Iniquity's mystery

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

(I am roughly a week from possibly being homeless, so some motivation to write this down... For those who are intrigued by this tale, for whatever reason...)

While reading the fourth of Mark Z. Danielewski's new books, I read a short passage about "targeted individuals." At first I thought this was a real, legit thing, like a social phenomenon or whatever. Then I did TI research via Google and found out it was more conspiracy-theoretical than not, or so it seemed. The problem, of course, is that it seemed also as if, in my own case for instance, there really was this eerie social element to the targeting in question. Like, something really was going down, but what?

I have no idea what specifically prompted me to look the topic up, although I believe I had used the term before (on this website even, IIRC): but after a conversation with the menacing coworker of mine, I decided to read the Wikipedia article on cyberstalking.

And so then the TI indicators fell into place. It's not a government or international cult conspiracy. It's just sometimes stalkers go hardcore and hire private investigators or spread local rumors or whatnot, and this generates the atmosphere of conspiracy around the victim. Voila, I had an explanation for why random people kept coming up to me and saying odd or disturbing things (like a guy who suddenly showed up at my house one night while I was by myself, stood in the kitchen staring at me, and asking me, "Are you the writer?"), why people seemed to have information about my private thoughts that I hadn't shared, etc.

Basically, that questionable coworker of mine, who had claimed to be in Anonymous, was hacking into my computer. It was pretty easy as I had my compy synced up with all my roommates in such a way (that I did not know) that they could observe either everything period I was doing on it, or everything I did online. And worse than that...

Now I might be wrong, but when you tag someone in a post on Facebook, it can't go onto their timeline without their specific approval. There might be a preapproval so if certain people post with your name highlighted, the post will go to your TL, but anyway, doubtful that the guy in question has me as one of his favorites or whatever. But so anyway I posted this long sappy thing about Dean and how I had fucked it all up by misreading the signals he sent me and all that, but I tagged the sole friend of mine who also knew Dean, and then the post showed up on that friend's TL. I was like why??? Why would he approve that? Unless...

Unless he (we'll call him CU) knew that my communications on FB were being fucked with. Unless he knew that someone (he wouldn't necessarily have known it was my obsessive stalker coworker) had fucked with my messages to Dean (a "man in the middle" kind of thing, apparently...) and approved my post to get the message around the fuck-up wall. Something like that.

Another friend of mine, to note, had replied to the post in which CU was mentioned, and told me that what seemed to have happened (keep in mind that until she said this, she didn't seem to have any independent awareness of the situation) was that someone had gone behind my back and said something weird about me, to Dean, to fuck the situation up.

Now this all might sound like a sort of non sequiter, like, again, why??? But my coworker really, really, really didn't like me being friends with Dean. When Dean left to Utah and I distanced myself from him, I came into work to see my coworker smiling so joyously when he saw me, very disturbing but I tried playing it off for a little.

On the one hand, this all makes me feel like if I could talk to Dean somehow, I could explain what happened and he'd be friends with me again (I can only imagine what my coworker told him). Which would be awesome. OTOH I don't know how to get a hold of him. I don't trust FB, I don't know how/can't afford to block elite hackers and I don't want to live with the people who were friends-on-FB* with my coworker, but now I have nowhere to go, they're moving anyway and then the house we were staying at is going to be remodeled for some other family's use or whatever.

*I don't know whether they knew,** though it was super-odd that my coworker was only friends-on-FB with them, out of all our mutual coworkers, seeing as he never hung out with them or anything. Like, the only three employees this dude was f-o-FB with, were my roommates. And sometimes they seemed to know things without independent explanation. (I thought it was my nascent schizophrenia, there's a specific delusion type associated with it called "thought projection" or w/e, where you think your thoughts are audible to other people directly, somehow; but no, no projection and possibly not even outright schizophrenia for that matter, at least on this score).

**EDIT: I mean, they knew my compy was syncing up with theirs, one of them came up to me a few weeks back and specifically told me that whenever the ISP address for his got conflated with mine, he could see everything I was doing online.

[Khaliban]

This is a delicate situation, so I want to respond carefully.

What you've described sounds like a series of coincidences and misunderstandings.

First, you haven't told us why you're about to be homeless. You're schizophrenic, and you've mentioned you've been homeless before. It's possible your condition is getting worse, or it fluctuates, and you've had a bad few months. Whatever else is going on, I hope you get help.

The guy in your kitchen might have known you're a writer by the way you talk. I habitually organize my thoughts like a writer and sometimes speak like I'm writing an essay. You might do something similar, and he picked up on it.

You've mentioned Anonymous before, and he does sound like a dick, but that doesn't make him a stalker. But, you could get your computer checked just in case.

It's possible CU didn't realize the Dean post was meant to be private. It might have been malicious, or it might have been an accident.

