EP. 182 — True Crime & Stalking with Isla Traquair

Jameela: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to another episode of I Weigh with Jameela Jamil, a podcast against shame. I hope you’re well and I hope you’re prepared for a harder lesson than normal because we are covering the subject of stalking, harassment, the impact on one’s mental health, violence against women, and how fucked up the justice system is still after all these years towards survivors. So it’s not easy, especially if you yourself are a survivor, so I want to give you that warning. But I will say it is an amazing conversation because my guest is extraordinary. I’ve known her for years. Her name is Isla Traquair, and I’m very lucky that she came onto this podcast to tell her story and the stories of others who’ve been impacted by this level of violence and I think that she’s really special, and the reason that her podcast is so successful, she has a multiple number one podcast, is because she is someone who’s coming at the subject of murder trials from an angle that isn’t sensationalist. She’s a, she’s a real human being. She really cares about all of the people impacted, what could have been done [00:01:00] differently, all the survivors that are left behind when someone dies, and when someone experiences tremendous violence. We always focus on the killer. We don’t talk about the victim, and we don’t talk about the victim’s families. We just kind of move on because we’re so desensitized.

In this episode, we talk about a huge historical case that she’s covering on her new season of The Storyteller: Naked Villainy, which is a podcast. It’s season three, and she’s making history in this series because she’s the first journalist to ever be allowed to record a real trial live in the room and give her insight seeing as she’s been covering this case for most of her career. So it’s really fascinating and I think a really important case because it brings up a lot of deeply relatable issues.

Isla in this episode also talks to me about her own experience of being stalked and we go into tremendous detail about that and she was so honest and vulnerable and talked about the mental and physical aspect of it. We talk about the cost [00:02:00] of just staying fucking alive as a woman and how infuriating it is that both we and others tend to let things go on, especially when men are involved with such a long and inappropriate amount of time. And we gaslight ourselves about what was inappropriate because we’ve been so conditioned to think it’s normal for someone to keep crossing our boundaries. And so I hope this conversation will be affirming to you. If you are in some sort of a weird or creepy situation or you’re seeing one, that you are not crazy, you are not fussy, you are not wrong for wanting to have your boundaries met by other people, especially strangers, but really just anyone. And I hope this episode makes you feel charged up and less alone. That’s what I wanted from this chat and Isla’s such a personable and warm and inspiring human being that I thought you would love to hear from her. She’s perfect for this podcast and her discussion around mental health, not only of the victim and the people left behind, but also of the perpetrator and how that’s what we need to [00:03:00] target is so needed.

I love that she comes to the table with solutions. And as I said, even though it’s a hard listen, she is a deep optimist, and I believe this is a hopeful episode, and so I’d love to hear what you think. Please message me, please message Isla, please be lovely in those messages towards her especially, because it’s really fucking hard and really rare for a woman to come onto the, public stage and tell her story and risk not being believed and risk being re traumatized in order to help other people.

Everything I’ve ever seen this woman do has been in the hopes of helping other people and she does everything for the greater good. She’s incredibly noble and cool and on top of that, just fucking gorgeous inside and out. I think you’ll love her. This is Isla Traquair.

Isla Traquair, [00:04:00] welcome to I Weigh. How are you?

Isla: I’m good. I’m sweating. I’m in London and it’s a heat wave, but apart from that, I’m actually pretty good.

Jameela: That’s good. It’s nice to see you. You and I go all the way back to the very beginning of my career, not yours, because you started working in journalism at the age of about seven, but hahaha!

Isla: And I feel like I met you when you were about 12, so, you know.

Jameela: Yeah, but I was 22 the first time I met you and you were one of the only, you were one of the only people who was nice to me and especially amongst women back then, pre Me Too, the industry was, uh, very intense between women and we weren’t always as nice to each other as we should have been and I was terrified of everyone and a lot of people were a bit like, who the fuck is this? This fucking teacher has come out of nowhere presenting on the telly and you were always [00:05:00] so kind to me and so like loving and, and, and even though there isn’t much of an age gap between us, there was always a very big maternal energy for me. And so I’ve always appreciated that. And I think that’s probably what’s kind of kept us, uh, somewhat tied to each other over the years. Um, I’m thrilled to have you here. Being that this is a mental health podcast, how have you been? Because I know you’ve had an interesting ride.

Isla: Yeah, I’ve had a ruffled ride. I’d say I’ve probably had the most challenging years of my life, mental health wise, but right this second, right now, I’m actually pretty good. But I’d say that’s a fairly recent development and it’s still a roller coaster as it always is. And uh, yeah, I’m doing okay.

I just want to say though, before we go on, you’re absolutely right. That environment we, we met, you know, in the, the junket, just like Notting Hill and the worst people, horribleness and competitiveness, particularly among women. And I remember [00:06:00] you walking in, I think the first time, and I was like, who is this gazelle of a woman with those legs?

Jameela: In a ballgown at 9am.

Isla: You’re in a ballgown. And I remember though, there’s like just this side eye and I’m just like, she’s hot. I’m going to go in. Yeah. But I mean, I was, I was also so self conscious because my career up until that point had been really serious news. And then I moved to a new channel where I was a news anchor of a seven o’clock show and they wanted me to be part of the program and do a big interview every day. So I kind of got thrust from killers to A list celebrities, but I realized it’s the same interview technique that you needed for both, so

Jameela: Same level of psychopath as well.

Isla: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But sorry. Yeah. Mental health wise, yeah, I’ve had a rough old time. Um, yeah, I’ve, I’ve, you know, I’m a crime journalist and I, for the first time in my life became a victim of crime. And I went through a court case and had to be in a witness box and really be on the other side of things, so it has been an [00:07:00] interesting time for sure. And I’ve had to take some time off. Uh, I’ve had to really work hard to get myself out of it, um, with PTSD, etc. So yeah, but I’m, I’m getting there. And largely thanks to your recommendation of the most wonderful lady in London who does EMDR, which I know all your listeners know about EMDR, and I’m, I’m living proof that it does work.

Jameela: And for anyone who doesn’t know, it’s Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It’s a type of mainstream therapy. You can get it for free in certain parts of the NHS, but it’s, I don’t mean woo-woo in a disparaging way, even though there’s no way to say woo-woo without sounding disparaging. It’s not, it’s not new age. It’s, it’s like proper mainstream old school therapy and it’s specifically amazing for PTSD, but can also be amazing for compulsive thought patterns, and and habits that we want to break. What makes it so special is the fact that even for chronic PTSD, a lot of people have found tremendous success in being able to stop traumatic, [00:08:00] stressful thought patterns and reactions. Um, and it’s something I sent Isla to because she’d been through one of the most traumatic things for such a traumatically long amount of time, uh, that I’d ever heard of amongst any of my friends. And, and today, she is bravely here to talk to us about it, about what happened to her, and the impact it had on her, and what we as a society need to do better with regarding this subject, and that is the subject of stalking.

