Prolonged Stress takes it toll.

Back to the Nazi amerika story:

At about the same time as the performance review in August, Pat approached me with a problem he was having in his area. He asked me to review the problem and write a brief report. The problem involved an important project in his area, and it gave me the opportunity to get involved in a active area. Although I was not totally aware of it at the time, the daily harassment had ceased and with the daily terrorism, I was able to concentrate on my work and complete the report on which I was working. When I finally issued the report Perry wrote a memo to complement me on the thorough and and excellent analysis of the problem and the completeness of the report. Perry discussed the report with me and then offered me the opportunity to head up the program designed to address some of the questions I had raised. Included in the program would be the coordination of my work with work being done in San Jose. As soon as Perry told me I would have to go out to San Jose after the first of the year, I became very suspicious. I had the feeling I was being built up for a big let down.

In the same time period, Jim Connors called me into his office to give me a new assignment. He asked me to head up a task force on a "Deep UV" program. The interest in "Deep UV" had been growing for some time and Jim wanted a task force to collect the random bits of information and organize it into a complete "Deep UV" program. I would head up a four man effort, and I would then coordinate the effort with the San Jose group. As head of the task force, I would present the results to upper management and to the RAM Internal Technical Liason Conference which was held in October. Since the "Deep UV" program would need a new manager, the implications were obvious although my only thoughts were towards doing some meaningful productive work.

I had started seeing a new psychiatrist in July, and he decided to put me on a new antidepressant. I had decided to stop seeing Dr. Padua after she told me one week that I had a good future and a chance for a management position, and the next week she told me my situation was hopeless. Perhaps she had decided that she wasn't going to be a psychopath like my tormentors. She even thought I should see someone else and recommended Dr. Wagner Cohn to me.

Dr. Cohn was a gruff, ederly man who took a clinical approach to psychiatry. He seemed to believe that medication would solve all problems even more than most psychiatrists. His short, sometimes abrupt manner of speaking made it difficult to carry out a meaningful conversation, and I never even tried to tell him how I had ended up in such a messed up state. I just his prescribed medication and went to meet with him once a week.

The new antidepressants s he prescribed did help break the deep depression I was in, but I wasn't sure if it was the new medication or the events at work was creating the sense of relief. Whatever the cause, I stupidly was beginning to believe my ordeal was over.

Just when I was beginning to get some hope, the harassment started up again. The annoying phone calls started again after a respite of about a week and the usual incidents at work started to occur. This new round of terrorism caused severe anxiety for the first time in a long while, and I began to get the feeling I could no longer tell what was real and what was being orchestrated (is it an oval or an elipse, remember?) In addition, "they" had know my every move for so long that I began to think "they" could read my mind - later I will relate an incident that shows the extreme measures that the Nazi gestapo goes to in order to know everything their victims are doing. Two conditions of schizophrenia that I knew the Nazi's couldn't orchestrate was hearing voices and reading my mind. But, their anticipation of my actions and my inability to dicern reality was causing me to consider that "they" could read my mind. Prolonged severe stress is known to cause mental disorders, and I had reached the point where I was completely falling apart.