I was working in the security industry and investigations was part of my daily routine.
I had some knowledge of surveillance and counter surveillance and stuff like that.
We monitored peoples movements on a daily basis… Through cctv, and covert operations.
It was amidst all these intelligence that my prodromal years started.
At first I thought my wife was spying and cheating on me.
I investigated her and I was convinced she was always one step ahead of me.
Needless to say I ended up in a divorce.
I lost everything and everything was sold. I shared 50/50 with the ex wife.
With the money I got out I took a sort of sabbatical. During this year i did everything i could think of to prove that the government was spying on me.
After this year I got a job again with my ex employer. Things went ok but the paranoia persisted. I tried to handle a low profile as much as possible cause I had a reputation to keep up and I needed the money, which was good.
But I got drag deeper and deeper into the spiders web.
Every day was a little more paranoid and the delusions did not make it easier.
The plot thickened day by day, hour by hour, second by second.
I discovered people are messing with my laptop. Documents got displaced, documents dissapeared, completed worksheets got sabotaged. But I just couldn’t get the proof.
I reported the matter to my client who in return put their IT in charge to catch the culprit.
But this did not work cause I suspected them from early days on.
Things got out hand. I believed that people read my mind and when I talk about something it is already done.
I felt like a dog in the middle of Pavlovs’ behaviorism experiments.
They knew my every move and I was always 1 step behind.
I started to poke holes in my office with screwdriver in order to look for covert cameras.
I cut open electric plugs to look for hidden microphones. I bought my own listening devices and covert cameras.
All these operations took a toll on my mental stability and ability.
I thought the whole world was delusional and I was the only sane one who was stalked, spyed on interigated and plotted against.
Another thing that drove me through the roof was those coincideces. Getting messages at 3:33 in the morning. Seeing a vehicle driving by 1 second after I talked about it. The list goes on and on.
I told my psychologist all of this and he said these people want me to join them. But I couldn’t see my way open to do that cause they were immoral and I was the moral victim.
During it all I took a holiday to write my journals. During this holiday I got a God delusion.
Then my psychologist asked to read my journal. I gave it to him. It was only after reading my journals that he realised I was totally nuts. I begged him to help me as I couldn’t bare the agony any more.
He made an appointment for me with a psychiatrist… At that time I was like a poor wild rabbit in highway traffic. Every smell, every colour, every noise, every numberplate etc, etc, etc, triggered me.
On my first visit to the psychiatrist I asked her what was wrong. She said I had delusional paranoia. I couldn’t believe it at first but it made me think… How can the entire world be delusional and I’m the only sane one.
On my next visit I learned that i was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Shortly after that I was hospitalized.
That in a nutshell is my story on how the operational requirement of my job held back a timely diagnosis. Everybody believed it was just my job driving me crazy whilst back at the ranch I had a serious chronic mental illness.
I worked almost two more years and was then boarded from work for medical reasons.
Lots of time when I feel a bit better I start to wonder if it wasn’t all those people that drove me over the edge.
Fortunately i never stopped taking my meds since my diagnosis 9 years ago so my level of insight has kept me from backsliding.
I had few relapses whilst on meds but was able to pull them through with meds adjustments with help from psychiatrists.