Red Flags Don't Wave. They whisper.

Sometimes red flags don’t wave. They whisper.

A slammed door.

A terse comment.

A flash of anger that feels like something more.

All followed by a charming apology.

Many have experienced these things, yet few might recognize how these seemingly normal elements of unwanted behavior can escalate. Red flags can appear small and deceptively manageable by design.

What I didn’t know at the time is how each apology accepted was a form of conditioning.

After Todd, a man I’d briefly dated, contacted my colleague’s wife and told her we were having an affair, I had no intention of speaking to him again. But his insidious maneuvers were squeezing the life out of me. I was slowly suffocating in as the rumors spread through my small community.

Well-meaning friends told me: “Handle your business.”

Todd would always badger me saying he only wanted to talk because he knew his charisma and charm would shine through and I would revert to what I was conditioned to do: accept his apology.

And I needed to find a way to make everything stop.

The only way to breathe again was to control the situation. Even though I recognized this was not a person I wanted in my life, telling an obsessive person “I’m just not that into you” doesn’t end it. In my experience, it escalated it.

I believed civility would quell the unwanted behavior until he lost interest or simply moved on. I placated him, which would de-escalate the situation temporarily. In truth, it was pulling me deeper into the stalker’s web. As I wrote Unfollow Me, I could see that I was never the one “handling it” and that Todd was in control.

“It is clear Caraway wanted full transparency in her story, with her displaying compromising moments that other writers might shy away from to show readers what patterns—especially their own—could lead them to becoming a possible victim of stalking.” —Memoir Magazine

In writing a memoir, I wanted to take responsibility for the role I played in my own story. I wanted to illustrate for readers how easy it is for us to believe we are in control when, in reality, we aren’t.

A reader once asked, “If you could go back, what would you have done differently?”

The “what ifs” have plagued many sleepless nights, bouts of depression, and deep internal conversations over the years since his conviction. But I always come back to the same answer: “Nothing.”

To do otherwise would be a betrayal of my own values and principles. I could torture myself endlessly rehashing each moment, each decision. But I know deep in my bones that kindness and the capacity for forgiveness are an integral part of who I am.

This article originally appeared on Inside the Insanity blog on October 24, 2025. You can view it here.