What To Do Right Away

Protecting yourself, starting today

• Screenshot with context. Timestamps, usernames, and URLs visible in the frame — not just the message itself. A cropped screenshot is weaker evidence than one that shows where it came from.
• Keep a log. Date, time, what happened. The Stalking Prevention, Awareness, and Resource Center publishes a free Stalking Incident and Behavior Log at stalkingawareness.org — a standardized format is more useful to an investigator than a private journal, however thorough.
• Save the boring evidence too. Password-reset emails and unfamiliar-login notifications are often better proof of intrusion than the intrusion itself — a platform generated them, not your abuser.
• Never delete anything, even things that feel too small or embarrassing to matter. Patterns are what eventually convince a prosecutor, not single incidents.
• Back everything up somewhere your abuser cannot reach. A cloud folder tied to a shared account is not a safe or a diary. Use a new account, a trusted friend, or a device your abuser has never touched.

This is the single most consequential thing on this list, and the least intuitive. The law's authorization defenses exist because sharing passwords between spouses is normal, and courts have generally required something more than a soured relationship to prove access was no longer allowed. A dated message closes that gap.

Send this before you change a single password, if you can do so safely. It's the revocation itself, not just the changed password, that a prosecutor or judge will eventually want to see.

• Change passwords from a device your abuser has never used, not your shared home computer or a device they've had physical access to.
• Move to app-based two-factor authentication (like Google Authenticator or Authy) instead of SMS codes, wherever a service offers it — SMS-based codes can be intercepted by anyone who controls your phone number.
• Check Family Sharing and "Find My" settings on your phone and computer. Remove devices you don't recognize and turn off location sharing you didn't knowingly set up.
• Review your cell plan. If you're on a shared family plan, the Safe Connections Act (2022) requires carriers to split your line onto its own account within two business days, keeping your number, without your abuser's permission — with documentation such as a protective order, police report, or a provider's supporting statement.

• A new email account, created away from home — a library computer, a friend's phone, anywhere your existing accounts and devices aren't involved.
• A separate phone, if you can manage it. It doesn't need to be sophisticated. It needs to not be on a shared plan.
• A place for documents that isn't your house. A trusted friend, a safe deposit box — anywhere outside the reach of someone who has shown they'll delete what's inconvenient to them.
• A PO box. Financial statements and legal mail sent to a monitored home address are not private, even sealed.

Whether you can legally record someone without telling them depends entirely on your state — some require only your consent, others require everyone's. Recording without the required consent can create legal exposure for you. Confirm your state's rule, ideally with a lawyer, before relying on a recording as evidence.

Who To Contact

No single agency owns this problem — here is what each one actually offers

Remedying Financial Harm

Identity theft, coerced debt, and rebuilding your credit

• Place a credit freeze at all three bureaus — Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion — individually. This is free and stops new accounts from being opened in your name without your explicit action to lift it.
• Request your free credit reports at annualcreditreport.com and review every account listed, including ones that look small or unfamiliar.
• Dispute fraudulent accounts individually, in writing, with each bureau and each creditor — expect this to be slow. Attach your FTC affidavit to every dispute.

If a partner opened credit in your name, ran up charges, or pressured you into taking out a loan, this has a name — coerced debt — and dedicated resources exist. The National Consumer Law Center (nclc.org) publishes guidance specifically on unwinding coerced debt, including how to argue that fraudulent accounts shouldn't affect your credit history.

• Open an account at a different institution than any you've shared, ideally one your abuser has never had a relationship with.
• Remove yourself as an authorized user, or remove them, from any shared credit cards — both directions carry different risks and protections, worth a quick call to the card issuer to understand which applies to you.
• Check for jointly titled debt — car loans, mortgages, lines of credit — that may need a lawyer's help to separate cleanly, especially amid a divorce.

Healing Yourself

The psychological effects are real, and they deserve real support

Psychology Today's therapist directory (psychologytoday.com) lets you filter specifically for trauma-informed providers and those experienced with domestic or intimate partner abuse — a meaningful filter, since not every therapist has this specific training.

• SAMHSA National Helpline: 1-800-662-4357 — free, confidential, 24/7 treatment referral and information service.
• NAMI HelpLine: 1-800-950-6264 — support and referrals from the National Alliance on Mental Illness, Monday through Friday.

RAINN's National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-4673, or online at rainn.org — trained support if any part of what happened involved intimate images or sexual coercion.

You are not overreacting. A 2021 review of 43 studies on cyberstalking found the overwhelming majority of victims experienced measurable effects — anxiety, depression, hypervigilance, and a lasting loss of trust in technology itself, sometimes with symptoms comparable to PTSD. What you're feeling has a name, and it's been studied. It isn't in your head, and it isn't disproportionate to what happened.