The Despair

It’s hard for me to turn my life into a story of wit, sarcasm, and humor I’m hellbent on living and writing. I thought maybe if I post the story of despair that existed on my original website, it would help me find some sarcasm in it and in me. I have a whole collection of writings, that actually aren’t too shabby. Painful, educational, but not too shabby; don’t worry they won’t get re-posted here.

I have some rough ideas of writings … on being a suspected gunman, on sending death wishes to suspected law enforcement surveilling me, on talking out loud of my gratitude for a healthy bowel movement knowing I was being heard under surveillance … now how to make gratitude over a healthy bowel movement worth reading - that’s the hard part - but written well, almost any story can be worth the read. Until I can dig deep and find the dark humor in my bottomless pit of despair, that’s actually worth typing out, here’s the OG.

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Truth and Courage

This website is created because of a criminal or private investigation into my background. It involved listening to my private phone conversations, sharing those conversations with others, following me across the US, and watching me in my home and that of my mother’s. It involved my friends and family. The investigation involved a great deal of harassment, psychological warfare, and invasion of privacy.

It’s with a heavy heart and much sickness that I have to honor the only truth I know. As Arnold Schwarzenegger writes in Be Useful, we must live our truth. So here is the life of mine. If only anyone else had the courage to speak the truth of the harassment and privacy invasion of the last twelve months, I could level up the truth I know to honor what others believe. This is an invitation of courage and compassion to anyone who participated. It is utterly unfathomable what would justify the life in which I live. It’s atrocious in the most devastating and heartbreaking way. Stealing any trust in humanity I may have had.

The lack of courage to speak to the truth alludes to the story, the psychological warfare, and the harassment as stemming from a place of assumptions, exaggerated truths, lies, or hate. If there is truth, why cower from it? Why can’t a direct conversation be had. Why hide the truth if it is indeed the truth? Why? I beg to stand corrected here with an open, honest conversation where behavior on both sides of the table is acknowledged in a compassionate act of self-awareness, non-judgement, and truth. This has been continuously requested and yet to be experienced. It will always stand as an open invitation.

Background

I struggled to understand how to resolve my background of childhood trauma over a 3-year period recently. A short stint of therapy in the beginning helped, but it wasn’t enough. At the time, I didn’t know what else to work on. Unbeknownst to me, it was affecting my life to a great degree.

During this period, I didn’t feel comfortable working in any job. Depression, trauma symptoms, and grief were distracting. I had to leave a job I liked when my father died. Substances were used to avoid feelings and reality. I tried going back to work too quickly and it wasn’t a good fit. I took a few months off again. Still in a place of not progressing, even though I thought I was at the time with therapy.

Moving halfway across the country for a corporate-like job (employees of 10,000+) made everything worse, though I couldn’t have foreseen this. Since I took the job working under someone I knew, I thought it was a good decision. I was already familiar with expectations and management style.

After almost a year and a half on the job - and countless misperceptions later - I was bullied and shut out of the job. I didn’t understand these things could happen; my background is working with small companies. I was told a story by my teammate of how a manager at Amazon got shut out of his job. But I wasn’t a manager. I didn’t work at Amazon. And I didn’t connect the story to myself. Was I supposed to? (See the post about indirect communication.)

I used to work hard at not reading into things or taking things personally. After months of my own suffering through that job, I ended up resigning swiftly. To get peace, change, heal, and move forward. I went to an Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACA) meeting shortly after, like a therapist had advised a couple of years ago. Using substances to escape reality had gone too far over the last year.

The Psychological Mess

I thought I could take some time, figure things out, heal. Though everyone except me knew something about me that I didn’t. No one thought I needed to heal. Those who knew nothing about me had an opinion on what I needed. This speaks volumes to others stepping in to observe and judge a life they knew nothing about. Yet, it was done hatefully and critically. And through an invasion of my privacy and investigation into my background.

There were clear signs my phone had been tapped, and my privacy stolen, before I quit my job. My private texts were being repeated back to me by coworkers. My work laptop that only went to work and my home was “lost”. At the same time, all my work files disappeared from a cloud-based system. The weird occurrences that I chose to ignore before I left my job got tremendously worse after leaving the job. And the invasion of privacy that started at work continued and followed me into my home. To this day, I can’t be sure why. (I collected evidence quietly for 7 months before feeling confident enough to say something and eventually write this.)