Isla: It’s weird because I’m usually doing what you’re doing and I’m talking to the victim of crime so I’ve had to learn and I’ve accidentally ended up becoming an advocate for victims which is not something I really wanted to be because when it happens to you, to be honest, you don’t ever want to talk about it again. But I have to be aware of why has this happened to me. I have a voice, a platform, and I have got to use it. I’ve got to shout loud for other victims. So I am happy to be here and have the opportunity to talk about it for people to understand.

So yeah, basically what happened to me [00:09:00] was I was back in the UK. I used to live in LA for a long time, back in the UK during COVID, moved out to the countryside, ended up buying the most idyllic house where I was supposed to be writing a book, writing a script, and uh, you know, just enjoying life. I’m now in my early 40s and felt like I needed to be closer to some sheep. And unfortunately my idyllic house, and it is like one of the movies, you know, uh, was at the holiday with Kate Winslet, except it had a house attached on either side. And my next door neighbour, unknown to me, uh, prior to me even moving in had known who I was. I was a newsreader in Britain for, for years before I moved to the States and then I hadn’t long moved back from the States, so I didn’t really think that people would notice that or remember me, to be honest. Um, so he’d, he’d apparently identified and was telling everyone, oh, the TV presenter’s moving in. And, um, so he’d started [00:10:00] doing research on me at that point, and I did not know that that was happening. And the thing with stalking, it’s really hard to explain because it’s so layered, building, gradual, insidious. But essentially, there was one weird incident before I moved in and I went and knocked on the door before I actually moved in and said, “Hey, listen, I want to sort this out.” He blocked my car in and accused me of trampling in his garden, which I didn’t even have the keys to access my own garden. But I was appeased, his partner was there and said, “Oh, you know, sorry about that,” and he was really nice. So when I did get the keys, I was actually happy that he was being really, really nice to me, but then the really nice was like constant. I go out the front, he’s there, I go out the back, he’s there. And I’m a nice person, but even I’ve got sort of boundaries. So over a period of time, I started to really put some boundaries in place, like sit in my car a bit longer because I knew he’d be waiting for me to come out, um, and I also had to tell, I had some [00:11:00] builders, uh, I had to tell him to, you know, he would just come in the house without telling me. That doesn’t sound bad, any of it, but I know

Jameela: It does sound bad.

Isla: Starting, he was starting to clock things about me and say things that I felt were weird. So I guess really the, the, the point where I started thinking this is not okay, um, he’d climbed over the back wall and came in my conservatory. At the back, there’s just this beautiful garden with a view. There’s nothing else, just fields beyond, so I didn’t lock that door. There’s no one that can break in apart from the sheep. And, um, he walked in and I had my headphones on, probably listening to I Weigh actually, doing, pulling, nails out of the ground. And I got such a fright. He’s standing there and he says, “You haven’t eaten, have you? You eat salmon, don’t you?” He’s insisting he makes me a sandwich. He goes away, comes back and then watch me, watches me eat it.

So that made me uncomfortable. So, I wasn’t going to phone the police because he made me a sandwich, but what I did do was I wrote a card to him and his partner, thanking them for being kind and [00:12:00] mentioning that he’d made me the sandwich because I thought if she knows then she’ll be like, why are you making, you know, just things like that. And then it just got worse and worse and worse that I noticed he was standing outside windows and then, when I actually moved, I was doing renovation for a long time, I moved in and the first morning I’m washing my face in the kitchen sink because my bathroom wasn’t ready and it’s seven in the morning. It’s March so it’s dark in England at that time, and I could see him standing at the bottom of his garden, staring in my conservatory through at me and I was about to take my clothes off. So I really got a fright and I just sort of hit the floor and I was shaking and then so the what do I do? I put mirror film up on all the windows, get some new blinds in, make sure the blinds are always shut. And I start making my life smaller and smaller and smaller. And that didn’t deter him. And then I ended up putting bamboo screening actually against the window of the conservatory to completely stop him looking in. And that resulted [00:13:00] in him basically taking a chainsaw or some sort of, you know, hedge cutter, a big piece of machinery and absolutely butchering a huge part of my garden. It was a violent act. And only then was I like, right, I should probably phone the police.

There’d been so many things that occurred until that point, till I really realized, like, this is not okay. I’d spoken to his partner who’d, uh, you know, she had said to me, this is a while before she mentioned, oh, he’s got some mental health issues. So I’ll be honest, I gave allowances for quite a lot of stuff because of that. This is a mental health podcast. It’s important, but when people are acting in a dangerous, abusive manner, that’s not okay. We cannot accept that. So, um, I contacted the police, spoke to them, they were very nice. No one came to see me.

Two days later I noticed he was behind me in his van and I tried to get away from him, drive down a single track farm road and he swerved off and followed me, so that’s really when I was starting to get quite terrified. I ended up fledding to a friend’s house in tears and um, [00:14:00] finally the police did come over but unfortunately I did not get um, the action plan executed properly. The PC, a police constable who was actually sent out to have a word with him, sat down and had a cup of tea with him and his partner and said to me it was just a big misunderstanding between neighbours. So he emboldened him and then after that things got worse and worse and worse to the point where my neighbours had all gone on holiday, and late at night, and his partner had moved out, um, I believe he put a ladder against my building and was banging outside the bedroom wall in the darkness, and that’s, that, that was the point I phoned my friend’s husband. I grabbed my dog, I grabbed a plastic bag, put a clean pair of undies and a toothbrush and left my home, and that was me, gone. Yeah, there were, there were many, many more things occurred. It’s hard to remember them all because I, to be honest, I try and blank them out.

Jameela: Well, I mean, I remember them all because we were intermittently messaging throughout the time and it was, it was fucking mad how calm you were being throughout the whole thing. And I remember just always feeling so [00:15:00] angry that women have to be calm during this, that there are so many more instances at which a man would be more alarmed. Like, get the fuck out of my conservatory. Get out of my house. Why are you in my house? But because someone’s made a sandwich, and we, we’re so conditioned and programmed to be like kind and gentle and, you know, you don’t want to make him angry. So you’ve got to accept the nice gift and be gracious. And we’re constantly trying to negotiate for our survival. And we’re also accustomed to men feeling like, well, if they’re being nice to us, they’re not currently threatening our lives, then they’re not that bad. And we don’t want to make them feel rejection and don’t want to make it weird, cause then it’s going to be weird for us, just endless tiptoeing. And there were so many constant incidences. And I was watching them just slowly, slowly, slowly escalate and escalate and escalate, and then watch the change in the way that you were talking about it. And the change in your entire lifestyle and how it took over and there was so many fun and [00:16:00] interesting and cool things happening in your career and all of it was starting to just be sidelined by the fact that this son of a bitch was just taking over.

