Mirror Update

February/ March, 2008

I am pronounced to be ‘such a phony’ by tow of our male addicts observing me in the Downtown centre as I pass by. They say this loud enough for me to hear since they want to make sure I have their opinion of me. I do not know either of them nor do they know me.
A Comcare worker is coming to one of my neighbours. They make plans to pump her for information which can then be passed along to all of those who are pretending not to know anything. Pushing into my personal space and telling stories is extremely important to many of them it is how they live each day.
The crew members replacing a ceiling have now been given my apartment number by one of my neighbours who has also provided them with a character analysis of me and some of my other neighbours. Again, service people in the city need to know all about the character and any stories they can get on the job. Often landlords are only too willing to pass along any information asked for. Of course, they then must lie about it as it would not be good if their tenant’s ‘found out.’ One of these workers in fact asked about me specifically. It has happened several times before.
Bus fare box sessions are still being held to get all the latest twists and turns on the story, (that does not exist anyway)
The Old Quebec St. merchants holler out, “As it turns out she’s really smart!” the customers observing me say to each other as they laugh out loud.
“They say it is really very simple and that this is going to go down in history.”
(I wonder who says that.)students on the bus think alternately that the whole business is very sad but also VERY funny. This is repeated often this week.
So is ‘they say it is a miracle.” There have been several rounds of this comment over the years too.
I see a guy going into another tenant’s apartment who is also one of them at the mall all the time. He also gossips with cleaning staff, the aboriginal guy and has been seen filling in bus drivers on whatever he picks up there as the latest news and views. ( continue to hallucinate this activity as always. Others simply wonder why I would be so upset by this since this is how ‘life is.’
(I wonder why they don’t notice it is not ‘normal’ to focus on one person from a distance for 15 years without ever communicating directly while always denying it at the same time? Do they not get it is the denial of this as a group phenomenon that is what gets ‘diagnosed’ in the individual who reports being on the receiving end of it? I don’t think they do. They see some of it but continue to exclude themselves from the process deluding themselves they are ‘objective observers” as always)
I hear some of the locals enjoyed my post titled “Messages off the TV Just for Psychiatrists.’ I am sure someone would like to convince me I simply hallucinated that conversation. Some are reading ‘in secret.’
Some of the addicts are getting a little less overtly mouthy lately although those who are complaint with taking drugs for their addiction problems tend to bond over the ridiculous idea that I could possibly understand any of this better than they.
Someone, (A “HE” apparently went to a meeting of some kind and when they were all there ‘he’ stood up and said, “I am very disappointed in all you people.’
Norm M. has discussed what I wanted to do with others and his wife(?) while passing by me on the downtown streets.
They know I am on ‘Websites and everything.’
It is said it ‘scared the hell out of them.’ Someone has told them the truth.
I hear my employer was in Guelph for a meeting to which I was not invited. I also heard I was discussed there by some and that it was ‘amusing’ there too. I have also heard that they have work they give to others even though I am the one with seniority. I have also heard that some have even asked for me specifically and my employer turned them down and told them (even before my phone was disconnected() that they did not know how to reach me or rather ‘when I was home.’ I have heard on the streets of Guelph now that they are not giving me work now because I do not have a phone which I can not pay for because they did not give me work when I had one either. I have also heard that they are not giving me work because they have to protect the business and not allow people to think they hire mentally ill people or allow them to work there. Of course, this is ALL hearsay as no one ever talks directly to me about any of this even after fifteen years of my growing personal losses.
The mall is still a great place to get all the latest on me and ‘him’ and is being added to and passed further now as some of my new neighbours have work connections there. It is especially good to talk to the table wipers one of which also lives in my neighbourhood and has seen me elsewhere as well, many years ago.
I was on a pay phone in February confirming my March hours (I also use my E-mail to communicate with my office daily) when I hear a woman overhearing me say “March’ and commenting, “March! Does she not even know what month it is?”
I wonder if that was someone checking for time and date orientation. Perhaps it was a Homewood nurse who now lives in that building. I wonder if I should expect another ‘intervention’ soon based on all the brilliant observations of those who look for signs and symbols of madness everywhere except in themselves?
They say ‘you cannot say anything in front of her or she knows what you are talking about. Isn’t that amazing? “ (Only if you need to believe you understand this better than I do which, other than my protagonist, no one does.
It is said, ‘He is afraid to leave her a message as he is afraid she will not call him back. “ (where was ‘he’ going to leave it? One thing is for sure; a message not left anywhere cannot be returned. Believe me I have a lot to say and much to HEAR first.)
Some of the folks in my building discuss what I do on the job and one says, “well I don’t see how she can do that and not feel bad about it.’ (work with the dying)
Answer from male judge:
“That’s easy. She doesn’t care about anybody so she doesn’t’ t feel anything at all.”
Later, these same people will ask after my well being, plastic smiles plastered on their faces to ‘fool’ me.
Folks at the library tell each other, “ she couldn’t explain it all then because she did not understand it all herself.
Newer bus drivers read the name on my pass again.
Two of the rougher members of this community, both male abut 35 ish, discuss how ‘something needs to be done about her. Obviously she doesn’t care about anybody else.”
Another of my neighbours who has also been discussing me and my character since I moved, is also now working at the mall in the food court. More fuel for the gossiping fire. One of the staff members on Dales’ unit looks at me and shakes her contemptuous little head in the negative. I have heard her recently using her patronizing little tone with practiced ease, on people she deals with in the community too. For many, working at the psych hospital seems to be quite the ego trip doesn’t it? The ‘correcting’ instructions and tone tends to leak out all over the community.
There is a current discussion abut putting children through the training system I have been put through here in public. Everyone is ‘just shocked.’ ( as usual)
Someone has been pronounced “a very good liar.’ ( a him)
Some now are whispering, “it is a thing from the sixties.’ (wish it was just from the sixties but it had mutated many times since then.)
A woman from Riverside Glen was very upset when she heard about the latest. She says , “that is why they were asking all those questions. They were looking for evidence.”
The residents of 21 Paisley involved in giving their opinions for many years have now got some more news and aren’t as overtly ‘amused’ as they have been before.
Some of the shoe guy’s gossiping buddies aren’t quite so sure of themselves any more either apparently.

