What Are the Hidden Emotional Effects of Stalking on Victims?

By Erica Morse
Publisher, Victims News Online
Updated 8:45 a.m., June 25, 2025
erica@victimsnewsonline.com

(TERRE HAUTE, INDIANA) — A friend sent me a video yesterday regarding a young, female advocate who tragically took her life due to online harassment, gang-stalking and bullying. Mikayla Raines, aged 29, unexpectedly took her life after years of advocating for abused animals — and being targeted by online trolls because of her work.

Mikayla leaves behind a grieving husband and daughter, who will forever struggle to pick up the pieces left behind from her untimely — and avoidable — death.

The video was hard for me to watch. Aside from the fact that this beautiful, vibrant, loving young woman is gone, I can relate to her feelings of isolation, fear, self-doubt, lack of sleep, and everything in between.

I could have been Mikayala Raines. I should have been Mikayla Raines.

The only reason I am alive today is because someone else in my family took their own life before I could take mine. That loss shattered our family as we knew it, and I saw the pain his death caused to everyone who loved him.

Depending upon which study you believe, nearly 50% of all adolescents ages 8-14 have been subjected to some form of electronic bullying. The National Institute of Health puts that number at 26%, while Avast claims 50% of today’s youth have experienced some form of online harassment.

For adults, the number appears to be somewhere around 41%. For content creators, the stats skyrocket to upwards of 95%.

But I’m not here to talk about statistics, because the numbers don’t save lives; education and resource support does to some extent, but do not resolve the emotional damage. Trauma therapy offers some help, but not even the ‘experts’ fully understand what victims of online harassment, gang-stalking and bullying endure day in and day out, between appointments.

Exposing the online bullies, holding them accountable, and offering victims the opportunity to talk to others in their shoes seems to be the most effective way to keep targets alive.

The effects of online harassment, gang-stalking and bullying run deep. This isn’t a one-layered issue: over time, it affects not just the target, but everyone the target loves and with whom they interact. Online trolls often target the ones who support the victim, in an effort to isolate their target from receiving love and support from others. They contact their victims’ employers, often blackmailing and extorting them into terminating the target, lest the company will face its own public relations’ nightmare. And when police officers, public officials, and members of the press jump on that bandwagon — and participate in the harassment, thinking the victim is the problem — well, you end up with the Mikayla Raines of the world.

I refuse to allow her death to be in vain, because I could have been Mikayla Raines. I should have been Mikayla Raines.

Why am I alive today? Because I refuse to allow my family to suffer another suicide, and because someone has to take a stand and educate the masses on the long-lasting effects of online harassment that festers into real-world stalking.

But most importantly, I’m alive because I am blessed to have a handful of real ‘ride or die’ friends, who refuse to allow my light to be extinguished by those who hate me for all the wrong reasons.

In my case, I’ve made ‘enemies’ out of people who enjoy terrorizing families of the missing and murdered. Many of our own families endure this nightmare daily: while dealing with the pain of a loved one who has vanished or whose life has been taken, they also have to endure the hell of having complete strangers attack, belittle, mock, minimize, and terrorize them, simply because their loved one vanished.

It is a topic not discussed often enough, and one that is completely misunderstood. Even psychiatrists and trauma therapists downplay the psychological damage from long-term online harassment and gang-stalking, as they often victim-blame and victim-shame, leading the targets to end their therapy, feeling even more misunderstood by professionals and ‘experts’.

My favorite line (sarcasm) that is often thrown at victims is this: “Just ignore it”. Or my second-favorite gaslight: ‘You have the power to decide if it affects you’.

When I hear that, I know the person giving the unsolicited advice is either ignorant to the reality of online harassment/gang-stalking, or they are too unconcerned to learn the dangers.

One cannot ‘ignore’ it when they have lost 10 jobs in 15 years, due to their employers being extorted into terminating the victim. One cannot ‘ignore’ it when they lose their home due to constant 9-1-1 calls, swatting, false police reports, and judges who are too arrogant or stupid to educate themselves on the topic. One cannot ‘ignore’ it when their lives are turned upside down — not because of anything the victim did — but, because they inadvertently attracted the ire of unstable, unhinged monsters who have a misplaced jealously for their target.

At the core of online stalking and harassment is envy and hate. When strangers are targeted, it usually comes from a place of jealously by the stalkers, who do not live up to their own potential, and project onto those who do. In my case, I attracted the ire of people who wish they had the chops to do what our team does — helping victims, running an online newspaper to tell their stories, obtaining our private investigation licenses, and receiving recognition for that work.

When it comes to the families, however, most of it stems from idiots on the Internet trying to feel important, or it comes from a place of pure evil: those who support a child predator, killer, or pervert will stop at nothing to protect the offender, by putting families of the missing and murdered through hell.

When these victims contact law enforcement for help, they are often ignored — laughed at — or worse, told to ‘ignore it’. Victims’ advocates working within police departments are virtually no help at all, as most are not employed to aid the victims, but to protect police officers from the alleged psychological trauma of simply showing up to work to do the jobs they signed up to do.

This leaves victims with nowhere to turn, feeling isolated, alone, and completely misunderstood. Police agencies often do more damage to the victims, and sometimes — the most disturbed of those officers actually join in the fun online.

It will no longer happen on my watch.

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