I don't fully understand the situation with the coworker and Dean, but it might be simple jealousy.

If the situation is bad enough that you're about to lose your apartment, you must be under a lot of stress. Your mind is likely in overdrive trying to fix the problem. Your schizophrenia may have influenced your mind's pattern recognition system to gathered all of the stress events under one umbrella. I think a lot of people have tried that. It's tempting to believe you can fix a lot of problems at once, but it's rarely that easy.

Cyberstalking is definitely real, however a conspiracy of stalkers is unlikely. Especially stalkers that hire an investigator. I think someone in the chain would break and say something. That's why most stalkers work alone.

I can't tell if the annoying coworker is a stalker or just a dick. The other events sound like accidents or misreading signals, both on your part and theirs. Get your computer checked just in case. If it's nothing, at least you'll know it's nothing.

I don't want to dismiss your ideas completely. That would be reckless and insulting. However, I think, if your coworkers hated you, they'd complain to your supervisor. Most people are too busy or too lazy to do more.

As I said, I suspect the stress is aggravating your schizophrenia. Focus on keeping your apartment and reducing the stress, then revisit the ideas with a clearer head.

The most important part is understanding how you got here. I've mentioned my ADD before. I know some of my problems are the result of ADD, and some are the result of bad habits. I absolutely need to know which is which, or I will waste my energy in pursuit of the wrong answer. Your situation is more complicated than mine, so knowing the right answer is that much more important.

I really hope this helps. I think you're someone who deserves help.

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

Thank you... I posted the info all out of order and everything and yeah, super-stressed, and it's not like talking to Dean somehow would magically solve that (since he's in Utah and I can't afford to just up and move there at the moment). I guess on that end, it's more about closure.

There are some housing options sort of available on short notice, IDK, but the house I'm living at right now isn't one of them, I guess instead of "remodeled" I might as well have just said "demolished for rebuilding" (starting around May 1st).

IDK I hope I'll figure it out. I mean if my tax return came in I would at least have a buffer for a while, I still have my job and max hours there so I pull in about 700-800 every two weeks. Theoretically I could get a gym membership and that would cover taking showers and I know where some laundromats are and all, that'd all be cool, the main thing I'm concerned about is my cat.

Last note: another part of me thinks "who am I kidding" though. I work at McDonald's after all. I don't know if there's a universal stigma associated with working there or what, but basically it's very hard to get reliable, solid people to work for us so we almost never fire anyone, the policy is to slash their hours to short shifts once a week and hope it's too much trouble for the troublesome employee to want to keep up with. Secondly we hire a fair number of criminals, and not criminals who are who they are because of the accidents of an overly complex legal code but because of an attitude revolving around getting away with things. So deep down inside, part of me is like, what did I expect? To make real friends and live happily ever after?

[Khaliban]

The YWCA has housing, some with mental health assistance. A few even accept pets. The others can probably suggest options. Sadly, your situation is not unique. Affordable housing exists specifically to meet the needs of people with similar problems. Do a search while you still have internet.

And, you have friends. We are scattered hither and yon, but we exist.

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

I know I have friends here, and elsewhere, but at this job I've been so compressed, like, almost never able to go anywhere unless it's to/with a coworker and his/her place. (Going to Chicago even for a single day was quite the ordeal on many ends haha.)

But, negativity aside the YMCA is something I for some reason hadn't remembered but is a really good idea.

[Shuram Gudatetris]

I'm no expert regarding facebook, but I believe that if you tag a friend, it will show up on their timeline, unless you change *your own* privacy settings. The default setting is "public", so if you tag friend, it will be "public" to anyone who can look at that friend's page.

I feel your pain regarding losing your home. I am in the same boat. I lost my job last year because I am pretty fucked up in the head(long story), and I am just sitting here waiting for them to kick me out because I don't know what to do about my situation. I got a letter from a lawyer this moth saying my house will go to a foreclosure sale on May 1st, and I don't even know what that means in regards to whether or not I will have to move out. I have two dogs, and I don't really care what happens to myself, but it breaks my heart to think I won't be able to shelter my two dogs.

Just an observation from someone (me) who understands projections and is constantly battling with his own (wrong) skewed perception of the world around him: two possibilities come to mind regarding your co-worker. On one hand, he might be nervous around you (maybe he perceives your distrust?) and his nervous smile may be coming across as a conspiratorial grin? On the other, maybe this person knows you are vulnerable, so he goes out of his way to make you nervous/screw with you for his own delight?

I hope you find a solution. Best of luck, and lots of love to you.

[Avatar]

Some good advice in the earlier posts I think. I don't FB, so can't help on that score, but chances are it's never as complicated as we tend to assume.

Take it easy, and I hope everything works out. Will be thinking of you.