I feel like you were so in fight or flight that you couldn’t even yet fully access your anger because you were getting so little support. It was so devastating and I’m so sorry this has happened and without wanting to drag you into the like nitty gritty of like every single detail I can advocate for how mad and pervasive and relentless this was. And I’m really amazed by the fact that you’ve managed to not only come out of this in one piece and well done for coming out of this alive, because it just got so scary, but also, for now, taking it upon yourself, which you didn’t have to do, to fight this, to protect other people, but also to [00:17:00] now start talking about this publicly so soon afterwards, like it’s, it’s also that in itself is a risky thing to do, and it’s so appreciated by so many people. It’s really admirable. And I’m just, I’m just angry that you have to deal with this and because of, because of the way that you look, you’re an incredibly beautiful person. I imagine you’ve had extremely strange attention your whole life, but regardless of how anyone looks, or regardless of their age or background, this is just so much more common than we realize. And what I really appreciate about you giving the like, little details at the beginning, you know, which sometimes can feel a bit like, Oh, it might sound a bit reductive of the little things he’s doing and it might sound a bit because, you know, it’s so often in like, in the courtroom it’s treated as like, well it’s not that bad.

It’s really important that you give those little details because those are the little moments that we are gaslighting ourselves about. That’s how it starts. Whenever I’ve gone through anything similar like this, it’s always little nice gestures you can’t really feel the right to complain [00:18:00] about which is deliberate. It’s strategic.

Isla: Yeah. The point where the police actually did arrest him was, I’d put a six foot high fence in at great expense. I’d put cameras in. And he was naked and put something against the fence and was about to climb over. That’s when they arrested him. But then they wouldn’t show that video which was triggered by my motion sensor because he was on my, over the boundary.

Jameela: Property.

Isla: We weren’t allowed to show that in court because they said it’ll look like I’m stalking him.

Jameela: That is fucking nuts, because you’ve got a security camera.

Isla: Yeah. He got released on bail. After that, he got released on bail on a Friday. Bail conditions, you’re not allowed to go on her property, da da da da da. And then, that was a Friday night. First thing on the Monday morning, when his partner went off to work, she was literally in the car at the top of the hill, she hadn’t even driven off. He was in his dressing gown with nothing else on underneath in a bush outside my bedroom with a camera, and he triggered my security cameras again. [00:19:00] And, uh, I phoned the police thinking they would arrest him immediately, and he breached it again, again, again, again. And they didn’t re arrest him. This is while we were waiting for the trial because they said, or they hadn’t charged him yet, because they said, well, we’ve only got so many hours that we can have him in police custody to interview him. And every time we arrest him and then have to release him, that’s eating into the time of when we, you know, the whole system is set up against the victims. It really is. And it is entirely, and this is around the world, entirely on the victim to gather the evidence, to be a detective. I’m a crime journalist. And even I was, you know, struggling with this and got criticized for this. And unless you have things on video or photograph, It’s unlikely to be proven in court. The charities, etc., and the police, they all say do a stalking diary. That is great. Stalking diaries are wonderful. The written word is not going to do anything in a court of law.

And of course, what’s one of the most dangerous things [00:20:00] that you can do if there’s a man that you’re frightened of in front of you doing something that’s frightening, if you take your phone out and film them. If you’re going out and about and you’re wearing a jacket with a pocket, put your phone in the pocket with the camera on. That’s what I did every time I went in and outside of my house. Um, that’s what I would do. But yeah, it’s horrendous. And you think the story ends there once he’s arrested. No, no, no. They had to wait nearly a year for the court case. I went to America, only place I could feel safe. They were going to drop my court case because I was in America. The problem wasn’t there anymore. Uh, I wrote to the chief constable because I’ve got the certain assertiveness in me as a journalist knowing like, hold on a sec, that was how I managed to keep it on track. I had to pay for myself to go back to attend court. The barrister didn’t have half the evidence and I’d, I’d supplied them with everything, everything they could possibly want. I even got aerial shots of the, you know, the area so they could fully [00:21:00] understand. Um, so we scraped the conviction by and then he got 300 and something hours community service, a small fine for the costs that went to the court and his life carries on. Mine does not, um, I can’t even possibly try and sum up the damage it’s done to me emotionally, physically, financially, what it’s taken of the time, of my life and the friendships that’s stolen because having a stalker is a little bit like having leprosy. Uh, people don’t really want to hear or see about it. And a lot of people, because they don’t understand the impact it has, they will diminish out of good place of let’s be positive and let’s try not think about it. But, you know, can you not just ignore him? I got told that a lot. Can you not just tell him to piss off. Again, you know, the police actually advised me, don’t, don’t overreact. And don’t get me wrong, I mean, I will kill someone with my bare hands if I’m protecting someone I love. But [00:22:00] in a scenario like that, you know, it does not help to get angry because then they, then they do accuse you of it’s a neighborhood dispute and then they diminish the whole thing that’s happening. So it was a very unfortunate situation I ended up in. It was one of those sliding door moments. There was a moment I nearly didn’t get that house, and I wouldn’t have been living there, and then this wouldn’t have happened. But, it has happened, and I’m really trying hard to learn from it. And what I’ve learned is that the system really is not good enough, worldwide.

The figures in America, it’s hard to actually get the exact amount because it’s different state, you know, there’s different laws in different states. It’s a bit confusing, but I think that Britain is a fair probable representation of the rest of the world, and charging rates, so that’s the police charging them, is about 6%. And most stalking cases, to be honest, don’t even tell the police, so it takes a long time before they get to the police. And of the 6% that get charged, it’s round about 1% or less that get a conviction. And of those, it’s a tiny, tiny amount that would actually end [00:23:00] up in jail. So you can see what’s happening here. It’s very, uh, it’s very lopsided and there’s just all these victims that are left feeling scared.

Jameela: Yeah, and there were weird, like, he’s making like weird accusations about you, claiming you’re obsessed with him, claiming you’re sending him like messages and photos and stuff, which you weren’t, which he had no evidence of.

Isla: Yeah. Yeah, when he was giving evidence in court, I mean I was in, you know, I was in the witness stand for an entire day and then he was on a few days later and I was not, I didn’t, I had a screen up. I didn’t want to see him and I only learned from the newspapers what had been said and he said that I was obsessed with him, that I’d shown him photos of myself naked and there was also information that came out during his evidence that made me realise that he had been in my home without me being there and he’d gone through my belongings because he mentioned a particular painting I have, and it’s in a box. And I found out afterwards that he’d had keys to my property. The previous owner [00:24:00] had paid him to look after the garden. Um, so I did change the locks at one point, but I, I believe that he’d gained access to my house when I wasn’t in there and gone through my stuff, so just the violation of all those things. And I couldn’t answer back to that. But thankfully, um, the magistrates didn’t believe him, um, and he was found guilty. But there’s many cases where, because it’s, you know, there’s such a kind of emphasis on, well, you’ve got to prove it. And this is the problem with stalking. There is no other crime like this where you have a serial victim. They have to rob you at least 20 times to prove that they are a robber. They’re stealing things from your house or you get punched in the face at least 20 times to prove this person intends to assault you. And this is what happens with the stalking. They’ve got to do so many things that it’s really, really clear that this is intentional. behaviour. The definition of stalking is a pattern of fixated obsessive behaviour on one person which causes fear and alarm. And that in itself I believe is a mental health [00:25:00] diagnosis and that’s why I believe actually the key to addressing this is prevention, early intervention and having mental health as an absolute key part of that to assess, analyse and work with stalkers or potential offenders to make them realize, uh, you know, what they’re doing. That’s not going to be effective for everyone.

