A patient or client is stalking me

Open an incident log right now.

One file you control — not the patient or client record. Date, time, location, what happened, who saw it. Every entry from here on goes in the same place.

Screenshot everything from the last 24 hours.

Texts, voicemails, social media posts, doorbell footage, any unfamiliar car at your home or workplace. Save originals with timestamps before anything gets deleted.

Tell one trusted colleague.

A senior nurse, a clinical lead, a peer advocate. Not as a formal report yet — as a witness who knows what is happening in case you need them later.

Notify your supervisor and HR in writing.

Email is fine. Short summary, dates, attached screenshots. Workplace-violence reporting starts the clock on protective steps your employer is required to take.

Loop in security or the workplace-violence team.

Most hospitals, agencies, and shelters have one — a designated officer, a risk-management team, or a contracted threat-assessment professional. They want to hear about this early, not after an incident.

Document in the patient or client record carefully.

Note the contact factually — date, what was said, what was done. Do not editorialize, diagnose, or speculate in the chart. The record may end up in discovery. A separate personal incident log is where you write what you actually think.

Pull your home and personal accounts.

Change passwords, kill old shared logins, check for tracking apps on your phone, revoke iCloud and Google location sharing. If you ever shared a device with this person, assume it is compromised.

File a police report.

Bring the incident log, screenshots, and a short written summary. Caregiving-profession stalking sometimes gets dismissed as a clinical issue — a clean report with documentation is what gets it taken seriously.

Start the protective-order process.

Most states allow emergency or temporary orders the same day. The clerk's office or a local victim-advocate organization can walk you through it. Bring documentation. Many courts will issue against a non-domestic stalker if the pattern is clear.

Confirm care reassignment with your supervisor.

You should not be the clinician of record for this person going forward. Get that decision in writing. It protects you legally and removes the pretext the stalker may be using to make contact.

If the stalker is a licensed peer, alert the licensing board.

A nurse stalking a nurse, a social worker stalking a social worker — the state board takes this seriously and can act faster than the courts. File a written complaint with the documentation you have.

Run a free scan on yourself and household.

See the free scan. The scan shows which broker pages currently list your address — the same pages a fixated patient or client uses to find you after a discharge or case closure.

Start broker cleanup across the household.

Your address, your spouse, your parents, any sibling at a linked address. Brokers cross-reference relatives, so closing one record without the others leaves the trail open.

Talk to a victim advocate.

Most counties have one through the prosecutor's office or a local DV agency. They know the local courts, the local detectives, and the local quirks of getting a non-domestic stalking case prosecuted.

Vary your routine.

Different route to and from work for two weeks. Different parking spot. Different gym times. A stalker who knows your patterns loses them fast when you change them.

Push for criminal charges, not just the protective order.

A protective order is paper. A stalking charge with a clean log behind it changes the calculus. Your local prosecutor's victim-services or threat-assessment unit is the contact.

Request a formal threat-assessment workup.

Many large hospitals and agencies contract with a threat-assessment professional. They evaluate escalation risk and recommend protective steps — including temporary leave, location change, or security at your home if warranted.

Federal channels if the contact crosses state lines.

Interstate stalking is a federal crime. The local FBI field office takes these when there is a clean local record behind it.

Consider a short leave or location change.

Two weeks somewhere the stalker does not know about often breaks the pattern while the legal layer catches up. Use FMLA, PTO, or whatever your employer offers. This is not weakness — it is operational sense.

Continuous broker cleanup.

A one-time opt-out delays the listing, it does not end it. Most brokers re-list within 3-6 months. Continuous coverage re-checks every two weeks and re-files the day you reappear.

Break the new-address discovery loop.

When you move, the brokers usually have the new address within 60 days from utility records and change-of-address feeds. Continuous removal stops the listing before the next fixated patient or client sees it.

Sweep the household every quarter.

Brokers connect you to parents, siblings, adult kids on the same record. Closing one address closes the others. Quarterly review catches re-listings before they propagate.

Keep your work identity off your personal footprint.

Different email, different phone for work-adjacent contacts. Locked-down social media with no employer name, no unit, no shift. The less a future fixated client can connect, the less they have to work with.