I attended ACA online meetings for months after resigning but had to quit. My “private” phone conversations were repeated back to me in those meetings. I was being followed. My friends and family were acting bizarre, and at the time - presumably - playing a role in it. My body and mind were in turmoil not knowing what was going on. Was it me? Could I trust what I was seeing and hearing? The sadness, fear, and concern over not working was beating me down. I was at a low point with harassment, criticism, and hate all around. I’m a homebody, so I rarely go out anyway. I had to walk my dog and was watched and followed everywhere I went.

If I’m not doing anything wrong, I didn’t really care my phone conversations were listened to or that I was followed. But at the same time, and as will be written on this website, the human mind will see situations and conversations as preconceived – true or untrue – in anything that is said, not said, or done. That’s what was happening. And the situation was wreaking havoc inside me, physically. The invasion of privacy turned into gossip that spread like wildfire through everyone I knew.

Gossip, as written by Don Miguel Ruiz in The Four Agreements, is like “a computer virus in your mind, causing one to think a little less clearly every time. When we see the world through a computer virus it is easy to justify the cruelest behavior. One piece of misinformation is a breakdown in communication infecting everyone involved.” Imagine how different life would be if we were to act with curiosity instead of through gossip. The Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu, in The Book of Joy, say curiosity can be a source of joy. Imagine finding joy in the search for truth, versus thinking and seeing through the lens of a virus.

Why else would friends and family ask so many times about when and why I walked my dog on the routes that I did - among countless other bizarre and irrelevant things? Since when did walking one’s dog a different way every day become an activity of great interest among many people? I thought my dog would rather enjoy different smells on different blocks. Why were friends repeating the conversations I had with others back to me? Since when did a simple conversation, seemingly about nothing, turn into psychological analysis and warfare?

I thought the harassment would go away if I just hung on and focused on myself, or that I would finally see how my mind was playing tricks on me. Maybe my friends and family just cared that much about my daily dog walks. Maybe every countless weird occurrence was just that and random. The harassment had followed me from the job, into my own home, and kept going; there’s just no possible way it could be real I would think to myself. What could I have possibly done to warrant such dramatic harassment and invasion of privacy? After all, ACA is a large fellowship. What I suffer from is not unique and can be healed.

The behavior of my friends and family finally became so transparent I finally became confident in the truth of being watched and followed. I have no idea why. It’s shocking to me. The situation I suspected made me no longer want to live in this world. To confirm my friends and family played a part in this, added to these feelings tremendously. The roles that some played were by far more cruel than others.

The End of a Life

Being in close personal relationships that lack trust, direct communication, and involve ulterior motives is overwhelming (for me). There was no choice but to end each one - out of respect for myself and honoring my boundaries. Real relationships no longer existed; only indirect storytelling and inquiry directed at me for something I didn’t understand. And if I sensed I did understand what was being communicated, I could see how gravely wrong the assumption was. And I was incapable of responding out of confusion and shock.

In the beginning, I did question whether it was my assumption of what I saw that was wrong. Communication was too indirect and convoluted. Honesty, transparency, and directness were needed. The relationships were unmanageable, sad, and depressing. It was the speaker’s choice to behave in a way that was received as disrespectful and belittling. Keeping secrets in and of itself seemingly is not.

These relationships could have been maintained. But how painful they had become, empty of transparency and real connection. I can only imagine how it may have felt like work to the other person. My poor friends and family; having to do work when a loving, light, enjoyable conversation could have been shared instead. Was it as damaging to them as it was to me? I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask for my online, 12-step meetings to be sabotaged by mocking the theft of my privacy, by mocking me, by mocking my life; a theft which friends and family supported. All my relationships became dead weights trying to move forward; full of ego trying to teach me something I didn’t need or understand. The assumptions and judgements made were atrocious and sickening.

I know my family didn’t understand how incapable I was at navigating the confusion and complexity of those relationships and the circumstances at the time - void of trust, lacking truth, full of mockery, poking and prodding every little thing I did and said. What a waste of time, of life.

I can only accept that others believe and behave as they do. I had no choice but to express my hurt, leave unanswered questions on the table, then walk away. Because I’m still practicing what I write and try to be honest, it’s worth emphasizing that leaving quietly was only after clearly and colorfully expressing hurt. I’m still practicing on reducing the clear and colorful part - it didn’t go well.

Watching me is one thing. Playing games with my mind through the people that should love and care the most for me is the part of this story that is surreal and cruel. It didn’t have to be this way. At any point along the chain of gossip, one person could have stopped and behaved differently. But no one did.

