Gang-stalking: is it real or just a conspiracy theory?

Posted on September 24, 2016 by luckyotter

gang_stalking

I’ve been seeing a lot lately about a phenomenon called gang-stalking (sometimes referred to as “community terrorism”). Gang-stalking means one person is targeted by Dark Triad people (psychopaths, sociopaths and malignant narcissists and their flying monkeys, most who don’t even personally know you) for nefarious reasons that are never specified but who want you to know you are being watched. The stalkers seem to have an uncanny, almost supernatural way of infiltrating and ruining every area of your life, even when logic would dictate some situations simply wouldn’t be possible (such as pre-emptively knowing exactly where you will be 24/7 in order to harass you). The goal is to drive you (the “Targeted Individual,” or “TI”) insane or to suicide–or have you incarcerated in a prison or mental institution–or even killed. Here are two articles about it. You can Google “gang-stalking” and find hundreds more.

https://taknbsorbemwon5.wordpress.com/2014/04/14/suspect-gang-stalking-when/

https://www.newswithviews.com/Stuter/stuter78.htm

Here’s a well written, sometimes humorous, but VERY long, article by an individual who may have been gang-stalked (or maybe not), but at least has the ability to use critical thinking, something that seems to be in short supply in these post- 9/11 days where everyone, from the benign looking cashier at the grocery store to your kid’s teacher, becomes a potential terrorist:

http://in2worlds.net/gangstalking-and-targeted-individuals

I don’t know whether to believe it or not. Of course it’s a fact that high spectrum malignant narcissists and psychopaths/sociopaths can and do recruit flying monkeys to destroy your reputation and your life. I’ve seen it happen to others and I’ve experienced it. But where does their power over you end? I don’t see how it’s possible, for example, to be treated rudely in stores or given bad or dishonest service by complete strangers or how your abuser(s) would have managed to influence them ahead of time. How would it be possible to be “black-listed” for every job you apply for if you don’t have a criminal record (unless they are somehow able to create a fake criminal background for you)? How could they cause random people on the street to give each other knowing looks whenever you pass by, or shout abusive things at you? How could your abuser cause you to get the “evil eye” from strangers sitting across you on a bus or deliberately have people move into the apartment over yours who blast their music and fight all night with the sole intention to cause you to suffer sleep deprivation and drive you slowly insane?

Some people suggest a demonic, supernatural influence. They say this exists because the world is being taken over by evil and is under Satan’s dominion. Although I’m a Christian, I can’t accept this. I’m a skeptic by nature. Not because I don’t want to believe it and am in denial, but because I think there are better, more scientific and reasonable explanations for the seeming increase of horrible human behavior. Actually I don’t think things are any worse than they ever were. I think there are just more people on the planet and there’s the Internet and mass media and the mass panic that always ensues following a breaking news story that gives rise to all sorts of conspiracy theories.

Things were actually far worse a hundred years ago than they are now. Abuse of all kinds wasn’t publicized and called out the way it is now. Neither was bullying. Back then, if you were abused (or bullied), that was just your lot in life and you were just supposed to suck it up because that was your birthright as a child, a woman, or a person of color. What we call abuse today was considered normal. What we would throw a parent in prison for today was just “discipline” back then, and a parent had the right to treat a child however they saw fit, even beating them daily or sending them to beg on the streets. Or sending them to work 12 hours a day in a factory, as child-labor laws didn’t exist. No one tried to protect you from bullies either. There were no laws against harassment, sexual or otherwise. In the old days, if you were bullied you’d be told to “fight back” or “stop being a sissy” if you were a boy. If sexually abused, you just didn’t talk about it because “nice” people didn’t talk about those things. If you did try to call out someone for harassing you (and you were a woman) you’d be blamed for dressing “provocatively” or something. It seems like there’s more bad news today because there’s just more news. Good news doesn’t sell so you don’t hear about it as often as bad news. I also think where there’s overpopulation, problems develop, and there are definitely too many people in the world. Things like cyber-bullying and identity theft didn’t exist because (duh!) there was no Internet to make those things possible. But things like slavery and public hangings did exist and no one batted an eyelash.

