Are you experiencing stalking in yourself or someone close to you? Find out where to seek help, how to recognize warning signs, and how a psychologist can help you find the next safe step.

Stalking is not normal interest and not “just unpleasant harassment.” It is intentional, repeated, and unwanted pursuit or contact that disrupts a person’s life, takes away their peace, and creates fear for their safety. In Czechia, stalking is a criminal offence, and the police describe it as systematic pursuit and harassment that can seriously affect a victim’s privacy, dignity, and mental and physical health.

What to understand by stalking

Stalking can take different forms. Sometimes it involves constant messages, calls, and emails. At other times, it may mean waiting outside someone’s home, following them, seeking physical closeness, making threats, applying pressure, misusing personal data, damaging belongings, or online harassment. What matters is that this is not a one-time event, but repeated behaviour that the person does not want and that causes anxiety, tension, or fear.

How stalking can show up

A person experiencing stalking is often on alert for a long time. They may be afraid to walk alone, change their habits, keep checking their phone, sleep badly, or feel that they are never fully safe anywhere. It is also common that at first the individual situations seem “small,” but it is exactly their repetition and connection that make the problem serious. Police and support organisations point out that stalking is often linked with long-term stress, fear, and a major impact on mental well-being.

Why it can be hard to admit it to yourself

Stalking often does not begin in an obvious way. It may develop slowly, and for some time a person may tell themselves that they are overreacting, that “it is nothing serious,” or that it will stop on its own. But it is exactly this gradual escalation that can be deceptive. Support organisations explicitly state that it may take time before a person realises that it is no longer just an unpleasantness, but a sustained pattern of harassment and pressure.

Who can commit stalking

The stalker may be a former partner, someone known to the person, a colleague, but also a stranger. So it is not true that stalking concerns only breakups or only romantic relationships. What these situations have in common is that the other person does not respect boundaries and continues contact despite clear refusal.

What usually helps

What helps most is taking the situation seriously. It is recommended not to feed the contact further, if that can be done safely, to collect evidence, save messages, emails, and screenshots, write down the date, time, and course of incidents, and let trusted people know what is happening. It is also useful to think through a safety plan, inform people around you, and not handle everything alone. The police recommend ignoring the stalker, informing close people, changing routines the stalker knows, and keeping a phone ready with quick access to help.

When a psychologist or therapist can help

A psychologist or therapist can be very important when stalking is draining a person psychologically over a long period, disrupting sleep, increasing anxiety, bringing shame, panic, or the feeling that normal functioning is no longer possible. This kind of help can support not only the processing of fear and stress, but also the return of a greater sense of safety and control over one’s own life. Sources focused on victims warn that the psychological impact of stalking can be very strong and that professional support is worth seeking early.

When it is necessary to act quickly

If you feel in immediate danger, call 158 or 112. If you need support and advice, in Czechia there is a free 24/7 helpline at 116 006 for victims of crime and domestic violence. The police explicitly recommend reporting stalking and not waiting in situations of direct danger.

You are not alone in this

Stalking is not something minor and not something a person should “just endure.” If someone repeatedly forces themselves into your life, does not respect rejection, and takes away your peace, it is completely right to seek help as early as possible. A psychologist, therapist, and crisis support can all be important sources of support so that a person does not remain alone in this situation.