For many fans mesmerized by Netflix’s global hit Baby Reindeer, the plot is unthinkable and terrifying. A single act of kindness – a young bar worker offers a distraught woman a free cup of tea – turns into a relentless campaign of harassment that destroys his life.
But as I watched the seven-part series, in light of my own experience as a forensic psychiatrist who had testified in numerous harassment cases, the facts seemed surprisingly compelling and frighteningly relatable.
Like any complex psychological crime, the story of Baby Reindeer has unique elements. At first, the show, based on the real-life ordeal of creator and star Richard Gadd, although he plays a character named Donny, goes in directions he didn’t expect.
In light of my own experience as a forensic psychiatrist, who has provided evidence in numerous harassment cases, I found Baby Reindeer surprisingly compelling and terrifyingly relatable, writes Dr. Sohom Das.
Donny seems unusually self-absorbed. But as the story progresses, he is honest and open about how his own behavior fueled her stalker’s obsession with him. We slowly come to understand why he is so susceptible to the relentless attention directed at him by the dangerously deluded Martha (Jessica Gunning).
It turns out that, as a struggling comedian on the stand-up circuit, he had befriended a much older man (a powerful television writer and director) who had led him to believe he could help his career. But after a night of drinking and drugs at the man’s London apartment, Donny passes out and is raped.
So, Martha meets a damaged and fragile person in episode one. He gives her free drinks when she enters the pub where he works, agrees to meet her in a cafe and exchanges messages with her.
When she cuts off contact after the police talk to her about her harassment of him, he misses her attention so much that he begins to obsess over her as well.
That does not mean that victims of harassment are complicit in their own persecution, far from it. Most have done nothing to attract or maintain unwanted attention.
But crime is much more common than most people might imagine. According to a 2018 survey published by the Office for National Statistics, 7 per cent of women and around 2.5 per cent of men in England and Wales had been harassed in the previous 12 months.
All signs point to bullying becoming more common. The sad truth is that social media makes it easy for an obsessive to delve deeper into their target’s life online: friend them on Facebook or decipher clues from photos on Instagram.
Most bullies do not suffer from any mental illness, but they do share definite personality traits. They lack empathy, are impulsive, and often have a history of violence or criminal records.
Being naturally aggressive and hostile, they tend to disregard the law or at least behave as if it does not apply to them.
Baby Reindeer viewers may feel that Donny, played by creator Richard Gadd, also exacerbated Martha’s behavior by reacting. But the reality is that ignoring a bully will only work in some cases.
This can be summarized as ‘antisocial personality disorder’, something that affects between 2 and 4 percent of men, and less than half a percent of women.
These personality traits are partly inherent, probably genetic, and accentuated by early childhood experiences such as lax or overly strict parenting and emotional, physical, or sexual abuse.
But none of these things will be immediately evident when we meet a stranger. In the course of my work I have identified five broad categories of stalkers, the most common of which is what I call the “incompetent suitor.”
In these cases, the harasser believes that what he is doing is a form of flirting, with the goal of starting a relationship. They do not intend to intimidate their victim; They actually think they are making romantic gestures.
Martha’s character in Baby Reindeer probably comes closest to this profile.
A subcategory of the incompetent suitor, and probably the type I come across most often, is the stalker who imagines he is in a genuine relationship with someone. A well-known example of such “erotomania” was Margaret Mary Ray, a divorced woman so obsessed with American talk show host David Letterman in the 1980s that she repeatedly broke into his house to leave him gifts and even do his housework. .
She was arrested after stealing his Porsche and claiming to be his wife, telling police he was the father of her young son, who was sitting in the passenger seat.
Like Martha in Baby Reindeer, Ray felt that the man she was harassing had encouraged her. Letterman talked about her on air, joking about her behavior.
“The attention given to him and the actions of the authorities made his situation much worse,” said his daughter Anna-Lisa. Ray committed suicide in 1997.
Baby Reindeer viewers may feel that Donny also exacerbated Martha’s behavior by reacting to it. But the reality is that ignoring a bully will only work in some cases. If the obsession is triggered by rejection, such as a romantic breakup, a complete lack of attention or reaction sends a strong signal and may well work.
But in cases of genuine mental illness, nothing less than clinical treatment is likely to be effective.
The worst cases of bullying involve physical violence. While Martha may have occasionally lashed out at Donny, she never staged any kind of sustained assault. But the most extreme category of stalker I’ve encountered (one I describe as “predator”) can kill.
These individuals monitor and pursue their victims, with the intention of sexually assaulting or intimidating them, and this can lead to rape and murder.
An ITV documentary last month highlighted one of the most tragic cases, that of 23-year-old Gracie Spinks, murdered three years ago. Gracie contacted the police to report a campaign of harassment by her former supervisor at her work, Michael Sellers.
Their fears were not taken seriously enough, even when a bag of weapons including knives and an ax were found by a dog walker near the field where Gracie stabled her horse. Weeks later, Gracie was stabbed to death by Sellers at that location. She then committed suicide.
Relatively few stalkers harbor murder fantasies, but it can be difficult for victims to know what will happen next. That’s why being a target is so scary.
The best advice is to watch for warning signs. If someone new comes into your life and starts to make you feel uncomfortable, don’t dismiss your fears.
If they seem overly interested, if they know more about you than seems healthy, if they suddenly follow all your social media accounts and send you messages, these are all red flags.
Baby Reindeer gives us some dramatic examples of this. The show makes us aware of a dangerous phenomenon that is too often treated as a joke.
For our own safety, we must take harassment seriously.
- Dr. Sohom Das is the author of In Two Minds; Stories of murder, justice and recovery from a forensic psychiatrist. For more information, check out APsychForSoreMinds on YouTube or @Dr_S_Das on X.