--A

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

Although by addressing my interpretation of my particular coworker and the associated social anomalies, if you will, I am feeding into a pattern of thought that, true or not, is not quite healthy (if you also will). That's what a delusion is, not just any false or irrational one, but only those that specifically are unhealthy. There are wrong ways to serve the truth, and all that, or whatever. However, there is also a chance that if my interpretation has objective value, I have to make sure that whatever I do takes that value into account.

Because basically I could have moved with my current roommates, to their new place, or at least they themselves offered no obstacles and some measure of encouragement, in fact, towards doing so. There are financial reasons why it might not have been plausible in the long run, but those aside, my decision in this case has been predicated on my "alternative" train of thought.

Now I do like to believe that I don't outright believe things on insufficient evidence. Again, maybe there are healthier and unhealthier ways to gather evidence, with obsessive analysis being an example of the latter. That being said, I do not believe that I have been clear enough about the lucidity of the situation in question. Yes, I have presented parts of it that admit of other explanations in some general way, but they are not the only parts to what I have been reflecting on, and in the light of those other things it becomes rather more absurd not to come to conclusions such as I have, at least to a greater degree than initially assumed.

"Don't worry, Jeremy, Kristian won't find out."

They have two guys at a time on their table for making sandwiches, and around the time Dean became incognito or whatever, there was this one day I was working with this guy Jeremy who I sorta thought was attractive and who I'd made flippant, relevant remarks about to coworkers. During some random conversation involving the secondary assistant manager (he was in the kitchen with us), this manager abruptly smiled at Jeremy and abruptly said the above quoted sentence. I had no idea what this meant, what it had to do with anything really under the sun or not or whatever (or whoever?). Now I am not saying that the manager was referring to my computer being hacked, not directly anyway, not even as if he knew such a thing were happening. Again, this is only part of what went on over time.

One night, long after the mysterious "Are you the writer?" fellow showed up (who btw did not ask his question after listening to me), I came home to find the power was out and the patio door was open, one of my roommates was there and was freaking out because he himself had found the house that way, no one was lurking inside and nothing was stolen so the event passed from emphasis but it always struck me as strange that only our house and the four or five immediately surrounding it, were the only ones that lost power then. Also my coworkers had expressed some belief that someone might be following me anyway, a day or so before the incident.

In mid-March I got into a prolonged argument with the weird coworker, online. I made fun, sort of, of Christian Reconstructionism, in a reply to another friend's post. And I said the weird guy could tell the other respondent all he needed to know about what I designated a "cult." So Mr. Quasi-Stalker and I revisited his assertion that I was a "moral coward" for going to the concert in Chicago. (This was before I went, he had randomly posted about the city for the first time in all the time I'd ever known him, with a link to a site copying info from a police scanner over there or something, and the info was about the infamous recent/continuing crime wave in the Windy City. I told the guy I wasn't going to not go to the concert just because it was supposedly dangerous or whatever over there. He then said I was a "moral coward.") He said if I wanted to know what he meant, I could just ask, so I did, and then he started going on this very strange series of quasi-tangents, during which he repeatedly said, "I'm still two steps ahead of you," which I didn't understand since I hadn't been talking to him for a very long time and our mutual silence had not seemed overtly hostile, more like just resigned. Besides, he didn't even work at the restaurant at that time, he was on one of his weird pseudorandom hiatuses. Then, to cap it all off, he said, "It would please me immensely to profit off your delusional beliefs, if you would but place a monetary bet on a specific prediction of yours. Let's see what you think when you have to be financially accountable for your delusions." I replied that I had basically done this (I was abstractly referring to some scenario I came up with to use my tax return to move to Utah, which was risky and hence a "bet") but then offered to pay him to tell me why he hadn't wanted me to go to Chicago or whatever. He still didn't say why or agree to tell me if I did give him money to do so, and then he said the thing again about being superior to me, so I gave in and was like, you know what, I am pretty stupid, have been about this situation for far longer than this one argument on this one day, anyway, so, I said finally that even Dean was better off in Utah than any time he'd been hanging out with me and that coworker of mine stopped saying anything.

One of my roommates, another older manager at work, who I told about the whole exchange, also told me that the weird guy did private investigative work on the side, and I knew he'd done something to help get a car thief or prowler or something in the area arrested, also he has some affiliation with EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal), so then my roommate told me that I should watch/read Death Note as an interpretation of how the other fellow was relating to me. I still cannot understand how exactly the show's/comics' story applies, except that my roommate told me that our mutual acquaintance was a part-time private investigator himself and was trying to play some kind of social media game with me.

Now this was pretty weird to have someone like my manager roommate tell me, like, I didn't ask him to repeat it but I didn't want it to be true, I guess. Because how could he know what the weird guy was doing, anyway? How had he known when the fellow went on one of his hiatus-tangents in PI-land, and how had he known when the other man had come back from them to have a special talk with the restaurant's general manager? But that's what he told me had happened.

