Ask HN: How do I make it out alive out of this?

Could this be schizophrenia or another mental condition?

If you’re certain you avoided 2 kidnapping attempts, can you get access to nearby security camera footage as evidence?

Spending 5 months following you without overtly trying to extort you doesn’t sound typical for a criminal gang. Not impossible, given the sums involved, but patience and caution aren’t their hallmarks.

Consider whether you are in the common age range for schizophrenia to manifest. Attempt to prove or disprove, with hard evidence that a 3rd party would believe, whether there really are external forces conspiring against you.

I would be asking myself which is more likely: that a criminal gang has been trying and failing to kidnap me for months, or that I currently cannot trust my perceptions.

I am not a doctor, lawyer, nor law enforcement officer and this is not medical, legal, nor personal safety advice.

Gang stalking is real and it can happen for both fun and profit.

The technical details are very different to what even a smart person would “suppose.”

Truth is not sane by society’s standards so we play along in confidence and call that convention.

Getting karma negged for sharing an unpopular or undesirable first hand account of truth is a frustration everyone “opening up” experiences.

It most likely is and while your attempts to help them "logic" their way out of this are noble, I don't think it will help.

"Gang stalking" is the term I've heard for it and Wikipedia has some details about it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_stalking

I hope the op can get some help with this.

Sorry to clarify the "Most likely is", I mean that in relation to a mental disorder of some kind as mentioned in the parent comment. Not that they're truly being persecuted by a criminal gang. Not impossible, but judging by the description of what's happened, unlikely.

My friend tried to set me up for a robbery. I realized this, avoided the assault, "friend" of 20 years stopped calling me at all since August, when before he was ringing me every week or two. This part is obvious.

A week later I started seeing strange people around my house in Germany. I wasn't paranoid at that point, I was sure that my friend will let it go, after I had seen him through. But then the followings started.

No camera evidence, I just realized what is going on and bolted. Once in the hotel, once through bribed security guards. Apparently they thried to get me while I sleep.

5 months, unlikely, that's what everyone says. These people are not common criminals, patience and caution are their hallmarks, they just don't want any witness and thus the police being involved, just waiting for the opportunity. They are proffesionals. And it's hard for them when I am aware and careful, but they won't wait forever.

My stuff didn't hack itself, I had silent phone calls from private number in certain situations, ambiguous messages sent to my skype account, that nobody had knowledge of, but them from my hacked password database.

I am well past the age for common schizophrenia breakouts. I had seen a psychiatrist a few days ago, I wanted to be admited to a mental hospital, just to get a break, but after the evaluation they refused to admit me in, just offered treatmet for depression some time later.

If there is no tangible evidence of this you can legitimately point to and hand the police, then there is no thing indicating it exists outside of your own head (delusion). How do you know guards are bribed, your devices are hacked? Robocalls and rando messages on Skype are a dime a dozen, but if they’re incriminating threats, take it to police. Do not rely on your own instinct or intuition to make deductions about reality, rely on tangible evidence that 3rd parties can appreciate ; This era of cameras and recorders leaves no excuse. There is no organization so professional they can make demands, negotiations, or attempts at your life via telepathy.

Your close friends and relatives can gauge your personality more accurately than you can. If your family thinks you’re psychotic, I’d trust that more than some random walk in psych.

If I got 10 friends to alternatively follow you every day, and you would notice that, would it still be in your own head? There were reasons I had been followed, at that was they thought I would run, because I already did before, but had been found.

Again, where is the external evidence, outside of your own head?

Feeling convinced you're being followed/watched is a classic symptom of paranoid schizophrenia.

This sounds very familiar to me.

A couple years ago I helped someone in a situation incredibly similar to this. I'm in infosec, and have forensics in my background.

He used to "talk" to the hackers by writing text the phone's notepad, but when I saw this, I only saw his side of the apparent conversations. He said also that they usually only converse by writing a couple random letters and then deleting them... so apparently kb meant "keyboard," for example. These apparent hackers were totally on him, having infected all the systems in his home, and continually appearing on even brand new phones he purchased to lose the trail.