This is the one that gets me this week:
This is the latest opinion said to be passing through the legal community: I am ‘ not really a bad person.” It is just that I am ‘different.’ I ‘do this to create excitement’ but apparently I am also ‘a really good worker.’
Another consensus opinion that excludes me from my own experience and offers the assessments of those who continue to diagnose me from a distance just as they have been dong all these years. They are even using some of the same terms. It amazes me that they still don’t notice that I am not even IN the story of my own life and experience and no one finds that at all odd or unusual or just plain stupid and arrogant.
Unfugginbelievable. If I had not experienced this myself, I would not have believed it was even possible for all these people to be this stupid for this long either!

Folks at the library announce that this is what I have been working on the whole time. A Shoe salesman tells another downtown merchant, “That lady knows more than they do.’
Pair of tenants tells each other that I ‘know everything they have talked about. ‘A new neighbour’s visitor (one of the regular gossips from the mall who has kept other gossips informed of all the latest as well as bus drivers) discusses me in my presence with one of the other regulars from out there. (the aboriginal; looking guy who always keeps the table wiper informed so she can tell others about me from behind her magic shield of three fingers raised to cover her mouth) The first one tells the other one, “Rob doesn’t know what to do now.”
(I have heard this line over and over again over the years. I have asked many times, “who is Rob?” but of course all of this is none of my business so I never get any response from anyone. It is a city wide ‘secret’ among many you see.)
The building key holder has been kept informed of all the latest rumours and opinions though like all the others she pretends to my face that she has not. One of the tenants who keeps the bus drivers and others informed all day has done the same with her. I am not always her topic of course. I have heard her mocking and ridiculing many other tenants as well. She appears to make herself feel superior that way. Frequently, like those at the mall, she goes into ‘whisper mode’ in my presence when she sees me coming. Multiply that act by a few dozen people every day and you will begin to get the picture from MY point of view; the one you DON’T get while you believe yourself to be one of thousands of people ‘hiding’ the truth while acting it all out every day. A bus driver shares more on the topic of me with some staff members at Riverside Glen. One of them used to share some of the news with the late Prof. Jay Newman. Jay Newman was once said to be at meetings with my ex psychiatrist from the Trillium section. and so it goes ...and goes...and goes...After all, I don’t expect the normal people to admit to this do I? I have been told by the experts that if I do, I have unrealistic expectations since admitting to anything would not be in THEIR own interests. See how the circle is kept unbroken? Around and around we go forever until or unless anyone normal can admit they are wrong...and they rarely if ever, do that. That is why I am ‘incurable.’ They are all still laughing at this great ‘joke.’
Now try thinking a little bit for a change. If I was one of the people who could never get out of being driven into psychosis over and over again ( and they almost did that twice after the first time) by this alternate reality that has been created for me and then denied, would it be all that shocking to know that this kind of unrelenting pressure on an individual sometimes results in suicide and/or murder? Do you really believe this happens ‘randomly’ and without any cause relating to concrete experience? How blind have you all had to make yourselves in order to keep believing in your own delusions of grandeur? I suggest to you that it is this which is the greatest and most destructive delusion of all and it is the normal who suffer from it most because of their externalizing of their own problems. It is the psychiatrized who suffer most of the results of that and most of the time it is not because we don’t see, but because we DO.
THINK about it.