I don’t know about gang-stalking. It smacks of conspiracy theory to me, but I could be wrong. I do know that evil people can and do recruit flying monkeys and can and do target certain individuals. It happens in dysfunctional families all the time. Scapegoating is not a myth, it’s a fact. But the whole idea of them having so much power that EVERY sphere of your existence is influenced, that where no matter what you do or where you go or who you turn to, trouble will follow you and there is no escape and you are just screwed? I don’t know about that.

What are your opinions about gang-stalking? Do you believe it or think it’s an overblown conspiracy theory, like the belief that Illuminati is taking over everything? * If you know you’ve been gang-stalked, I’m not trying to say you’re just being paranoid. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist, but I am highly skeptical.

* I’ve come to the conclusion that all the convincing Illuminati symbolism going on in music videos, films and TV is actually a tease intended to play off our paranoia. These industries see people freaking out about “Illuminati symbolism” and play on that, creating more of it on purpose just to get attention (and hence sell more product).

*****

ETA: It occurred to me that since most alleged incidents of gang-stalking appeared following the passing of the Patriot Act, which gave anyone permission to spy on and report anyone else if they suspected them of being “un-American” (this could means having left wing politics, being of Middle Eastern descent, being atheist, or just being “different” in some way), that gang-stalking could be a result of this. I hear police departments refuse to get involved and have been instructed to ignore claims of gang-stalking. Maybe some sociopathic or antisocial people abuse this “right” and report anyone who they dislike as being involved in “un-American” activities, and government funds are used to harass the target in order to silence them. I do realize how conspiracy-theory-ish this sounds, but it’s a possibility.

Beware of N’s who use mental illness as an excuse to abuse

Posted on January 17, 2015 by luckyotter

I think those of us ACONs and survivors of narcissistic abuse who post on public blogs that are accessible to anyone need to be very vigilant and careful. I will never make my blog private or require you to sign in first, but due to that decision, I realize I am going to attract MNs and psychopaths whose only desire is to bully, make incendiary and false remarks, and play “divide and conquer” games within the community. I am willing to take that chance because I want this blog to remain as accessible as it is. I want people to feel welcome without having to be “approved” first or having to sign in, because I hate having to sign into any website myself and will usually bypass any site that requires me to do that.

If you’ve been following my posts, I wrote two articles about some drama that was going on between me and another blogger who allegedly suffers from dissociative identity disorder (DID). I provided links to the nasty, character-assassinating articles that were written about me and my commenters and followers on their blog. I was quoted extensively in their rant (as well as several of the people who commented on those two articles) and was practically accused of being MN myself. The things they said were hurtful, but I also knew they were lies and intended to upset me. If this person is a narc, they were projecting their own disorder onto me. And that’s just so wrong, but it’s what they do.

I am letting that go and do not wish to further antagonize this blogger and will just delete or not approve any further abusive comments from them. But in thinking it over, I realized that there are going to be people on the Internet who use their own mental illness as an excuse to be able to abuse and be nasty to other people. That doesn’t mean they don’t have a mental illness, but it’s possible to be mentally ill and also a malignant narcissist who wants to hurt those who speak the truth. I also think there are some N’s (I’m not saying it’s this blogger) who feign mental illness because that gives them an excuse to abuse. We need to be very careful of anyone who says they have a mental illness but then make abusive remarks based on no real information. N’s are out there, lurking our sites and reading.

Not all N’s are going to be abusive to us. Some actually are honest and want to seek help or educate us about their NPD. Those are the ones with insight into their disorder.

But there are others, who may feign another mental disorder (or sometimes actually have it but use it as an excuse to be nasty and mean), who can become trollish and try to destroy our communities with their vitriol or make us fear their wrath. I refuse to let people like that make me afraid to post what I want and keep journaling about myself honestly and openly. I refuse to let them squelch or discourage me in my desire to heal and help others. I am made of tougher stuff than that now, and I know God is behind me, protecting me from the bullies and trolls who may want to attack me and this blog and keep me from speaking my truth.