Jameela: Not just realize what they’re doing, but also like, get to the root cause of why someone can develop an obsessive and abusive attitude towards another person, often someone that they barely know. Or, I mean, we have a lot of people who are stalked by people they do know, people they’ve been in former relationships with. I’ve gone through that. Uh, I’ve also had strangers, uh, but similarly with you, like, I couldn’t get the police’s attention until I was sent dead animals to my workplace. And so it’s like, at that point, like, then they start to, like, just about help.

Isla: Dead animals is- but, but and I hate to say this, but when I was a newsreader, I got sent someone, a [00:26:00] gentleman told me he used to enjoy himself while watching me on the news, and he would send me the results of his, uh, enjoyable watching. So I got a crusty letter and, but I remember, I mean, it was creepy, but I remember almost like laughing about it going, “Oh my God, Oh, that’s disgusting.” but I felt

Jameela: We’re taught to laugh it off. It’s so weird, isn’t it? It’s so weird how when we are violated, especially when we’re younger and like pre Me Too, you’re just like, “Oh, men.”

Isla: We should be flattered. We should be flattered. And this is where it gets romanticized.

Jameela: That’s what people say to you, by the way. People are like, “Oh, you should be flattered.”

Isla: You’ve made it now. You’ve got a stalker and it gets romanticized. And also particularly with the partner thing, and I think there’s like drama shows like You, you know what I mean? It’s called You, um, that, uh, there’s a very attractive, uh, actor, uh, you know.

Jameela: Penn Badgley. Yeah. He’s, I mean, he’s spoken out about how weird it is that people romanticize and, um, and fancy him. Yeah, it’s incredibly odd.

Isla: And also, I also would use the term in a very kind of jokey [00:27:00] way of I, if I was in a high street and I bumped into a friend and then we happened to then go to the same shop and then you see them again, “Oh, I’m not stalking you.” And that word has such a different meaning for me now, so not that I get offended by anyone saying it, but I, uh, yeah, it, it’s definitely something that, uh, you know, it impacts me now. And in terms of like the longer term I had a really bad reaction to every time I would see a white van. Anyone who’s been to London knows there’s a lot of white vans, so this was one of the things that the PTSD I got triggered by. I would check the number plate, check the driver, right? It’s not him, but I’m already into that hypervigilant state. So that’s where the EMDR, um, has really helped me. And I know there is a science behind it, it’s a, you know, it’s going, you’re, you’ve to look at a light going left, right, left, right. I don’t know how it works. It works. There’s some sort of science between, programming it or, you know, getting out of your head. And actually I’m not freaking out now with white vans, which is great. Uh, you know, there’s still some other things, insomnia, rashes, hair falling out, loss of appetite. Uh, the [00:28:00] worst, to be honest, was the nightmares. I would wake up, uh, I’m not going to tell you what the nightmare would be, but like the point of me waking up would be when I’m trying to scream my addresses into the phone that I’m imagining I’ve got the police. They had, police had me on like high alert, so if I phone, they were supposed to be rapid response, but it was like, I couldn’t speak. Like, you know when you’re trying to speak.

Jameela: Yeah.

Isla: Those, those, those are pretty unpleasant. I haven’t had one of them for a while. So I feel like I’m coming out the other side. Uh, but it’s, I am forever changed for sure. What I’m trying to do through my work is, um, raise awareness of how serious it is. I want to change laws. I want to, to have, uh, this is something that’s already, there’s been people campaigning for a long time actually. A friend of mine, Laura Richards, amazing, um, CEO of Paladin National Stalking Advocacy, to get a register for stalkers. That would deter them in the same way there’s, you know, for sex offenders. That, I think that’s something that if they knew they’d end up on a [00:29:00] register, they would think twice about it because then it does actually impact their life.

Jameela: Yeah, because it’s harder to get housing because no one’s going to want to move near you. It’s like, I’m sure you probably weren’t the first person this person had ever stalked in their life. I mean, maybe you were, but it’s likely that there was some sort of odd pattern of behavior beforehand or abusive tendencies and, and obsessive tendencies, maybe even that got missed when he was a teenager because boys will just be boys, but people wouldn’t want to live next to you. Landlords wouldn’t want to have you in the house, and you wouldn’t want, people wouldn’t want to employ you, people wouldn’t want you at their school. It would, it would change everything. And I think what’s, what’s great about the work that you want to do is so much of it is preventative, right? Obviously, the register is after you’ve already stalked someone, but what you were saying about the mental health care for those who show signs of stalking, like mandated mental health care and assessments.

Isla: Yeah.

Jameela: I think is so important and we rarely have that conversation because obviously we’re so fucking angry, justifiably angry, with the way that things [00:30:00] are and how little support the fucking victims are given and how little is done to even represent the victims and give them the justice that they seek and need and the protection, but If we don’t deal with the cause, all we will ever be left with is a broken justice system, barely being able to control the symptom, which is everyone else’s suffering. And that is incredibly stressful. And there are serious mental health issues that lead to so much of the toxic behavior that we see amongst men, and it’s not about sympathy. It’s about practicality. It’s about what, how do we nip this in the fucking bud, and I remember getting into trouble about a year or two ago, when am I not getting into trouble? But I got into trouble a few years ago when I was just like, in order to stop these mass shootings or these men who harm tons of women, like we need more mental health care and we need more men receiving mental health care because they are [00:31:00] going on to, they’re overflowing with their own trauma or mental illness and the debris is hitting the rest of us. It’s hitting women, people from other genders, children, minorities, etc. We have to do it. And people got mad at me saying that I was some sort of apologist or, you know, I’m more worried about them than everyone else. It’s like, no, I don’t want any of us to have to deal with the onslaught of someone’s like tsunami of trauma that they can’t contain anymore that’s now spilling onto people like you, um, and I really appreciate that. And I agree that should be in law and we should be looking for these signs as early as at school when a boy has an unhealthy relationship.

Obviously it’s not just boys. It can be people from other genders, but statistically, the vast majority, I presume, are men?

Isla: You’re absolutely right. Everything you say, I’m like, just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So of femicides, uh, I believe, and this is the ones that have been in a relationship.

Jameela: That’s the murder of women.

Isla: Murder of women, yeah. I think it’s 95 or 98% [00:32:00] they were stalked by their partner before.

Jameela: It says here that about half of all female stalking victims reported their victimization to the, to the police, and about 25% had obtained a restraining order.

Isla: Oh that, well that’s quite good figures actually to be honest.

