Is There a Website to Upload Pictures of Gang Stalkers

Source: Burst/Pexels

Every breath y'all take and every move y'all make
Every bond you break, every stride yous take, I'll be watching you.

—"Every Jiff You Take," The Police

Note: This is Part i of a three-function series on "gang stalking."

What Is Gang Stalking?

Reports of "gang stalking" (a.k.a. "gang-stalking" or "gangstalking") began emerging at least 15 years ago past cocky-described "targeted individuals" ("T.I.s") challenge to be followed, surveilled, harassed, and otherwise victimized by unknown forces wielding loftier-tech weapons of "mind control." Since then, much more has been written about this phenomenon, especially over the by few years, with national attention devoted to a few notable cases of violence and mass shootings perpetrated by people identifying as T.I.s.¹

These journalistic accounts—in the mainstream press, as well equally in self-publication sites similar Medium and ii Vice documentary features (for a chronological bibliography, run across the references section at the terminate of this blogpost)—offering intimate, sympathetic, and compelling portraits of those who place as victims of gang stalking. By way of summary, T.I.due south typically depict living in a country of constant fear, seeing evidence of being followed by unmarked police cars in every black SUV that drives by, of being zapped past "extremely low-frequency" (ELF) radiation or "Voice to Skull" (V2K) technology in every tingling sensation or bodily ache, and of malevolent intentions in other people's every gesture.

Interviews often notation that T.I.s don't appear "unusual," "disheveled," or otherwise "crazy" and that some of them are doctors, acclaimed novelists, and other reasonably well-functioning professionals. Indeed, the T.I. community is comprised of thousands of diverse individuals, coming from all walks of life, with similarly various accounts of who might be harassing them and why.

For example, the "who" is variably attributed to neighbors, ex-boyfriends, employers, police, and other law enforcement agencies, "the financial aristocracy," or less conventional sources, like Freemasons and space aliens. The "why" is often attributed to retaliation for ending relationships, interim as whistleblowers at work, political activism, having run-ins with the police force, or being privy to secret information. Seemingly motiveless harassment is chalked upward to being hapless victims of experimentation by government agencies testing new techniques of surveillance or heed command.

If there's a common thread to the accounts of gang stalking, information technology's that T.I.s depict considerable suffering non only every bit a result of ongoing concerns about being harassed, but as well from the feel of physical symptoms, like hurting and "hearing voices," and the meaning social stigma associated with sharing their claims with family, friends, or mental wellness professionals who routinely dismiss them as "crazy." As a outcome, T.I.s accept found solace on the internet, where they share "state of war stories" and survival strategies with like-minded individuals who have similarly constitute themselves at the center of a vast conspiracy theory.

Source: Robert Pastryk/Pixabay

The Subjective Reality of Paranoia

Of course, stalking by a unmarried private is a dangerous reality for some—peculiarly women fleeing calumniating relationships and other targets of erotomania. And bullying by a group of individuals (a.k.a. "mobbing") is increasingly recognized every bit a schoolhouse and workplace take a chance. In an episode chosen "Trust Fall," the NPR Invisibilia podcast recently highlighted a seemingly improbable example of internet harassment that turned out to be existent later all.

A recent New York Times article detailed another real-life example of "cyberstalking" and in-person surveillance past employees at eBay. And aye, a few existent events in history, such as the CIA'southward MK-Ultra "mind control" program and the FBI'due south COINTELPRO surveillance program of the 1950s, take occurred, but every bit the mod-day mass manipulation of man behavior through social media is a reality in which we all now live.

• What Is Fear?
• Find a therapist to gainsay fear and anxiety

Just if you aren't personally experiencing gang stalking, it'southward hard for an outsider, much less a psychiatrist, to accept it as anything other than a textbook case of paranoia. Indeed, that's been the conclusion of the few mental health researchers that have examined gang stalking to date. In 2006, Dr. Vaughn Bong and colleagues published an analysis of 10 online accounts of "mind control experiences" consistent with gang stalking (though they didn't mention that word explicitly).² When assessed by 3 independent psychiatrists, all of the accounts were classified as consistent with the show of a psychotic disorder.

In 2015, Drs. Lorraine Sheridan and David James conducted an analysis of 128 responses to a survey about stalking that similarly concluded that 100 pct of cases involving gang stalking by multiple coordinated individuals reflected paranoid delusions (in contrast, only 4 percent of those reporting stalking by a single individual were deemed to be delusional).³ In both of these studies, gang stalking claims were attributed to paranoia because they defied credulity, oftentimes due to the sheer amount of resources or level of coordinated organization that would be necessary to comport out what was claimed.

Fearfulness Essential Reads

As a psychiatrist, it'due south nearly impossible to disagree with those conclusions. Delusions are defined in psychiatry as "fixed, false beliefs," with paranoia representing a classic version in which one believes they're being followed, harassed, or otherwise persecuted. Vigilance—keeping an eye out for and beingness generally wary of potential threats—is normal and can transform into exaggerated hypervigilance under various conditions, such as having been an actual victim of violence. At the extreme, full-blown paranoia of delusional intensity tin be understood every bit that aforementioned evolutionary alarm system gone completely awry, to the point of seeing the evidence and believing that such threats are almost everywhere.

