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Avoid automatic belief or automatic dismissal

Use a two-track safety approach

Actual stalking, coercive control, fraud, workplace retaliation, and digital abuse can occur. Psychosis can also make ordinary events feel coordinated and personally targeted. Both possibilities can be handled without escalating danger.

Track 1: health and functioning

Assess the mental and physical state

  • Sleep, mood, voices, unusual perceptions, confusion, and degree of conviction.
  • Suicide risk, weapons, confrontation, driving, travel, finances, and self-care.
  • Substances, withdrawal, prescriptions, supplements, and recent medication changes.
  • Fever, seizure, head injury, neurological changes, postpartum status, and other medical red flags.
  • Change from baseline and observations from trusted people.

A clinical assessment does not require dismissing every external concern. It addresses the distress and risk while the facts are evaluated.

Track 2: practical safety

Use limited, appropriate verification

  • Choose one relevant professional: domestic-violence advocate, stalking specialist, attorney, employer security contact, clinician, or digital-safety expert.
  • Record objective events, dates, direct messages, financial changes, and identifiable witnesses.
  • Use standard account security, device updates, and password protection.
  • Set a time and cost limit before any further checking.
  • Stop if the process becomes broader, more urgent, or less connected to specific evidence.

Practical support should reduce danger and uncertainty—not create a permanent private investigation.

A proportionate verification rule

One concern, one professional, one review point

  1. Define the specific concern. “My ex-partner may have access to my email” is assessable. “Every device and person is controlled by a global network” is too broad to investigate safely.
  2. Choose the right channel. Use a domestic-violence advocate for coercive control, an IT professional for a specific account issue, or an attorney for a documented legal matter.
  3. Collect only concrete information. Preserve direct messages, unauthorized logins, official notices, transactions, injuries, or witness accounts. Avoid interpreting ordinary coincidences as evidence.
  4. Set a stopping rule. Decide in advance what will count as enough checking and when a clinician or trusted person will review the next step.
  5. Reassess the effect. If checking increases certainty, fear, sleep loss, spending, or the number of suspected people despite neutral results, shift priority toward mental-health care.
Objective versus interpretive information

Keep the record anchored to observable facts

More useful for a professional reviewMore likely to intensify an untestable narrative
A dated threatening message from an identifiable account.A stranger looked at a phone while passing by.
A login alert showing an unfamiliar device or location.A phone battery drained faster than expected.
An official letter, case number, court filing, or named contact.A news story seemed timed to a personal thought.
A GPS tracker physically found and documented by a qualified professional.Traffic patterns or vehicle colors seemed coordinated.
Bank transactions, missing funds, or documented identity theft.Repeated numbers, songs, sirens, or advertisements felt like codes.
A witness who directly observed a specific event.Everyone who disagreed appeared to be part of the cover-up.

Context matters: an apparently ordinary event can sometimes be relevant, but its meaning should be evaluated with other reliable evidence—not assumed from emotional intensity alone.

When real abuse is plausible

Use trauma-informed, specialized help

People experiencing domestic abuse, intimate-partner stalking, elder abuse, workplace retaliation, human trafficking, identity theft, or technology-facilitated abuse can be disbelieved because their experiences sound unusual. A mental-health history does not remove the right to protection.

  • Speak privately with the person, away from a suspected abuser or controlling caregiver.
  • Use an advocate who understands coercive control and technology-facilitated abuse.
  • Avoid making device changes that could alert an abuser before a safety plan is ready.
  • Preserve direct evidence safely and follow local legal guidance.
  • Continue mental-health support for trauma, sleep, fear, and any psychotic symptoms.

Basic digital hygiene that does not require proving a conspiracy

  • Use unique passwords and a reputable password manager.
  • Enable multi-factor authentication using a secure method.
  • Install operating-system and app updates.
  • Review active sessions and account recovery options.
  • Use the official support channel for the device or service.
  • Back up important files before making major device changes.

These are ordinary security practices. Repeatedly replacing devices, dismantling hardware, or hiring multiple investigators is rarely a sustainable safety plan.

Digital limits

Know when checking has become a symptom-maintaining behavior

  • Checking consumes hours each day or extends through the night.
  • Neutral technical findings become proof of a more advanced attacker.
  • Every helper who finds nothing becomes suspected of involvement.
  • Devices are destroyed, opened, discarded, or repeatedly replaced.
  • Money, work, relationships, or housing are being lost to the investigation.
  • The person feels unable to stop until total certainty is reached.

At that point, pause further checking and ask a clinician to help address the fear, compulsive verification, sleep loss, and possible psychosis.

Reasons to increase clinical support

Some patterns suggest that verification alone will not resolve the distress

The explanation expands

More people, agencies, technologies, and events are added whenever a narrower claim is not confirmed.

Counterevidence is absorbed

A clean device scan, ordinary lab result, or neutral witness becomes proof of a sophisticated cover-up.

The belief becomes personalized

General concerns about privacy shift into certainty that a vast system is specifically focused on the individual.

Other psychotic symptoms appear

Voices, thought broadcasting, implants, external control, disorganized speech, or bizarre physical mechanisms enter the story.

Function deteriorates

Sleep, food, work, money, relationships, housing, or medical care are sacrificed to monitoring or escape.

Risk rises

The person considers confrontation, weapons, restricted places, suicide, retaliation, or dangerous travel.

A shared written agreement

Decide in advance how concerns will be handled

  • Who is the one trusted person for reality checks?
  • Which professional handles digital, legal, domestic-violence, or workplace concerns?
  • How much time and money can be spent before review?
  • Which behaviors are always off-limits: confrontation, weapons, trespass, hacking, or dangerous driving?
  • What sleep, mood, substance, or psychosis warning signs trigger clinical care?
  • What happens if the person cannot follow the agreed stopping rule?

Put the boundaries in a support plan

A written plan can reduce arguments during a crisis. The tool saves only to the current browser unless printed or downloaded.

Create a support plan
Safety and legal resources
Browse all safety resources
Trauma, stalking, and digital safety Nonprofit

National Domestic Violence Hotline

National Domestic Violence Hotline

Confidential support and safety planning for relationship abuse in the United States.

United States
Trauma, stalking, and digital safety Nonprofit

Safety Net Project

NNEDV

Technology-safety planning for survivors of domestic violence, stalking, and abuse.

United States Global
Trauma, stalking, and digital safety Coalition

Coalition Against Stalkerware

Coalition Against Stalkerware

Information about commercial stalkerware and survivor-centered help.

Global
Trauma, stalking, and digital safety Government

IdentityTheft.gov

Federal Trade Commission

Official U.S. recovery plans for documented identity theft.

United States
Trauma, stalking, and digital safety Government-funded directory

Find legal aid

Legal Services Corporation

Directory of civil legal aid providers in the United States.

United States

This site supports care; it does not investigate individual claims.

Espionage Psychosis is an educational resource, not a diagnosis, emergency service, law-enforcement service, or substitute for a licensed clinician. Actual stalking, abuse, and privacy violations can occur; serious concerns deserve calm professional assessment without automatically confirming or dismissing them.

Use the two-track safety approach