Changes

1:42 AM 4/15/10

I have been thinking for a couple weeks now that I'd like to change my work schedule. I'm working only a few hours at Weis in the evening, and then overnight at McDonald's. But I don't like the overnight at McDonald's much. How did I get on that shift in the first place?

I've been working for McD since 2005, except for a period when I got fired, and then got rehired. During that time I've had several disasters. For a while, a couple years ago, I had to take some time off because of illness. And I think it may have been, if I recall, because of the herbal contamination incident. That was when I tried to grow some dangerous medicinal herbs in my other apartment, and I contaminated my belongings with the essential oils of the herbs, and the oils went through my skin, causing severe symptoms.

When I went back to work, I asked to work the night shift instead of the afternoon shift. This was partly because I wanted to make myself more useful to them, and partly because I was thinking of getting a second job during the day.

I had to ask myself why I got on that shift in the first place, because I needed to know if there was a good reason why I had to stay on that shift. I don't think there is.

It's a cold and lonely shift. I get to sweep and mop the lobby, and that's about it. I also answer the headset, taking orders on drive-thru. I don't get a chance to cook, which is what I enjoy most. And there are so few people there that the social environment is pretty dull. I spend most of the time by myself.

I want to try something I've never done before. So I am thinking about going to the breakfast shift. This is all just an idea for now. I still need to ask them if it would be possible.

Then the next part of the idea is that I would go back to my old schedule at Weis, coming in at 12:30 in the afternoon. I don't like my job at Weis as much as I like McDonald's, but at least for now, I might work more hours at that job. There's a reason why I'm doing this. But I'm not even sure if I can do it yet.

***
I met him at a time when I was still getting frequent exposures to the St. John's Wort drug residues from my other apartment. I hadn't moved out of that place yet. It was summer. Martin had just left.

Martin and I had a couple of emails, a couple phone calls, and then we were never able to reach each other again. He took photos for his facebook page to indicate that he was still reading my blog, photos that very specifically had to do with things I was writing. But we weren't able to communicate directly.

I am more and more certain that emails were being intercepted. For instance, there was one incident where I got a message, allegedly from him, on facebook, that said, 'I am getting tired of this. You crossed a line that was unacceptable. I really will call the police if you continue,' something like that. It wasn't really his style of writing. Martin then did a photo mockery of 'I am getting tired' by crawling into a bunch of car tires. He was always mocking things that *I* had written to *him*, to indicate that he received it or had read the blog, but that 'I am getting tired' letter was supposedly sent to *me* from *him*. It was as if he had also received the same letter, as if it was from me.

He had been doing the photos pretty regularly, so this wasn't just one 'mockery' photo out of a whole bunch of normal photos (which would mean that maybe I was 'interpreting' it as meaningful when it wasn't). No, he was doing lots and lots of 'yes, I'm reading your blog' photos, and they were very obvious. (He did a very good imitation of a face that I made in my test video on YouTube.)

I had known when they first started forcing me to try to contact Martin that it was going to be another 'I email you and you don't answer' situation. I knew about hackers. I knew about being forced to 'entertain' the hackers by writing more and more extreme emails in desperation to get a response, by doing more and more extreme things to try to get this person's attention. I did it all before. So I stopped myself from doing it, or rather, I tried to. But being exposed to antidepressant drugs makes me more willing to obey those forced urges to do things, so I still wrote him a rather large number of letters. I only got a small number from him, four or five or so.

When you write letters to 'entertain' the hackers, they start messing with your computer in response to things you've written. I don't know who 'the hackers' are, but I think a good answer to that question is 'somebody you don't want to talk to.' Somebody OTHER than the person you're desperately trying to contact. They will convince you that your letter recipient is reading your mind, torturing you, watching you grieve and suffer, deliberately taunting you. I have another story to tell someday, but not right now, about the first time I did this, and how I learned about it - that original guy, the first person, was indeed receiving my emails - I had a third party verify this for me. Long story for another day.

But this guy I'm talking to now, in the present... I was still exposed to St. John's Wort frequently when we met. So I was in the friendly, cheerful mood where I have the courage to touch people. I touched him several times, although even with the occasional drugs, it still took an enormous amount of courage and it was terrifying.

He got hired at our store, and I began hearing voices telling me about him. I agreed with their advice. They said, 'Enjoy every precious moment you have with him.' and 'Love him for *himself*, not because he's a substitute for Martin.' In other words I shouldn't see him as a way to get revenge on Martin by hanging out with some other guy to make Martin jealous, or something like that.

So even though I had just lost Martin before I even had a chance to develop much of a relationship with him, I was now focused on somebody new. I quickly learned that he was a different person with a different style and I loved him for different reasons.

I clearly remember every time I've touched him, except once - I'd swear there was another incident, and I can't recall what it was. The first time I remember doing it, we were standing next to a shelf where some of the containers were covered with drops of black stuff that came from an unknown location, and we were trying to figure out how it had gotten there. He figured out what was happening - some of the containers on the shelf above were leaking, and it soaked down through the black paint on the shelf - and I tapped him on the arm lightly and said, 'You're right, thanks for troubleshooting.' They were all very little incidents like that, just lightly hitting him on the arm or shoulder, that kind of thing, but all of them were very special moments. I can only remember doing this a small number of times, like 5 or 6 times.