Jameela: But 80% of all the restraining orders were violated by the assailant. About 24% of female victims who reported stalking to the police, as compared to 19% of male victims said their cases were prosecuted. Of the cases in which, criminal charges were filed, 54% resulted in a conviction and about 63% of convictions resulted in jail time. That’s in the US.

Isla: Okay. This is the hard thing though, is to try and track them, but I know there was definitely a rise in stalking cases during COVID because there was just the fishbowl of people at home and perfect curtain twitching, you know, to go on. And that’s more in an environment of people living nearby each other.

What I was going to say though is, you know, obviously there’s the high percentage of the femicide, that’s the ones that are in the relationship. As you say, one of [00:33:00] the figures I have is that a 50% or more than 50% will re offend.

And stalkers, there are different personality types. There’s the rejected stalker, the revenge stalker, the incompetent romantic, the intimacy seeking. And a lot of them, it’s to do with how they handle rejection, they want to be close. So for example, in my case, it was over friendliness, seeking a closeness, and whether he was seeking anything romantic or not, I don’t know, but wanting to be close. I remember his partner saying he was angry that I wasn’t including him in my life. And then there was an absolute switch at the point, and then it became aggressive. So then I would say it would be the revenge or the rejected stalker, so this is crucial about mental health. Laura Richards who I mentioned before, she calls it murder in slow motion. And that, I mean, that, yeah, there we go. And if you look at some of the most significant murder cases, if you step it back a bit, there’ll be stalking in there. So it [00:34:00] is a really important thing to deal with. And I am 100% on board with you. It is a mental health issue. And I think that we do have to train the police better. Um, but they are also not psychologists, but they need to be trauma informed and know when to identify that it’s not some hysterical woman just making it up or, oh, you know, he’s sending you flowers. It’s not that big a deal. and then the flowers though could be really quite menacing because it means that he’s shown that he’s put them on your car because he’s followed you to where you were going and you, you know, all that stuff, so

Jameela: The guy who built, the guy who built a room in his house for where he was going to keep me, and this is going back 10 years, it started with flowers. It started with sweet flowers and lovely notes that everyone was like, “Oh, you lucky girl,” from this total stranger.

Isla: Yeah, I got taught as a newsreader not to, because you know, you had to sometimes sign autographs and, uh, I then got told, oh no, no, no, you cannot put a kiss or anything. I even got told not to put their name because [00:35:00] that’s when they would fixate. There was once a person who complimented me on covering some, you know, awful story, tragic story, probably involving death. And they wrote a really nice letter saying, I was really touched with how you handled that. And I actually, and they asked for a signed photo, so I wrote back and said, “Thank you. You know, I do my best”. And that was it. Letter, letter, letter, you know, just obsessive. So it’s the, it’s hard. And it’s not to say that we’re all, you know, princesses that can’t receive correspondence. It’s the, it’s, it’s, there are people out there who have, who have a mental health issue where they think that they are closer to you than they can be.

Jameela: And something you said on the phone to me was, was really potent, which is that throwing them in jail for the very short sentences they’re going to get, if you’re lucky, I mean, the guy you were talking about got community service, but there’s nothing more likely to make someone sit there and obsess about you quite like going to jail. It’s not to say that, like, there are some people who just need to be behind bars. This is not me trying to dissuade anyone from, from [00:36:00] moving forward with the justice system. But that can’t be our only solution as a society, because then when they come out, sometimes if they’ve been sitting there in a box thinking about you, then you’re the first stop normally.

Isla: It’s the most, it’s the most dangerous thing. Who do they blame for being in there? You. What they’re going to think about the whole time? You. They’re going to be planning and unless there’s, there’s intervention, as you say, there are some that absolutely are a danger to society, they’re going to commit a crime, they’re violent and they’re, you know, need, they do need to be incarcerated. But again, like, just putting them away doesn’t fix it. Oh, and I am now in touch with so many victims of stalking around the world. And, uh, you know, there’s one in LA, a wonderful woman who, um, her stalker is in jail and as he was being sentenced, he attempted to jump out of the dock and shouted her name and said, “I’m going to kill you, blah, blah.” And, uh, he wasn’t actually given any further punishment for doing that in [00:37:00] front of a room full of lawyers and a judge. So she’s breathing easy until he comes out and then, you know, and what happens is the victim, we’re the ones that has to move house, go offline. I mean, I didn’t post anything apart from the odd random photo of my dog for quite a long time. I used to post that I was somewhere completely different from where I was. And then people naturally in social media go, “Oh, are you in blah, blah, blah.” And I’m like, and I do sort of tell people, don’t sit, don’t have conversations with me about where I am or where we’re going to meet on. So online, I had to go private, you know, all that kind of stuff, which doesn’t really matter, but when you’ve got a job like mine, I had to change my life in so many ways and move and move and move. When I came back to Britain, this is round about the time of, yeah, just after the court case, I stayed in 14 different places. I lost count. Um, I am now in one place. I do feel safe. There’s cameras everywhere. I don’t think he would come here. My entire street knows what’s happened to me. So I feel [00:38:00] safe, um, as safe as I can be. And I’m not looking over my shoulder, but I have a general sense of the world is an unsafe place. I feel shaken. Um, my, my close kind of group has shrunk. Um, I’ve made myself small and only now am I beginning to feel, you know, I wear baggy clothes. I mean the entire time, to be honest, I was out there. I don’t know. I was never dressed nicely. I was in the middle of renovating. I was wearing animal onesies with greasy hair and beanies. And when I’m working on television, I, you know, do dress up, but otherwise I’m very, I’ve changed how I dress myself. I have my hair scraped back. I rarely wear makeup. I’ve, you know, trying to disguise myself in a way to not shine so I don’t end up with something like that again.

Jameela: Negative attention, which is so unfair. It’s so unfair. And as you were saying, it’s got really nothing to do with the way that you dress or present yourself. It’s just someone else’s really odd fixation. It’s so unfair the amount of money you have had to spend, the amount of, um, uh, cost of fixing your [00:39:00] health, the fact that you’re, like, you’re, you were saying to me over the phone that you’ve had, like, you know, issues with your hair, and like,

Isla: My hair’s fallen out.

Jameela: Yeah, your hair’s fallen out in like, clumps. No, I mean, That’s it, your hair looks wonderful today.

Isla: It’s growing, it’s growing back now, these bits, but I’ve had patches at the back, it’s, I, I still get upset. I try not to wash my hair very much, but when I condition it and use the comb and I see how much hair comes out, so yeah, I curl it to make it look like it’s more.

