2025-12-11
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I have memories of a few different things that happened to me that I want to describe. These are memories of events that occurred around the time that the police brought me to CAMH, which is a mental health facility in Toronto. I described some of these events already in the previous journal entry.
In my last entry I described that the YouTube user interface that I was using on my computer appeared to be remotely controlled, and that the police brought me to CAMH after I described the hack to them when they arrived at my apartment. This is technically correct. However, these events did not all occur in one day. There were multiple times that the YouTube interface seemed suspicious to me, over multiple days. There were also other user interfaces on my computer that seemed somewhat suspicious to me, including on my laptop. In particular, there were multiple times where the timing of certain things that occurred on my computer seemed to line up with things that my friends and family were saying to me. It was a vague feeling, but it was enough to be noticeable. I started to become suspicious that maybe my computer was being remotely monitored, and that somehow my friends and family had access to the surveillance.
When the police eventually came to my apartment, it was because I had finally gotten so concerned about what was happening on my computer that I had left the apartment and tried to contact a neighbour and ask for help. However, this was not the only time that I left the apartment out of concern about what was happening. I also remember another time when I was so concerned that all I wanted was to be in a public space where there were lots of people, so that if I were physically attacked, there would be people around to ask for help. I was so afraid of being physically attacked, that I brought a frying pan from my kitchen with me. This sounds extreme, but it made sense to me at the time when I was completely alone and very afraid. I went to a restaurant nearby that I knew because they had a menu item that I liked. I sat in a booth by myself with my frying pan, and had a meal.
Followed By People In Cars
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After the police brought me to CAMH without addressing the computer hack issue, I returned home and was left with a problem. I still felt that my computer might be hacked. In addition to that, I felt that the behaviour of the police was strange. Aside from being upset, I had not said anything to them that would indicate that I had a mental illness. It was clearly possible that my computer actually was hacked, and even if it was not hacked, it was still possible for things to occur by chance that made it appear that the computer had been hacked. If those things occurred by chance, it was not possible for me to know that, and so it was not a symptom of a mental illness to respond as if the computer actually was hacked.
Some time after thinking about this, I left the building to go for a walk. This was at least a few days after the CAMH visit, though I am not exactly sure how much time passed between the two events. However, while I was on the walk, I started to notice something strange. It seemed to me like a lot of the people in the cars that passed by were looking at me while using headsets to talk on the phone. It started to freak me out, so I started walking quickly and walking down side streets at random to test to see if the people in the cars actually were following me. It was hard to tell for sure, but the feeling that the people in the cars were intentionally following me persisted.
Since I had encountered the police recently, I started to wonder if maybe the people in the cars were the police, and that maybe they were now following me after I chatted with them about my computer. It seemed possible that the police might have been working together with whoever hacked my computer, and bringing me to CAMH was a way of threatening me. I started to become concerned about preserving evidence, so that I could later prove that my computer had been hacked. My phone was one of the devices that I thought could have been hacked. I decided to run and try to avoid the people that were following me, and I ran into a park so that the cars could not easily follow. I turned off the phone and hid it in the bushes, thinking that it would be safe in case I was physically taken somewhere. I then ran back to my apartment after taking more side streets.
The next day, I met up with my dad. I cannot remember if he was still in Toronto from when he came for the CAMH visit, or if he had come back again for another visit. In any case, I described some aspects of my experience of being followed, though I am not sure how much detail I gave him. Since a day had passed since it seemed like I had been followed, I was feeling a bit calmer, and so I told my dad about my phone and that I wanted to get it back. We decided to have a meal at a restaurant, and we stopped at the park on the way to the restaurant. I went to the bushes where I had left the phone and I successfully retrieved it. However, by chance, just as I entered the park and walked towards my phone, I saw someone walking away from the area where my phone was, holding a metal detector.
I felt seeing the person with a metal detector was a critical clue. The people in cars on phones could have been a coincidence, however the odds of seeing a person with a metal detector walk away from the area in the park where my phone was, the very next day, entirely by chance, seemed unlikely, unless they were specifically looking for my phone. If it was the police that were following me, I wondered what they thought I was doing with my phone. I started to feel suspicious that the police might now be investigating me for an unknown reason, and I thought maybe my dad might be in on it, because I felt he was acting a little bit strange as well. I made sure to specifically explain to my dad the valid reason that I had for leaving my phone in the bushes, hoping that if it was the police that were looking for my phone with the metal detector, that being clear that I had a valid reason to leave it there would make them less suspicious and would end the investigation.