The person sent me their devices, and I found zero evidence. Then one day he told me they were back and hacking his Android phone and installing stuff on it. He took video (as I had asked him to do) because he had fallen asleep and woke up to witness this hacking going on.

I immediately remembered the footage I saw of a person who installed windows 1.0 and then updated and updated etc through all the versions to see if he could update it to modern Windows (he did).

That's what was on his phone. That very video. And still no hackers, because there wasn't anything unusual on his devices at all, save for that one-sided conversation on his phone. I believe he fell asleep while watching a playlist, and woke up when that video came on. That video is also several hours long, so he could have just started it, fell asleep, then woke to see this.

But there was nothing being installed on his phone. Besides, windows cannot be installed on Android.

So I dropped the case (like the investigators mentioned here.) because I definitely don't feel good about taking money from someone only to repeatedly find that they had triggered the things that were frightening them, or that the things were simply imaginary.

I'm not saying this is the case here. But I will say that everything about it is so very similar. I'm almost ready to convince myself you're the same person because this story is so similar. Only this one wasn't in Germany.

I have a friend (in Germany) which diagnosed paranoid schizophrenia and it was similar. He refused to use MS Windows because it was bugged, any error message would start a new fear. He used Tails but later didn't trust that either. He installed Linux but only from a CD he ordered as downloading anything might have been tempered with. "They" were after him. "They" also had a secret hiding place in his walls and tried to kill him several times. He's better now but I have cache of old emails, one crazier than the next.

2023 is hard. Taken in isolation everything really is “bugged” and “tampered with”.

You can only get so many “oops security incident” emails from various providers in a row before you get more paranoid.

Then if you have a predilection for paranoid schizophrenia, it’s not faeries and demons that haunt you, it’s 23andMe hacks and Windows rootkits.

Given the random glitchy nature of technology these days, all of the "unusual" behavior of your hardware falls within the "normal" things I see.

In the last day I found out that there is a setting called "route to voicemail" that can be set with one accidental tap in a contact, and from that point forward, you'll never hear from people again. (It was my Mom.... and I was pissed once I figured out what the fsck was happening, who in their right mind builds in a function like that? And doesn't make a way to manage them collectively, and doesn't show them as a "on/off" flag... just an undecorated bit of status that looks totally like normal text)

But anyway... your beliefs are unfalsifiable. There's no way anyone could prove you right or wrong. All we have are hunches. You state that your family thinks you're imagining it... they are in a far better place to judge you than anyone else in the world, you should weigh their opinion highly.

Talk to your family ASAP.

You are either being followed as you said, or you are having a psychotic break, both scenarios are dangerous.

You need help from someone you trust, usually family or very close friends.

I had spoken with my family, they think I have a psychosis, based on the fact that this is going on for so long.

You should listen to them. Family is a critical component to getting appropriate care when one is having an episode of psychosis.

I don't havre a psychosis. I know what I had seen, my electronic equipment was hacked, I had been itimidated, the psychiatrist ruled out schizophrenia and psychosis. This is bloody real.

I’m sorry - but if you ARE psychotic this is exactly what you would believe. I don’t know you at all so sorry for assuming, but I think you need to listen to your family and get some help. Posting on online forums for advise from strangers is not the best option for you right now - esp since you’re only agreeing with posts that agree with your diagnosis of the situation, but getting frustrated at ones that done. Just think you should get help - in the most non-patronizing way possible, as I have seen a friend fall down the same rabbit hole and he didn’t come out of it until he got medical help. All the best.

If I give up and give them the money, they will kill me to erase the trace and the threat, in case I changed my mind later.

High-scale ransomware, drug dealers, etc aren’t afraid of receiving BTC. But these guys for some reason are, and the only way out of it is to add murder on top of it? That’s absurd.

Also, if all your devices were hacked, wouldn’t they already have at least read-access to everything? Did your friend tell someone and they just believed him and your vague emails without looking at your accounts first? This puts them in a “sophisticated dumb” category which makes no sense.