Jameela: Yeah, and you’re having to, just generally how upsetting it is. I talk about this as like the female death tax, where all of the extra expenses that we have to pay, when we are disproportionately in many countries, most countries paid less than men for the same exact job. We are paid less. We have to pay for fucking period products every single month, which are getting increasingly expensive. All of the same products for women are always more expensive than they are for men. And then we have the female death tax, which is everything we have to spend money on that no one ever talks about just to fucking stay alive.[00:40:00]

You know, we talk about the fact that, well, actually men, you know, incur more violence than women statistically. It’s like, yeah, but men are putting themselves in more precarious positions. It’s not that it’s okay, but then we would ever. Can you imagine what the statistics would be for women if we took night buses as often, if we didn’t take that Uber that we can still be attacked in, if we didn’t, you know, spend the money on the double glazing and the extra locks and the, the chain on top of the lock and the cameras and the taser and the mace and the motion sensor because a camera isn’t enough? You know, it’s out of control the way that we have to behave. The keys between the fingers, the making sure that you have a phone that’s got really good reception so you can contact anyone, like the hypervigilance, the impact that the hypervigilance has on our physical and mental health, the feeling of being hunted all of the time, this kind of archaic feeling, this, this, this deep anthropological feeling of being [00:41:00] hunted that we have from the second we’re outside of our house, or if we’re alone in our house, feeling like we’re a sitting duck. Like, not to bum everyone out, but I mean, this is, you know, this is the reality of that situation. And to think that we’re not given some sort of a fucking staying alive and dealing with men fund is ridiculous because it costs so much money to stay alive as a woman.

Isla: Yeah. Do you know, I, I’m a terrible sleeper anyway, but, and I’ve been single for a while, but I was speaking to someone the other day and I said, “God, when I’m in a relationship, I sleep better when I’ve got someone, a man in my bed, because I feel like they’re, isn’t that ridiculous? Because I’m protected. I feel protected.” that, that shouldn’t be the case. I, you know, I, I’m a very brave person. I mean, my career, I’ve confronted killers many a time. I’ve gone to remote places in the jungle and, you know, I’ve put myself at risk at certain points. And, but never before have I been as scared than this idyllic little [00:42:00] hilltop in the English countryside. And that, that’s what’s mad. A stranger has had the power. Someone I did not invite into my life has had the power to destroy me, and for so long, and that’s what makes me angry. And that’s why I’m so determined to, to, to crawl out of this and to try and, you know, and what has been good, and this is a positive, is its impact the way, in a positive way, the way I handle my work. I’ve always been very compassionate and it’s why I accidentally ended up being a crime journalist because I was a compassionate young teenager who got sent round to go and speak to a grieving family and I was good at it and that’s why I ended up specialising in crime and in particular murder and being a victim of crime has changed the way I view things when I’m sitting in a court.

I mean, it was so fascinating the day I was sitting in court and I was in tears and because they, they threw me off. The first question was, how’s this affected your life? [00:43:00] I thought they were going to start off slow like, when did you move in? And I just lost it. And I could see this journalist, it was a man of course, scribbling away. And then there was a male photographer who of course was, what was he doing? Waiting outside the back door, the front door to chase me down the street with a camera. I was like, I get it. I get it, but it’s like, stalking victim is chased by a photographer down the street.

But anyway, sorry, but back to the point of it’s given me definitely a greater sense of compassion for, for people who have to go through the criminal justice system, families and friends and victims of crime. And also crucially, really made me look at some of the things and, and, and wording and things that I’ve, uh, used throughout my career, which has just actually come to the forefront. I’m actually just been covering a case that I did a documentary on 20 years ago. And interestingly, it is stalking that resulted in murder. It’s a 45 [00:44:00] year old murder case and it took all that time to get the killer to court, aged 82, but 20 years ago I confronted him and 20 years ago I interviewed the victim’s sister and friends and whatnot and I listened back to my interviews and I’m saying, I mean, I had to be careful legally with what I said because he wasn’t charged with anything, but I was, I used the word stormy to describe their relationship. It was domestic violence. He was violent to her. He assaulted her regularly. I used the word pestering. And so because everyone else was, well, he would follow her. He was pestering her. She had what was called an interim interdict out against him, which is the closest to what is now a restraining order. Coercive control was a phrase not known. I don’t think stalking really would have been a word that was used at the time. And even domestic violence, it would have been, you know, whatever, he’d slapped his wife about a bit. The Lord Advocate, who was in charge at the time, so basically the top dog when it comes to prosecutions, was quoted [00:45:00] saying something along the lines of, “Well, some of these women deserve a good beating.” You know, that’s what they were dealing with in the 70s.

Jameela: Jesus christ.

Isla: And that case didn’t come to court because of the attitudes being as they were then. But what’s so interesting is even though we’re looking at it through the lens now of 2023 and thank goodness he was found guilty, it’s, it’s looking at the difference of how I handle it, but also looking at things aren’t handled that differently. They’re really not handled that differently. There would have been the phone evidence of where someone was, there might have been more photographs, etc., but she would have still, the onus still would have been on her. And this woman, just to tell you a little bit about her, she’s called Dr. Brenda Page, she was 32 when she died. She was a brilliant geneticist. She really was a badass, incredible woman. At the front end of genetic research with prenatal testing and cancer research. And, you know, she was murdered in her own home. She told so many people. She told her friends, her colleagues, her divorce lawyer, [00:46:00] that she feared she would be killed by him. And she was. The tragedy was, it’s taken 45 years for him to finally go to court. And I’ve had the honour of making history. I’m the first ever journalist to be allowed to record the full audio of a murder trial, which I’m broadcasting in my next podcast series. And, um, finally, I’m able to give her a really loud voice and go back and analyze my own language and say, “I said this back then” I, you know, and it’s just been a really interesting experiment and the timing of it after my own court case, dealing with this case that I’d had in my heart for, you know, 20 years, and then to see it now come to fruition and realize we’re not that far. In terms of criminal justice, we need to do a lot better still.

Jameela: Man. And so this has been, you know, a big part of your career from the very start, you having been involved somehow in investigating murder and heinous crime [00:47:00] and lately you’ve been doing a lot in the kind of podcast world and documentary world around murders. I think a lot of these people have been men. The statistic that 87% of stalkers are men, and, uh, I find that really scary as a statistic, we were talking earlier about how it’s predominantly men. I think that’s fair, a fair number. But you, you have chosen this path, and this is a hugely, like, beloved genre? The one of true crime, and the one of murder, and serial killers, and stalkers, etc. Before we get into why you wanted to do it, why do you think there is such a huge appetite? Because I personally find these stories terrifying. I never watch anything about true crime. I don’t even watch True Detective. I won’t watch a film if it’s about stalking or murder or abuse or anything. Like, I really am like a puppy dog who just wants to watch like Bridesmaids all of the time. But there is such a ginormous, like, it’s like a meme almost, like, especially the [00:48:00] female obsession with true crime.

Isla: There’s a whole psychology right there.

Jameela: Can you explain it to me?

Isla: True crime. It’s women predominantly. I think part of it, as well as there’s a macabre sort of fascination of voyeurism and, oh, thank goodness that’s not me. Honestly, though, I think part of it is us crisis planning what would we do. I don’t know if that’s proven, but I think there’s an element of that. Literally, how would we get ourselves out of that situation if we were to be a victim? I think part of it is escapism and I think that the danger sometimes with true crime is that people forget the word true and they view it as entertainment and I think that’s something that I really fight against.