After a while, I decided I shouldn't do this anymore. First, I had gotten some of the St. John's Wort 'patched up' so that it wasn't contaminating me anymore. I have to do things like buy new pairs of shoes, and cover up my car seat with clear vinyl, to stop the residues from touching my skin. Anyway, reducing the St. John's Wort exposures made me less friendly. But it was also because I got overexcited every time I touched him and I felt like it was going to become sexual harassment, like I would do more than just tap him on the arm, like I would put my arms around him and give him a hug, or anything else that would be too much for the workplace. So I totally stopped doing it. I resisted every impulse to touch him when he was near me.

I gave him my home phone and cell phone number at one point. He asked why. I said that if he left, I would be very, very sad that I couldn't be friends with him anymore. That was as close as I could get to the truth. The truth would be more complicated. If he left, and I lost contact with him, I'd get over it, I'd survive, but I would feel as though there was no reason to go into work every day. It would be a dark place full of boring dull people who I didn't care to see. I'd get used to it, of course.

In the beginning, I was sort of like a teacher or guide to him. He was new, didn't know how to do things, and so he often came over to me asking questions or asking for help with something. Eventually he didn't need me for that anymore, so I had fewer chances to talk with him. Then a couple things happened. He had a car wreck, without a seat belt on, and injured his back and his neck. He's lucky to be alive. The air bags stopped him from hitting the steering wheel or going through the windshield. (There's nothing I can do about it, but I might say that the murderers set up his car accident. I have no way to know for sure. The murderers aren't responsible for EVERY horrible accident or disaster that happens in the world; and yet, they are indeed capable of causing car accidents, and they are motivated to do it.)

After that, it was harder for him to do the evening shift, partly because in the evening we have to lift large boxes of garbage into the dumpster, and it's bad for his back. So then, he went on the morning shift, and spent even less time with me. And I never got any phone calls from him either, but I didn't push him to call me - I never insisted, I just gave him the number. Just before he changed his schedule, he gave me a very small signal telling me to hold on and not let go. I can't say what he did, but I noticed it and the voices pointed it out to me in case I hadn't noticed it. (It's hard to explain how 'the voices' can be both my friends and my enemies, supposedly helping me sometimes, and destroying my life at other times. I don't know the answer to explain that, except that there is probably more than one group of people doing it.)

Then, after my strange heart problems, I cut my shift short even more, and when I started going in to work very late in the afternoon, he had usually left before I got there, so I didn't get to see him at all. That's been for the past few weeks. This is the time when I drive up in the parking lot, see that his car isn't there, and spend a couple seconds crying if I feel like it.

I already know that trying to call him or text him is hopeless. I have done all of this before. I can only make contact with people who I have sort of 'ho-hum' feelings for. If I'm just kind of blah, or neutral, about somebody, or if I feel distaste or disgust, or if I can't stand the person or don't like them at all, I'm always able to easily reach them with emails, texts, and phone calls. I'm easily able to start up a relationship with people I don't like. I can have relationships with people who feel sexually attracted to ME when I don't feel sexually attracted to THEM. And there are lots of guys I don't like who are sexually attracted to me, but only a small number of guys I like who are attracted to me. I can easily go to an online dating site and find large numbers of men who, forgive me for saying this, are so desperate, or who have extremely low standards, who will go out with anyone or anything that they can find. But if I meet someone in person, and I have an intense response to that person, if I feel strongly attracted, if I feel an intense emotional connection, that person is taken away from me forever and I can't reach them by emails, phones, text, anything at all. It happens again and again.

The electronic harassment takes away everything that you care about. It takes away your ability to sleep at night, it takes away the silence of your mind and the comfort of your body, it takes away the people you love, it destroys your reputation.

Right now when I'm with him, it is painful that I can't touch him. I've tried to find out whether or not he wants me to, whether he minds it or not. Even so, even if I think it's okay, I still can't do it. I would want to touch him too much for the workplace. I can't just keep it at a casual level, but instead I want to express my love through touch, and that is something that there isn't enough time to do, and we obviously would get in trouble if a manager found out that I'm standing there hugging and kissing him for ten minutes instead of working. So I don't touch him at all. And I started automatically avoiding places where he might be, even though I don't want to avoid him. Yet I can't stand not to look, can't stand to be cut off from him. Nowadays I barely see him at all, and can't get the text messages to go through - and of course, I can't prove whether he's lying or telling the truth, whether he's getting them and ignoring them, whether he's avoiding me, or whether they really aren't going through to him at all. His behavior tells me that... well, it doesn't seem like he's happy about this. Like I said, the other day he was anxious, and then even more anxious when I said I didn't give him a note because he had told me not to give it to him.

I can't stop the attackers from doing what they do.

I might possibly make this change to my work schedule, at both jobs, for other reasons, not just because of him, but hopefully, to improve my enjoyment of work at both places - and yes, it is somewhat or partly because of him, but not entirely. I still benefit somewhat from doing this, even if it doesn't get me to have any more contact with him. I can't control everything, and I am anxious about making any changes at all in my life. I am afraid that I will somehow lose what little contact I have with him. If that happens, again, I will survive, but life will be darker.

Today is a work day, so I'll be busy for the next couple days. I won't be blogging constantly.