I’d seek better help, but I know I wouldn’t, cause that’s how it works. If help doesn’t help immediately and you’re on the edge, at least get rid of crypto and invest in some property. If “they” will stalk you still, while you’re indistinguishable from millions of people they could stalk, you’ll have a better look at the problem. Discuss this route with your family.

Good luck either way!

The criminals you mention are anonymous, or operate within own kind. Because I had been followed and stalked, I had seen these people, and because they are so careful not to leave a trace or provide the evidence, I pressume they will kill me if they get what they want, to erase the threat.

Yes, they had read access to everything, emails, data, and that includes my wallet address, but not the keys.

Cash out your crypto in a way that they would know you cashing it all and buy some real estate.

I had a different, but similar, experience for years and overcame it eventually this month. It is real to some degree, but not in the way you think.

All I can recommend is to meditate, get in touch with your spirituality and reading up on the ancient concept of a hero's journey might help you.

Hang in there, don't be afraid, do nothing drastic, live healthy and go into nature!

Leave all your electronics at home, take a train to another country in the EU, buy a new device and setup a new email, stay in an international airport, buy a plane ticket using the new email with destination to South America, sleep in the airport until you take that flight, rent an apartment in South America, let us know how it goes.

Worst thing that can happen: you are a turist, enjoy your trip, find new places.

Best thing that can happen: you write a book about this adventure.

Option 2: Get a small job at government, police or some large company with cybersecurity division that provides a computer, do an "oopsie" letting them hack your work computer, let the security department deal with them:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/12/how-m...

That reminded me of this time when a stalker was bothering my wife, and I didn't want to waste time with the police. This was on the early days of Microsoft's Hotmail, and I got access to some political journalists accounts. Wrote a fake email between them including the stalker's phone number. Never heard of him after that same day.

I've been in a similar situation. A healthcare executive i did some personal consulting leaked a fairly generous amount of information on me after i cut him and his son off. I've been followed by ex-police and have had more than a few specific events trigger some paranoia/fear but after several uneventful run-ins I saw it for what it was. Intimidation without teeth. It's a two party problem. Both want to protect their own interests more than they want to cause me harm. One of the thing that kept me motivated was the knowledge that the continued secrecy around the tools being employed on me as being more valuable/important than any contract/hit placed on me. My appearance of coolness or calmness in day-to-day life threatens the man that tried to undo me and there is nothing more he can do without further risking his situation. He knows less than the people he set on me and nothing of what I have collected on him/them since. Learn to find joy/peace antagonizing your real or imagined enemies.

Move into a sharehouse with people you trust and stream yourself on twitch.

Move into a basement where you can't be surveilled (though your quality of life and sanity will likely drop even more).

Let the gang know you're broke or poorer than you let on. Take the target off your back.

Divest the funds and get a normal job where you're in a workplace 9-5 so that it's unlikey you will be bothered by random people.

That sounds terrifying. The being followed and snooped upon is actually an increasingly common phenomena, everywhere.

You won’t like my answer I’m afraid, you are discovering how fragile the lie of modernity is. You would would be better off angry than scared. Be crazy, not complicit. A time for you to get serious (reign it all in.)

Wealthy and famous people do not live normal lives, everyone is trying to take a little piece of them, and the complicit denial of conventional society will help you little.

Find a way to lock up your cash for five to ten years so you cannot betray yourself. Keep a journal and any other records of suspicious activities in case you do have enough to convince authorities. Live a vigilant self determined life first above all else.

It's rather hard for a single person, and a nerd at that, to be up against a proffesional gang. What the hell would I do anyway?

And seriously, duck the money, if I had a choice of being rich and to live with the security, I would rather have normal life and be free.

Oh take things very seriously! I’m a nerd, I’ve been gang stalked (New York). Went on for years of varying degrees of threat. I gained about ten pounds of muscles and changed most social habits.

What I question is your “rationale.”