I kept the suspected invasion of privacy, the mocking, the hate, the bullying, and the harassment to myself. It was only when I was forced to speak to my character that I finally told friends and family. I didn’t ask to be bullied or harassed. My life shows this – as a homebody, I keep to myself and stay home. I offered to resign from my job twice before being shut out and avoided those carrying out the harassment. I mind my own business. Apparently, everyone else minds my own business too; how sad for them. And how sad my friends and family are – they already knew to some degree what was going on. I can’t tell if they knew about the hate; I don’t want to know.

Moving Forward

After quitting ACA, I now recover through studies and writing. The loss of everything I had is worth honoring who I know I am. To navigate this world alone, only with the confidence of the truths of my past and my character, is the most honorable way I can choose to live. I cannot live a life in a story that someone else has created. I will not live a life in a story that someone else has created. That is not a life worth living.

I do not fear my truths. I observe that my friends and family live in great fear of their own.

If there is a truth that any of us need to respond to, how could it possibly be acknowledged without a direct conversation? If one will not rise to an invitation of a direct, honest conversation, then how can the truth possibly be known?

People will see, believe, and say what they want. It’s up to each of us to honor our boundaries, what we need, and our truths; I have honored mine.

My Goodbye - Letting Go

To my friends and family - I did not invite you all into my personal struggle. I was proactive in healing that on my own. I kept that private until I was forced to speak up to defend my character and truths. My boundaries were grossly violated, and my intellect and character insulted to a great degree. I did not create this story. It is being acted out by others all around me - without involving me. The story is seemingly created from a place of ignorance, with much disrespect and belittlement. I had only one choice – to step out of the story I want nothing to do with. That included stepping out of a life with you. I have asked for clarity, many times; I have expressed hurt, many times. No one has answered. Nothing can be resolved without communication. Nothing can change. Nothing can grow.

There is peace, growth, and healing in separation. I believe you all will find it. As will I, one day.

Reflections

What my friends, family, and this experience has taught me is captured below. I would have thought these are things in life that don’t need to be taught to others. I thought they would be inherently known and honored in this world by most average people. The devastation of learning otherwise is irreparable. I have hate in myself that didn’t exist there before. I have judgement and hypocrisy that I hadn’t tapped into before. I hope I don’t let it out and spread it like it has been unleased on me. This is what I thought didn’t need to be taught to adults…

Don’t believe everything you hear. Don’t bully or harass people, to any degree, large or small.

And if you have a problem with something or someone, learn to use words and communicate; this solves problems, likely quite efficiently and effectively.

Understand life is not black and white.

If you’re an employer, just fire someone you don’t want around - don’t unleash psychological warfare and hate to get them to quit.

And don’t forget, intentionality of speech and behavior means something; it means a lot actually.

Don’t let anyone make you feel less than or inhuman for having feelings of anger, resentment, sadness, hurt, pain, and loss. They should be felt and understood, though not encouraged or acted upon.

If you can navigate feelings in the privacy of your own home, be grateful. How each of us works through feelings, especially under PTSD symptoms or other types of emotional distress, is extremely private and should never be violated and shared with the rest of the world.

I had no idea the privacy in my home was something that would and could be stolen. And that would and could be shared with strangers, without anyone understanding or knowing the underlying story, without any context to what was being shared.

Stories can be made up about anything; this is easy. An entire story can be made up from misunderstanding one sentence said. Finding and seeing the truth, the real story, and intention in behavior, takes work, courage, patience and time.

Losing faith in the human reasonableness of those once loved is heartbreaking. Behaviors witnessed firsthand were acted out from belief in gossip. Gossip with no basis in known truth. How could objectivity, rationale, or question not be applied to stories received second or third hand?

Assumptions can be devastatingly wrong. They can ruin lives and relationships, especially if handled inappropriately. I know I’m flawed. But I have the utmost confidence in knowing who I am. I don’t have to act as the version of the person projected at me.

One person’s suffering is not comparable to another’s. One average person is no more moral than another. We all misperceive, we are all imperfect, and we all have blind spots. We each feel our own pain, in our own way, to a degree that is very personal to each of us. That is never to be disrespected. No matter what one may believe, perceive, assume, or think they know.

To disrespect another is to disrespect yourself. To make up stories about another or harass another means that person needs to look deeply within and find their own pain and heal.