[Khaliban]

The Death Note character, in summary, is a narcissistic dick who uses a book from a death god to inflict his idea of morality on the rest of the world. From what you've described of Mr. Quasi-Stalker, it's a pretty good match. (When he says he's two steps ahead of you, he's not. He wants other people to think he's that smart.) Stalker or not, this guy is definitely a dick. You mentioned he knows EOD. That implies military training. That, in turn, suggests the possibility of PTSD which can have a negative effect on your social skills. However, it doesn't sound like he wants to fix anything.

As for the accusation of delusions, that is possibly too severe a word for this situation. A pathology is a normal psychological process exaggerated to an unhealthy degree. You're trying to deal with your problems, and your schizophrenia and creativity add more material than you need. Then, and this is the thing you need to stop, you confide in Mr. Dick. He torments you, because narcissists get off on that.

The rest of it sounds mundane. The kitchen guy probably knows someone who knows you. The break-in makes me nervous, but you're leaving that place anyway.

I've noticed you obsess over how people know things. Conversation. It happens all the time. If the manager knows about the PI side job, Mr. Dick told him. There's nothing weird about that at all. It only gets weird if someone knows something about you that you have never told anyone else.

[peter]

Oh Mig, Mig, Mig! Concentrate on the one important thing in this whole fucked up mess - the cat. Forget FB, and stalking and everything else. Forget the people, forget the hackers, forget it all; i) get the cat into a boarding cattery or even re-homing charity cattery (it will take for ever to rehome him/her so you will buy time), ii) get some new digs sorted out ASAP. The cat and you are the only important things here. Prioritize things in the order of importance and forget the rest.

Be lucky!

[Avatar]

Seconded, and well said.

Sterkte.

--A

[Linna Heartbooger]

Hey Mighara,

It sounds like you are stressed trying to decide between going to the housing option where your current roommates are going and trying to find someplace to live on your own.
(and I'm thinking you haven't been super motivated by the prospect of living alone.)

It sounds like you're kind of like, "they may not be great friends, but they're what I've got here."

I think you'd normally want to go to the new place your current roommates are going... but trust has broken down.
Because you are wondering if various things that have happened are mainly because of one guy's animosity towards you, or if others (including some of your roommates?) have been going along with him / schemes of his.

[deer of the dawn]

I absolutely agree with Peter-- never mind the drama with jerky coworker (how good a PI can he be if he needs a gig at MickeyD's to support himself anyway??), focus on your need of housing and the cat's need for you to keep it together.

It sounds like you have some supportive friends. Keep in touch with them and let them know what your needs are, as well.

Don't get evicted. That would completely suck for you and your cat.

Regarding Facebook... I set my account so that I was supposed to be able to approve anything that wanted to show on my timeline. However, people CAN see those things whether I approve them or not. Lesson learned: NOTHING on facebook, or anywhere on the internet, is private. Once it's on the web, it's like a feather in the wind. There is no controlling what others re-post, share, copy and paste, or w/e.

Hang in there, and get a roof over your head.

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

I don't know if I snapped into or out of a trance (again?!) but I have felt somewhat differently about everything over the last few days... I think I've been overestimating the difficulty of the situation, for one, like, it seems potentially traumatic but it actually isn't, or shouldn't be, or something. And I don't mean it would be dandy to be homeless, but I mean I don't think that is likely, or something.

IDK I wish I could adequately convey what it's like, from the inside, so to speak. It sounds so melodramatic or intimidating, the way I've put it, but, like, it's not like that very much, it seems. I mean I have felt spasms of panic or stress or anxiety here and there but generally I've just been cautious about my judgments and decisions, or "circumspect" might be a little better of a term.

So yeah it's not as terrible as I feel like I was making it out to be, what with rambling in some longwinded pseudo-non-sequiter way haha

[Avatar]

Good. Things rarely are as terrible as we tend to make them out to be. All it needs is a different perspective to bring things into...well...perspective.

--A

[peter]

..... and in this more positive frame of reference to begin making the necessary changes to build on it and increase your overall security. And again - forget the internet (except KW of course) as a form of communication: remember, every time you engage with the internet you disengage with the world.

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

In new other news: not sure what to make of it, but Facebook told me where I was hacked from, it was a device in Colorado Springs of all places.

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

In new other news: not sure what to make of it, but Facebook told me where I was hacked from, it was a device in Colorado Springs of all places.

Dude! Good to see you around. Dunno if this means things are going better or not, but here's hoping.

[peter]

Ditto! Hi Mig!

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

Oh they're goin' Nice to talk to you guys too. When things are a little more normal, I've got to talk about some of the books I've been reading.