Helping Victims of Targeted Stalking
Some pointers on how to help extract a traumatized individual from being gangstalked
Be consistent. Psychological abusers play fast and loose with their values or apparent allegiances; the best way not to trigger insecurities related to this manipulation technique is to be as consistent and truthful as possible in your interactions with a brainwashing victim.
Do not taunt, threaten, or even unkindly tease the victim. Gangstalking/brainwashing victims will be very sensitive to abusive affects, so do your best not to use them. If you become threatened by a conversation, find a way of respectfully disengaging.
Do not say anything that you do not wish to be used against you. Due to the aggressive surveillance and interrogation techniques psychological abusers can employ, it is likely that the perpetrator may use your words against you, even if they were spoken in private.
In this vein: do not say anything that would be easily weaponized against the victim.
Do not abandon or stop talking a victim you have chosen to support once you begin supporting them. Abandonment is another common tool of abuse, and could easily trigger emotional flashbacks or extreme confusion in a victim.
Try to be aware of any insecurities, disabilities, or triggers the victim is currently sensitive to, as they are likely being preyed on by the perpetrator in a subliminal way.
Be aware that due to the psychosocial effects of gaslighting and manipulation, the victim may not feel comfortable expressing their discomfort about a trigger to you, or may not be able to fully realize it makes it uncomfortable themselves.
Common targets: identity-based insecurity (racial, ethnic, sexual, gender-based, spiritual, ableist), disabilities (physical disability, medical/chemical dependency, neurological disability or psychological disorder), triggers (sexual abuse, physical abuse, domestic abuse)
If you try to create a network of support for the victim, make sure that nobody in the network will make them uncomfortable -- thus compromising the whole support network. Victims of cultic abuse are accustomed to being approached by associates they cannot trust.
In general, I found vague support networks to be more volatile than one-on-one support with a trustworthy person, as a single individual was much easier to trust, and far less overwhelming to make sense of.
If you construct a support network, make sure no members hold a grudge or agenda against the victim, as they may see it as an opportunity to enact their own forms of psychological manipulation or abuse, thus severely compromising the group's purpose.
In such an event: even if a group member has an agenda of psychological manipulation that serves the victim's interest, the mere act of experiencing additional neurological programming techniques may overwhelm and trigger the victim.
If you attempt to co-opt brainwashing techniques used by the perpetrator to better attract the attention of a hypnotized victim, make sure you have a deep comprehension of why those strategies work for brainwashing, and how they could backfire.
If you attempt to co-opt brainwashing techniques, try to ensure you stay (a) encouraging and (b) consistent and unambiguous in messaging -- because most brainwashing strategies rely on making the victim constantly guilt and doubt themselves.
Keep in mind that many brainwashing techniques inherently exploit neurological factors such as PTSD or schizotypal hyper-associativity, and that coopting those techniques for good may still be extremely cognitively taxing or triggering for the victim to experience.
Make sure your messaging is unambambiguous and clear -- many neurolinguistic programming techniques used to break down a victim's psychological security rely on creating a sense of insecurity or confusion.
Empower the victim to feel good about themselves and secure in their own long-held beliefs and values, such that they do not feel the need to rely on the values of psychological abusers.
Ensure the victim has a social network that is unaffected by cultic abuse, so they are not vulnerable to being controlled by an abuser exploiting social isolation.
If there are negative rumors about the victim being involved or complicit with the cult, and these could be of dubious value, investigate their origin and attempt to determine whether or not they are credible.
Credible sources of complicity rumors are people who had deep long-term relationships with them, such as former collaborators, partners, or family.
Note that if the victim is socially isolated as a result of a falling out with their former associates, those individuals may be biased in their understanding of why the victim became involved in a cultic brainwashing group.
Institutions to be wary of, which benefit from silencing troublesome ex-members (such as professional associates, schools, therapists, communes, or government institutions) may also prioritize distancing themselves from the individual over helping them.