived near Jim and Bernadette Lyons. The Johnsons wanted to develop land they owned that lay behind Lyonses property.  The Lyonses objected, along with other neighbors.  Years of litigation did not resolve or improve the situatuion.

In 2008, the Johnsons began to harass the Lyones.  Here are some of the thihgs they did:

 If you are being stalked, or if your life is being threatened, if someone who harmed or threatened you is being released from prison, or if you live or work in a highly dangerous environment, AWARE is available to help you find the resources and training you need to keep yourself alive. Some AWARE board members have first-hand experience with situations like these. We can help evaluate the danger you are in, and assist you in developing a personal protection plan that is suited to your specific situation. Don't ignore what might be real danger!

Are You In Danger?        Yes

The quick outline; James Lasdun (his real name) was a happily married college teacher of writing who had a promising student called Nasreen (not her real name).  After her graduation, they communicated by email, he trying to encourage her talent by reading her work, and helping her find an agent.  She developed the odd habit of sending him LOTS of email. such as copies of her correspondence with a lawyer she was consulting about a harassment case.  Eventually, Lasdun, family and professional obligations taking all of his time, started to distance himself from her by, without explanation, not responding to her email.  Possibly gradually descending into mental illness, she began to retaliate by sending email to his agent saying that he had stolen from her work.  An accusation of plagiarism is extremely serious for any person whose livelihood depends on their creative output.Accusations of misogyny and racism are awful when completely untrue.

I’ve always hated the cover of my book, Safety for Stalking Victims: How to Save Your Privacy, Your Sanity, and Your Life.  How the book came to have a picture of what looks like a woman falling though mid air, instead of something conveying the relentless fear and anxiety stalking victims experience -- well, that is just too long to explain in a blog post.  

I wrote the book because other books about stalking at that time focused on analyzing the types of stalkers, detailing the kinds of things they did, and offering some strategies that might, or might not, make them stop.  Very little addressed specifically the problem of safety.  How can one tell whether a particular stalking situation is truly dangerous, and if so, what can a person being stalked, usually a woman, do to protect herself?