I learned June 7 that I would not be able to convince police that anything happening to me was worthy of concern.
Everything was not a violation.
Nothing was worthy of investigation.
After I left him, I changed my login credentials for my home security system. I locked him out.
It didn’t matter.
Every time I logged a strange device out of my account, it logged right back in. Instantly. Someone was re-entering a system I had already secured, over and over, faster than I could close the door.
Then they changed my safe word.
If you’ve never had a security system, that word is how the alarm company knows it’s really you. Whoever controlled it could see inside my home through my own cameras. Change my keypad code. Decide what happened if an alarm went off.
The system I had paid for to keep my family safe was being used to watch us. To control the locks. To know when we were home.
People hear “hacking” and picture inconvenience. A password reset. A nuisance.
What I experienced was someone reaching into my home and taking the controls.
So I called the police.
I told them about the harassment. The threats. The device that kept logging back in. The safe word that wasn’t mine anymore. I had screenshots. The evidence was sitting right there, and it would not have been hard to follow.
They didn’t follow it.
They took a report, told me it wasn’t a violation, and left. Nothing really to see here. I should raise it at my court date, they said.
I stood in my own home, locked out of my own security system, watched through my own cameras, and was told there was nothing to investigate.
That was the moment I understood.
I could do everything I was supposed to do; report it, document it, preserve every screenshot, and still be completely on my own.
So I grabbed my children and we left.
We went to my mother’s house.
Then we left again, for a hotel.
While we were there, my location was exposed online to tens of thousands of people, by posting a screenshot from my email account of the hotel receipt.
That is the line that connects online with real life. Hacked emails turn into doxxing, which meant someone knew exactly where we were.
I remember the feeling more than anything else.
The sick certainty that nobody was coming.
The realization of my helplessness to keep my family safe. I moaned in emotional pain. I was getting texts and calls with vague threats against my family. While my location was known.
More happened that I don’t feel safe to share publicly. But it was clear that going to police was a risk to my safety, and they were not going to help. Either they didn’t understand the severity, or they choose to close their eyes. Either way, talking to them was no longer an option.
Two days later, it would escalate further.
But June 7 was the day I learned the truth: I was the only one who was going to protect us.