You are spoiled and coddled in a society which overlooks you. Being noticed is the untowardly phenomenon, not just your money. You would be only so lucky if you could pay them off. And that would be that.

Think productively not as prey. Have you received outward indication? Take responsibility for yourself as a man (advice I risk negative karma for offering).

Keep a journal (they're good for you anyway). Here you can log times and places. Most of Europe is now blanketed in cameras, any conversations with authorities should include documentation, especially written statements. Authorities can blow off your paranoid recount, their competence is judged through the lens of paperwork. Due diligence and all. Writing will also help you maintain your own coherent narrative when the truth is so murky others will simply suggest you need psychological help.

Wake up. The world you lived in and love is a comforting lie. Your vigilance and paranoid awareness will only draw you deeper into the modern psycho-drama. The “others”, whoever they are will never again leave you alone. Don’t be bitter or scared, be proactive.

There are several possible logic paths here. All have the same outcome.

A) assume your issue is real. Proceed to step 5.

B) assume your issue is not real, but the result of a mental illness. Proceed to step 3.

C) assume its neither, proceed to step 6.

3) you cannot logic yourself out of a mental illness anymore than you can logic yourself into it. You can aquire a therapist (proceed to step 4) or not (proceed to step 5)

4) the therapist agrees your threat is real. Proceed to step 5. You therapist agrees your threat is the result of a disease, proceed to step 6.

5) since you are been followed by a gang, with infinite resources, who believe you have infinite money, and who can reach you anywhere in the world, your best approach is acceptance.

one of two things will happen. They will eventually act, or they won't. There's no point trying to avoid it. There's no point caring about who they bribed. Accept that you can't stop it. You have neither the resources, nor skills to prevent it.

6) Accept it. Embrace it. Don't worry about it. What will be will be.

If you are unable to do this, proceed to step 7. If you are able, proceed to step 8.

7) you may not have full mental control of your emotions and responses. (Who of us do?) Seek a therapist to help with this deficiency. Or take up other spiritual disciplines that help you gain this control.

8) Accept there are things in your life that are beyond your control. You might die tomorrow in a car crash. You might live another 50 years. Ce la vie. None of us knows what tomorrow may bring.

Embrace the now. Embrace those around you who care for you. Live your best life. To those who have wronged you, remember Living Well is the best revenge.

help others. We all have problems. You are perfectly positioned to help someone else. Encourage them. Uplift them. Make someone's else's day just a little bit better. All you have left to offer is your light. Make the decision to spread it around.

I wish you well in your journey, whatever the cause, whatever the outcome. I hope you find the peace that comes with the acceptance that we are not in control. May the joy, of bringing joy to others, find you too.

How have you been intimidated? Have you had direct contact with them? I'm asking this because I don't see any mention of an 'explicit' threat or contact. Did your 'friend' tell you that he sold your information or is involved in this gang?

what did the private detective tell you?

Also the thread you linked does not show any evidence of hacking or malware - also doesnt rule it out.

Next to this is all real /or you are paranoia, there is also the possiblity;

something 'bad' did happen, for example your friend 'doxed' you (on a forum with bad actors for example). There might be hacking attempts. But what if you are extrapolating.. that you are taking non-related signals as proof - whether or not there are actual threats / signals.. like a confirmation bias?

I don't have a solution for you but i think what you can conclude is; In either case it is best to;

1. do nothing rash. with your money, confronting people etc. 2. accept that your loved ones want the best for you but dont understand you at the moment. 3. focus on your health; exercise, get vitamin d supplements etc. 4. try to center and neutralize your thoughts, instead of going on a rant. Constantly Identifiying things as threats or evidence is not going to help you if you have false positives or no proof 5. get some social life going. And DONT talk about this shit. 6. treat yourself like you would treat a real friend of who you are not sure if he is having mental problems or gang problems or both. You would be kind and understanding but also try to rationalize.

Have you told someone who loves you about this? Parents, or old friends?

Yes spoken with my family, but nothing that would better my situation.