More Nazi Terrorism.

There were more department changes at work, and Jim Connors was officially announced as a second level manager. At the same time, Jim was also made the acting first level manager of a newly created department. Since Jim was serving as both first and second level manager, it meant that he would be seeking a new manager to take over his first level duties. Just the thought of a management opening caused me to become depressed because I knew their would be more suggestions and implied promises that would be made to me about the new manager of the department. I knew I couldn't go through that scenario again. The only thing that kept me going was the hope that "they", the sick bastards that they are, would get tired of mentally torturing me and my life would return to a normal state.

I was extremely depressed and becoming suicidal again. The harassment was daily and there was at least one episode per day. I had no social life and no contact with anyone outside of work other than Anita. In fact, I was totally surprised one day when one of my co-workers, John came into my office and hand delivered a notice for a professional meeting to be held the following week.

"I haven't been getting these notices lately," I commented.

"Well, this should be a pretty good meeting. The speaker is excellent." John replied.

"I thought you usually mailed these notices. What happened? Did you run out of stamps?"

"No, we just got the notice printed too late to mail them so I'm hand deliverying them," John answered.

I didn't think much more about it and went back to work. Later that day before I left the office, I went to check my mail. There in my mailbox was the same meeting notice with a cancelled stamp. The notices had been mailed as usual. I was just another one of those inconsistncies that were common in my life. Such incidences created further depression and made it impossible for me to believe even the most trivial things people said to me. And of course, relating such an event would make me look paranoid.

I had been harassed so long by annoying phone calls that I was now afraid to answer the phone. Most of the time I would just let the phone ring. But now I noticed a new phenomenon. Whenever I picked up the phone to make a call, the dial tone caused me to have a severe reaction. The buzzing sound caused me to become fearful and my adrenalin would begin to flow. After years of answering the phone and only hearing a dial tone, I was conditioned and sensitized to the point that the mere sound of the dial tone caused a reaction.

That evening, I conveyed my new awarness of my reaction to the dial tone to my wife. As usual, she said nothing. However, the next day at work the phone rang and I decided to answer it. This time there was no one on the other end of the line, but instead of the usual dial tone, there was complete silence. From then on, whenever I did answer the phone and the party hung up, instead of a dial tone, there was silence. Again there was the implied participation of my wife, but there was nothing that I could prove. In addition, in my highly confused state, I tried to think of some reason for the change. I was too mentally screwed up to just accept it as continued harassment and terrorism.