Followed By People In A Grocery Store
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The problem of being concerned that the police might now be investigating me, or even intentionally threatening me, persisted. When I was home by myself, I would occasionally hear the police siren outside and I sometimes wondered if they were intentionally doing it somewhere that I could hear them so that I would feel intimidated. I thought about the two police officers that had taken me to CAMH. I had spent hours at CAMH in the waiting area, chatting with these two officers. For some reason, one of them told me a story about someone in Toronto who had fallen from their balcony during a police arrest, and that the police were being investigated about it. I was also told by one of the officers about an extremely nice sounding cottage that they were able to afford outside of the city. I became seriously concerned that the police officers might be corrupt, and that maybe the references to falling from a balcony were a threat.
I became very concerned about computer security, and making sure that I absolutely did not do anything illegal. I deleted all the copyrighted music and movies on my computer that I had downloaded from file sharing networks when I was younger. I kept trying to think of ways to improve the software on my computer to make it more secure.
I also felt very unsure as to whether it was safer to hide in my apartment, or hide in my car. In my apartment, I was afraid the police were going to come. In my car, I was at a lower elevation, and I could escape a bad situation more easily. However, I had nowhere to escape to, if I did want to escape.
At one point I went to a grocery store. When I was walking around the grocery store, I felt very sure that I saw an above-average number of people using headsets to talk on cellphones. I waved to one of the people on the headsets. They did not wave back. It was nerve wracking.
Followed By People While Camping
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I have one other significant memory of possibly being followed. In August 2022, after a bunch of time had passed since the police brought me to CAMH, I had started to feel calm again. I was planning a camping trip with some friends, and I decided to book a campsite for two nights to camp by myself before my friends arrived, after which I would meet my friends and we would do our group trip. I planned to go canoeing during the day that I had by myself.
When the day came to switch campsites and meet my friends, I woke up early in the day and had a beer. Normally, I am very strict about alcohol and I do not drive at all for the rest of the day if I have any alcohol. However, in this case it was extremely hard to resist. Sitting in nature at a campsite is a nice place to have a beer. I had a lot of time left before I had to drive, and I felt certain that I would be under the legal limit and that I would not feel any of the effects by the time I was driving. Technically, I also only had to drive for a few minutes from one campsite in the park to somewhere else in the same park, which would make it even less risky, though I know that is not a good excuse on its own. Regardless of whether you think it was a good idea, it is what happened, so it is part of the story.
When the time came to actually get into the car and back out of the campsite, however, I noticed another car come up and block my way out. I stopped and waited. I then noticed a person walking towards me. I did not see if they came from the other car, or if they came from somewhere else. They walked over to me and started chatting with me. I do not recall what they said exactly. They did not mention the beer that I had earlier in the day. However, it seemed to me like the car was blocking my way intentionally, and the experience left me with the distinct impression that I was being warned about having the beer. It was an unnerving experience. After they left, I stayed parked at the campsite for another hour or two to make absolutely sure it was obvious that I was sober, and I drove to meet my friends at the second location.
It is possible that I was observing a group of private citizens that had decided to warn me, or maybe they were totally innocent people who were not trying to warn me at all. However, it was also possible that it was the police in an unmarked vehicle. If it was the police, their behaviour was quite strange. Technically speaking, I was almost certainly under the legal alcohol limit, and so I technically was not violating the law, even though I understand why someone could be concerned and in retrospect I probably should not have consumed the beer. If I was being warned, I think their warning worked successfully in that sense, in that it made me regret having the beer and I now would not do the same thing again. However, at the same time, if they intentionally warned me by making me feel like I was being followed, that technically could be considered a violation of the law on criminal harassment. If they were the police, it seems like they probably should have identified themselves.
Theory
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When I put these events together and try to create a theory to explain them, I have a number of possibilities. For the forced CAMH visit, even though from my perspective it did not make sense, it is possible that what happened was that the police actually legitimately believed that I had a mental illness due to the fact that I was emotional and upset when I spoke to them about my computer being hacked. However, this would not explain why they would then decide to be suspicious of me and follow me, if that is what they did.
To explain why the police might have believed I was suspicious, I have a possible explanation. In more recent times, there have been things that have happened that have left me with the impression that many of my family and friends actually have a negative opinion of me, and may have had that opinion for a long time without telling me. During the time I was at CAMH, the police decided to contact my parents. If my parents actually had a negative opinion of me at the time that they were keeping secret from me, it is possible that they said things to the police that caused the police to believe that I was a suspicious person, which led to them surveilling me. If this was the order of events, it would explain most of what I experienced.
This order of events would mean that the police were not intentionally threatening me when they brought me to CAMH. This does seem more likely to me. However, the memories are technically ambiguous. If it turned out that the police were trying to threaten me, that would fit what I observed as well.
At the time that these events occurred, I had another theory that I was considering which significantly influenced my behaviour. I was suspicious that perhaps the police might have been threatening me on behalf of business executives that knew me from work. I plan to discuss this theory in a bit more detail in a later journal entry.