Published on
updated on
Reading 3 min.
in collaboration with
Johanna Rozenblum (clinical psychologist)
In Le Parisien, Lilia gives her chilling story: for several years, she has been the victim of a man who stalks her daily and makes her experience hell. How to react to an erotomaniac person? Johanna Rozenblum, psychologist, answers us.
The story is worthy of a thriller, but turns out to be very real. Since the end of 2021, Lilia, a 40-year-old architect, has lived under incessant threats and serious acts against her person carried out by Nicolas, an acquaintance, who places her at the center of everything. While he is being tried again, she recounts today her ordeal against this erotomaniac, in the columns of Parisian.
He sees her as his best friend
The story begins with an innocuous meeting at the end of 2021. Lilia and Nicolas have each just moved to Finistère and are getting to know each other. A few light encounters follow, a drink, a surfing session… But Nicolas suddenly changes his attitude. He asks Lilia more and more, drops her letters in the middle of the night, often cries… so much so that Lilia decides to cut ties. Nicolas loses control, floods her with messages where he accuses her of having destroyed him, even though she was his best friend.
Identity theft, funeral wreaths…
But it is in 2022 that the affair takes a dramatic and frightening turn, when Lilia begins a relationship. “It unleashed his fury.”she explains to Parisian. Nicolas then attacks Lilia’s professional life: he sets false professional appointments on her calendar, leaves bad negatives about her everywhere online, usurps her identity to denigrate her colleagues, hacks her mailbox or balance sheet. the painting on the facade of his house.
Even more macabre: when he learns of Lilia’s pregnancy, he creates a website about it. Despite around ten complaints, nothing stops Nicolas. “Funeral calls” follow. “He even chose the padding for my coffin and had a funeral wreath sent to my house.“, reports Lilia to Le Parisien. The future mother is hospitalized. She decides to file yet another complaint in November 2023 which Nicolas manages to have his spouse removed from France Travail.
Nicolas is in an erotomaniacal delirium
Nicolas was placed in police custody last January. In March, he was sentenced for the first time to six months in prison, which he served at his parents’ home in the Vosges with an electronic bracelet. This is not enough: last May, Lilia received a new estimate from funeral directors. At a new hearing on June 25, he was sentenced to 16 months in prison with a committal warrant. A decision for which he appealed and was retried last week.
Why this relentlessness against a young woman who promised him nothing? According to a psychiatrist, Nicolas “decompensates in a manner close to erotomaniacal delirium and experiences an almost delusional enamoration with regard to this woman whose responses and silence he is hurt by..
In psychiatry, erotomaniac delusion is a disorder characterized by the presence of a delusional, illusory and erroneous conviction of being loved. It is expressed in the form of a persistent passionate delirium. In most cases, the person “object of unrequited affection“finds himself involuntarily in contact with the erotomaniac, in an innocuous way. Problem, the erotomaniac person then goes through several stages, as psychiatrist Professor Laurent Karila explains in an article in La Dépêche: hope, spite and resentment … who can go as far as revenge and attack.
Good in his body, good in his head!
But how do we react when we realize that the person opposite is harboring inconsistent feelings and seems to be clinging to us? How to avoid escalation?
“It’s very complicated because it’s a serious, pervasive psychiatric disorder. Rationalizing is very complicated for these people” Johanna Rozenblum, clinical psychologist, is already advancing. However, some advice seems necessary:
- The important thing is not to encourage the idea that the person thinks you have feelings for them or that a relationship is developing. It’s about remaining polite, but being neutral as much as possible.
- Then, you must avoid being angry or insulting to avoid flaring up the disorder of the erotomaniac person in front of you. If your anger seems legitimate to you, you should know that the erotomaniac person will interpret things in their own way, which can make the relationship even more tense.
- As far as possible, it is also about setting limits and a framework for your interactions. We don’t call, we don’t answer, we don’t send messages. And if we really have to answer, we do it as succinctly as possible.
- Finally, if possible, we try to encourage the person to go see a doctor or a psychologist to get support and begin serious treatment.
If things seem to be getting out of hand, it is also advisable to involve the courts as soon as possible.
Slide: 6 types of sentences spoken by toxic people