And despite stigmatizing stereotypes nigh psychotic disorders like schizophrenia, those whose paranoia is part of "delusional disorder"—where "non-baroque" or plausible delusions are the simply symptoms—don't typically appear "bizarre or odd" and have functioning that'southward relatively intact, co-ordinate to traditional diagnostic criteria in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorderdue south (DSM). (For an fantabulous portrayal of what information technology's like to be married to someone with delusional disorder, listen to this episode of This American Life chosen "You Can't Handle the Truth.") This helps to explain why, aside from their idiosyncratic beliefs, many T.I.s don't appear apparently psychotic—in that location is no such thing!

But earthworks deeper tells a dissimilar story. Many T.I.s written report concerns non simply about gang stalking but other common symptoms of mental illness, such as auditory hallucinations or vocalisation-hearing and even less plausible behavior, such as having "implants" within their bodies that can control their thoughts or that people accept been replaced past aliens. Simply even those with "pure" paranoia appear to brandish textbook examples of delusional thinking.

Throughout my career, I've worked with hundreds if not thousands of people with paranoid delusions, including but non limited to those who have claimed to exist victims of gang stalking. In such cases, claims of persecution defy credulity on several grounds.

First, there'south the unbelievably vast extent of what's claimed… fleets of black SUVs with tinted windows, persecutors in disguise on every street corner, and futuristic secret engineering existence deployed from God knows where. 2nd, there'southward a lack of whatever obvious or credible motive for the persecution… why would the CIA exist devoting considerable resources to go along an "average Joe" nether constant surveillance for years on end (note that paranoia and grandiosity—an exaggerated sense of cocky-importance—often get manus-in-manus)? Tertiary, the persecutory experiences continue regardless of attempts to escape or relocate, including when hospitalized in the inpatient psychiatry ward and are contradicted past acquaintances or family and friends living in close proximity. And and then, past process of elimination also as recognition every bit a textbook case, paranoid delusions often offer the best explanation for most gang stalking claims.

Of course, it'south the rule rather than the exception that people with delusional disorder avoid being labeled every bit mentally ill and spurn referrals to psychiatry. But i more than matter that can help to clarify that persecutory concerns are delusional is that paranoia often resolves when its underlying causes are actually treated, whether by participating in psychotherapy that challenges cognitive distortions in the face of evidence, taking medications for psychotic disorders like schizophrenia, or stopping the use of illicit drugs well-known to crusade paranoia, like methamphetamines, cocaine, and sometimes marijuana or booze (many benefit from a combination of these interventions).

In one case treated, people sometimes develop insight that the experience wasn't real later on all and is best explained by paranoia. Just just every bit often, a delusional belief may not be fully relinquished as an explanation for past events, so much every bit someone is just relieved and thankful that for any reason, the persecution has stopped.

Beliefs, whether those of T.I.s or psychiatrists, are ultimately probability judgments where the stardom betwixt a mirage and a normal belief is the difference between what could be truthful and what's likely to exist true and the associated level of conviction for that judgment. By definition, people with delusions hold behavior with unwarranted levels of conviction, with the main "prove" for the conventionalities lying about exclusively within the subjective experience. They oft reason that "I tin't be crazy considering it seems then real" (if they didn't, they wouldn't be delusional—in other words, if you lot believe you lot're paranoid, y'all're non!).

By fashion of contrast, clinicians assessing delusions must be open to and investigate the potential reality of seemingly unfounded behavior (recollect that in Dr. Sheridan's study, 96 percent of individual stalking claims were judged to be real), making probabilistic judgments based on objective bear witness. By nearly accounts, gang stalking doesn't hold up to such objective analysis for anyone other than those experiencing it. That's the confounding reality of delusions—they're ultimately grounded in subjective experience, whereas the truth is objective.

Serving in the privileged position of authority as an arbiter of what's credible or not—of the truth—requires that one be open-minded nigh what's possible in the universe, enlightened of the breadth of culturally sanctioned behavior, and humble about the limits of human knowledge. And so, rather than succumbing to the binary bias, peradventure we should consider whether gang stalking might not be quite so black and white after all. Maybe information technology'south non as elementary as a question of paranoia or not. In Part ii of this series, "Gang Stalking: Conspiracy, Delusion, and Shared Conventionalities," I'll examine a 3rd possibility, revisiting the intersection of conspiracy theories and shared delusions in the digital historic period.

Read Parts 2 and 3 of this series on "gang stalking:"

• Gang Stalking: Conspiracy, Delusion, and Shared Belief
• Gang Stalking: A Example of Mass Hysteria?

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Source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psych-unseen/202010/gang-stalking-real-life-harassment-or-textbook-paranoia

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