All my work, I don’t sensationalise the killers, I don’t really pick cases that have been overdone and you know, I don’t like shining spotlights on psychopathic men who would be in jail jerking off at the fact that there’s a TV [00:49:00] show being made about them. I try and avoid that sort of stuff. It’s more about, I feel, the stories of the victims, who they are, because they end up being a passport photo in a newspaper and we rarely actually hear that much about them. And these are usually women, incredible women, who’ve lost their lives. The exact reason I don’t know, it’s a huge genre right now. I mean, I did my first lot of documentaries on murders in the early 2000s, which were popular. But, you know, I accidentally sort of got into podcasting. My mum was poorly and I needed to do something that I could do, you know, that wasn’t a wee filming. So I did a podcast on my first big murder trial that I did when I was 19, and I revisited it and tracked down the killer and, you know, all the interviewed all the eyewitnesses and the pathologist and it was fascinating. But what the story was really was revisiting the impact of murder two decades on what it’s still doing to these people. And I think that’s what’s interesting. So I try and use my work for people to have empathy and for people to actually see in the [00:50:00] midst of crisis in the midst of these dark, awful moments, sometimes there is the brightest lights of humanity are witnessed in these really, really dark times. Even, to give a really simple example of that, once witness, you know, I was at a house very quickly after a woman lost her son. It wasn’t murder, it was a car accident. And she was so happy to tell me about her angel, and I was so happy to sit there and let her, it was cathartic for her. And her best friend turned up and they hadn’t seen each other. And her best friend walked in and just silently, they just didn’t say anything, just got up and they hugged and they were just shaking. It makes me tear up even thinking about this. They were shaking into each other with the tears and the grief and that all I saw in that moment was love. That was all I saw, love, and I have witnessed that as well with some of the murder cases when there’s family and friends and even bringing together the living victims. I brought together the mother of a murder victim with the former [00:51:00] boyfriend of the killer, and they were both the living victims, and they, they held each other. They hadn’t seen each other since the court case. They’d never spoken. It was two decades on. And they, they found a healing within each other.

Jameela: I think it’s really lovely that you’ve been able to find that glimmer of light. And also, I think it’s important to remember that there are so many more victims than just the person who gets harmed the most. It’s so traumatic for the people who get left behind or the people who are with that person. It was even scary for my, my partner at the time when I was being stalked because they’re like, am I going to lose her? Like, are the police not gonna do their job properly? Like, am I gonna be there when it happens? Am I gonna know what to do? And it’s such a stressful and, as I said earlier, relentless, um, circumstance. And so, your podcasts have been incredibly successful and number one, you know, on many, many charts. And I wonder [00:52:00] what it is, aside from just looking for the humanity and looking also to humanize the victim. Like, what do you feel when you are doing these podcasts? Like, what is the impact on your mental health, especially now that you are a survivor yourself?

Isla: I dive deep with my cases and, uh,

Jameela: Yes you do.

Isla: Uh, they’re, they’re long, uh,

Jameela: And you get physically very close to them.

Isla: I get, yeah. I’m still

Jameela: Chasing down killers in a bush.

Isla: Yeah. Yeah. I, I’ve, yes. Well, yeah. This, this one, the new one that’s coming out, I literally was chasing a man. I went to Holland. I was on stakeout for two days. I was 22 when I did this. I still can’t, I was watching the video back recently. I hadn’t seen it. And I was like, wow, Isla, you’ve got big balls. I was quite proud of myself. Um, yeah, I go deep. It does impact me, of course. I actually took a break from, I, most of my career was in, in news and current affairs and, and, you know, doing crime alongside. And I, I took a 10 year break. And then ended up going and doing a show for Oprah, which was [00:53:00] a health investigation series. Still something important and passionate about, but I needed to have that break for myself because I do, I think what I learned very young was to put a wall up. I was so strong, but what I do is I then build the brick wall and I don’t deal with it. So this is why I’ve had to be, I know I learned to do a long time ago. It was actually the death of a good friend of mine that really sparked me to go, “Hold on a second I need to just sort of, I’ve got to do a little bit of healing and facing some of this.” So I try and have balance now. So when I’m doing a case, I am all in. I work nonstop and I’ve got to just keep going. And once I get out of it, I have to completely just, It’s like I’m allergic to it and I need to kind of just completely go away and decompress. It’s part of who I am though, like, my podcast is called The Storyteller, it’s not like murder blah blah, but it’s The Storyteller and then there is a, there is a Shakespeare murder related title after it, but it’s a storyteller because I feel that’s what I am, whether it’s been through television or working in newspapers or [00:54:00] podcasts. And what I love about the podcast, and I’m sure your listeners feel exactly the same, there’s such an intimacy. We go on the walk with them, we’re in their ears. It does impact me, but I, I really, I love what I do. And I don’t actually get anyone funding me to do what I do. I, and I can’t do it forever for that reason. But I really do, and sharing these stories, like the honour for me, particularly with this new one, you know, I’m the first journalist ever, ever to be allowed to record and broadcast an entire murder trial, which I guide them through. But it really is just such a privilege and I usually then just end up saying, you know, thank you and really hoping that I have left a a mark on some people and really crucially I have left a clearer impression of who this person was or who the people were that lost their lives because I think that’s a really really crucial thing.

Jameela: And also show how when you’re covering case after case [00:55:00] after case the similarities become increasingly glaring especially when you then yourself go through it and I know that you have even, that your own stalking case has made you go back and look at a lot of like the most prolific murders and murderers and realized that there was a pattern of stalking first in most of these people that there were clear telltale signs that we dismissed as boys being boys or boys being passionate or he’s got a crush or all these different things or what did she do what was she wearing was she giving him the eye does she you know, agree to study with him, therefore she should lose her life. Like, the amount of, of terrible messaging, like, we need to work on the branding of stalking because it’s bonkers.

Isla: Absolutely. What time was it? What was she wearing?

Jameela: Drinking.

Isla: All that stuff. And, oh gosh, I mean, the worst cases that I’ve ever had to sit through, and I choose not to now, to be honest, are, are rape cases because they are, blah. And people may not know, in Scotland [00:56:00] there’s a third verdict, not proven, and it has exactly the same outcome as not guilty. They are acquitted. It means we think you did it, but we don’t quite have enough evidence and the majority of rape cases that are acquitted, it’s not proven verdicts and it’s painful to witness. So, so yeah, sorry, but victim blaming is absolutely, it’s still rife. Uh, you know, we saw it with, there was a murder in the UK by a policeman during COVID. And, oh, well, she was out at half past nine at night. And it’s, we have to step away from that. We really do. We need to learn. And yeah, it’s, it’s not about I, I feel that it’s always on the women, like, we need to keep ourselves safe. And it’s like, no, no, no, no, no.