Internet psychopaths: the difference between trolls and bullies

Posted on October 14, 2014 by luckyotter

In my last post about Internet trolls and bullies, I failed to make a clear distinction between the two, but there are differences. They do overlap, but one can be a bully without being a troll or even a psychopath (though all trolls are also bullies and probably all psychopaths).

I started to explain the difference in the comments section, but decided the distinction was important enough to write a post.

Internet trolls are more likely to appear singly (or sometimes as a group) and invade a website or forum with incendiary comments, insults against members or the entire community, and use profanity and namecalling to intimidate the regular posters. Their intent is to destroy the forum or website by running the regular members off. All too often it works, as what happened with the political forum I discussed in my earlier post, where at first the occasional troll would be quickly banned by the moderator and the forum would go back to normal. Once the moderator left and no replacement was made, trolls realized they would not be silenced and could stir the pot all they wished without any repercussions. Forum members tried attacking the trolls, but this was exactly what the trolls were looking for. Soon more trolls joined, and as of now the forum is nearly dead and almost all its regular members have left. Sadly, on that site, the trolls have won. Because their primary intent is to upset or run off the members and ultimately destroy the site, trolls are psychopathic in their behavior.

Like real life psychopaths, trolls will occasionally “love bomb” the site or its members, in order to gain trust and avoid getting banned before systematically destroying or damaging the site. Whether or not they act this way off the Internet doesn’t really matter. Most serial killers act perfectly normal when going about their daily business (John Wayne Gacy was an upstanding citizen, a respected businessman and philanthropist, and entertained children in hospitals dressed as a clown), but have a “secret life” that involves killing for pleasure. A troll is like the cyber version of a serial killer–probably perfectly normal acting off the webs, but using the Internet as a means to murder ideas and honest discussion and debate. In both cases, their intentions are destructive and evil. They also have in common a taste for sadism: both trolls and serial killers love witnessing the destruction they create and get pleasure from making others suffer.

Internet bullies are more common than trolls, and are especially common on forums and social media, where they can easily gang up on one or more members they disagree with or perceive as vulnerable or sensitive. Because they operate in groups (or more aptly, swarms), just as on a school playground, there is probably a “ringleader”–a central bully that eggs on or coerces others to join in the bullying behavior. The ringleader is almost certainly psychopathic or narcissistic and derives pleasure not only from making a target suffer but also from the admiration and respect they gain from their sycophants. Lesser bullies who join the fray may not actually be psychopaths or even narcissistic. Some may not even enjoy bullying that much, but do so to appear to “fit in” or look cool. They are likely to be very young and probably lacking self esteem, so joining a team of bullies to gang up against a targeted member makes them feel like they’re part of a powerful group. It’s a kind of gang mentality: not all gang members are psychopathic or sociopathic, but join the gang to feel like they’re part of something important that gives them a sense of power and respect they might not otherwise be able to attain.

Internet bullies, unlike trolls, usually agree with the forum or site’s prevailing opinions. Their targets are usually:
–newbies
–members who appear to be hypersensitive or divulge too much personal information
–members whose opinions are different from the “accepted” opinions on that site.

Bullies, as members of an established online community, are less likely to name-call, use profanity, and make incendiary comments than trolls, but they are more likely to intimidate their targets by using snark, inside jokes, sarcasm, and subtle put downs intended to make the target uneasy without quite knowing why. If the target tries to call them out or ask them to stop, the bullies can easily proclaim innocence or tell the target they are just being paranoid or imagining things. It’s basically online gaslighting and it’s very crazymaking.

One of the most disturbing things bullies sometimes do is stalk their targets online–if one of the bullies has a little technical knowledge or is a mod or admin themselves (or is friends with a mod or admin), it’s easy enough to obtain the IP address of the target, and follow them everywhere they go on the web. They can then copy personal information the target has posted elsewhere and use it against them, either by reposting it on their site or mentioning the information in discussion. Sometimes trolls do this too, but since they’re more likely to be operating alone and not likely to be n contact with an admin who would have the IP address, it’s less likely they would cyberstalk someone unless they have hacking ability.

I hope this has cleared up a few things about the differences between bullies and trolls. They’re not exactly the same but both can create a great deal of havoc and misery for the people who have to deal with them.