Jameela: Yeah, don’t, don’t walk with headphones, don’t listen to a podcast, uh, on your long journey home that you’re trying to survive through. It’s so, it’s so bizarre. And so with all of this work and with the work you’ve done personally and the legislative work that you would like to be able to pass in order to [00:57:00] deal with the mental health more seriously of stalkers and, and in order to protect the victims better, what do you most hope to achieve?

Isla: I want women to feel safe. And I’m not really sure how achievable that is going. Sorry, I’m getting emotional just thinking about that because I want to live in a world where I can feel safer. And I think a lot of that does actually come down to, to men, not just those identifying their own behavior, but actually other men. Other men calling out what they see and saying no, no, no, no, don’t, don’t, don’t holler at that girl or, you know, just, it’s those little microaggressions, those little, and that’s where it begins and that’s where it builds. I want, I want the world to feel safer. I want us to have, you know, faith in our justice system, which is, you know, creaking at the seams. And I, and I don’t think for a second I’m, I’m saying anything bad about all those people who work very hard from top to bottom in the justice system and risk their lives. But, you know, we need, [00:58:00] we need to do better. And I think actually as a society, we have a responsibility for, for people to step in and say to someone else, “You know, maybe we shouldn’t do that. You know, that, that’s not okay.” It starts very basic language, language we use to our children, you know, little boys learning, you know, teaching them how to accept rejection. I know that’s something you’ve discussed before, but like, that’s where it begins.

Jameela: I mean, expanding on that, yeah, uh, Jimanekia Eborn, who’s a wonderful, uh, trauma survivor, survival expert. She talks about the fact that one of, the first time I met her was on a documentary about the harm of porn for kids, and she was saying that she teaches children around the age of five or six about rejection, how to give rejection kindly and how to take rejection with dignity and to see it as like, oh, this just wasn’t for me. It’s not because I’m bad or, you know, wrong or don’t deserve it. It’s just not the right fit. And like learning how to recontextualize [00:59:00] rejection. But so funny, I was just thinking while you were, you know, saying that, that women check each other all the time. You know what I mean? Like girlfriends are like, don’t double text. You’re going to look crazy, right? We constantly police each other’s behavior constantly where we’re just like, don’t do that. Don’t turn up at the place that you know he goes to drink, like you’re going to look like a weirdo. We are constantly checking each other. And if, and I bet that there are so many instances in which hopefully men at least notice like weird behavior of like, I’m just going to go check up on her. I’m going to text her again. I’m going to call her. I haven’t, she hasn’t texted me back. Stop each other. Interrupt. Interrupt the thought like don’t normalize the behavior because you find it uncomfortable because really, women do it to each other all the fucking time.

Isla: Yeah.

Jameela: It’s not that big a deal. And what we should be normalizing is checking each other and not making the other person feel embarrassed or shamed for having made an error of the mind or heart. Just be like, sometimes people need to be shown a little [01:00:00] mirror of what they’re doing. We’re not always cognizant of all of our behaviors, and these things often start small. Nip it in the bud, make it normal for men to start like, a little bit policing each other’s behavior in the same way that women do. Because I think often when we’re like men, tell each other what to do, we never, uh, say, that’s what we’re doing over here. We are trying to keep our house tidy and stop each other from showing up at your mum’s house and like, let’s, let’s, you keep your camp clean, right? Do you know what I mean? I know this isn’t like, well, I just, I’d never thought about it before, but.

Isla: I totally agree with you that we’re, I mean, I guess the other thing as well as when it does, if it’s a relationship situation about a former partner and the man is stalking, I don’t know how much they share with their bros that they’ve been driving past their ex’s work every day and all that kind of stuff, but as I say it goes back to the very beginning of language and how they discuss things and there’s a sense of entitlement etc as well. I will say though just to even things up there, you know, weirdly at the time of my stalking [01:01:00] I was seeing someone but we were in different countries and his ex girlfriend is a stalker. And, um, I, when I found out about the unwanted attention, I did not label it that. And I said, you, you need to have clearer boundaries. You need to nip that in the bud. You guys were over a long time ago. What, why are you responding kind of thing? Let’s just say fast forward to the end of this story. And, uh, I was very, very wrong. And, um, uh, he ended up with PTSD and a court case and all sorts of things as well, so it’s not just, not just to man basher, you know, that it does. But as I say, you’re right, though, we check each other.

Jameela: It matters. We want to keep each other well and safe and happy and stable and to have a safe environment. I don’t know. This has been so interesting and so much food for thought. And I’m so again, sorry that this subject you have been so interested in shining light on for victims has come so close to you, yourself, personally, [01:02:00] appreciate the ways in which it has made you, I don’t know, more thoughtful or empathetic, but this should never have happened. And it’s so scary how many people it happens to. And because people are afraid to come out and talk about what happened because they’re afraid of retaliation or any attention on the situation. It rarely does get discussed about on a really interpersonal level. It’s normally we hear about the victim after the victim’s died in a documentary, on which we mostly focus on the killer. It’s very rare to hear people speak who’ve just come out of something like this. And it’s incredibly meaningful and therapeutic for other people who might be going through this right now. And statistically, that’s quite a lot of people. I hate that for us, and for you, and for old me, who now is a recluse, partially because of that. Um, we don’t deserve this. This is our world as well. We deserve the right to walk through it safely. And starting with the mental health of men and teaching them about rejection is a huge way for us to keep ourselves safe, for [01:03:00] them to help keep us safe, and for them to keep each other safe. This shit, this negative behavior bleeds out all over the place.

Isla: Mm hmm.

Jameela: And so I know it’s not just men who are stalkers, we’re just, they are the, you know, the vast majority at 87%, but I, I mean that for everyone. We all deserve to feel safe in this world.

Isla: We absolutely do.

Jameela: Before you go, will you tell me, Isla, what do you weigh?

Isla: Oh gosh, uh, I weigh my bravery, I think, to keep going. I weigh my, my truth telling. I weigh my compassion. I weigh my heart, a big heart. This has been tested recently, but I weigh my sense of hope still, um, of things being better. And, uh, obviously, my dog, who’s been, uh, fairly good during this podcast so far, but yeah, I think that’s about it. Yeah. Storytelling, truth, love, and my dog.

Jameela: Thank you so much for listening to [01:04:00] this week’s episode. I Weigh with Jameela Jamil is produced and researched by myself, Jameela Jamil, Erin Finnegan, Kimmie Gregory, and Amelia Chappelow. It is edited by Andrew Carson and the beautiful music that you are hearing now is made by my boyfriend, James Blake. And if you haven’t already, please rate, review, and subscribe to the show. It’s such a great way to show your support and helps me out massively. And lastly, at I Weigh, we would love to hear from you and share what you weigh at the end of this podcast. Please email us a voice recording, sharing what you weigh at iweighpodcast@gmail.com. And now we would love to pass the mic to one of our listeners.

A listener today wrote in and said, “I weigh my art, my criminology degree, my love of music, autistic and proud, my bisexuality, anxiety, my Harry Potter obsession, my voluntary work, my family, my daily meditation.”