User:-Mona-/Targeted Individuals

DO NOT TAKE ANY MEDICATIONS UNLESS COMPLETELY NECESSARY! "Targeted Individual" (TI) is an umbrella term coined by paranoid cranks who insist that they are all, individually, on the receiving end of a massive covert harassment conspiracy of highly convoluted malignant intent. As is to be expected (because paranoid delusions respect no borders), TIs are found around the world—from North America and Western Europe  to Asia.

The vast majority of TIs consider themselves to be victims of inchoate, ongoing and relentless "touchless torture" plots. The nature of these alleged "attacks" vary among TIs but can generally be pretty much anything that combines asinine drama with pseudoscientific flummery and/or improbable, coordinated malicious actions, including: microwaves, "psychotronics" (basically a variety of hypothetical electronic weaponry ), secret mind control, actively enforced "gangstalking", "remote sexual abuse", surgical insertion of alien implants and even reptilian involvement.

Predictably, TIs identify the usual suspects as their belligerents, ranging from various governments and NGOs to large corporations. Unsurprisingly, most TIs deny that anyone in the movement suffers from mental illness, and many emphatically insist that psychiatric care or medication are actually the vehicles for the malevolent plot(s) directed against them. Misidentifying oneself as a TI is, thankfully, a rare occurrence, due to the highly unusual, esoteric diagnostic criteria, for: The most visible and common TI-symptom, especially in the first stages when the attacks are uncontrolable [sic] and the body has not coped with them yet, are the red eyes. But it doesn't stop with blood shot eyes from getting wasted when "they" target you: Fibromyalgia, anyone? Cancer? Autism? Rheumatoid Arthritis? Osteo Arthritis? Migraines? MS? Incontinence? Infertility? Strokes? Heart Attacks? Pulmonary dysfunction? Bronchitis? Sudden onset of any disease? Recurring colds and flu? Narcolepsy or insomnia? All this and more, brought to you in Silence by Electronic Warfare weapons, and by covert operatives working quietly in your neighborhood. Whatever the illness, from the annoying to the life-threatening, the initiated understand that health problem are almost always the result of the dastardly cabal's promiscuously aiming electronic weapons at them. Clearly, many diseases could be eradicated -- oh if only everyone rose up against the cabal's machinations.

Kernel of reality feeding them
TI hysteria is buttressed by the existence, past and present, of some actually nefarious or dubious programs and weapons or weapons research. Their written laments are replete with references to MKULTRA, COINTELPRO, and various government and corporate weapons programs (along with more benign military programs unrelated to surveillance, such as HAARP). The paranoia was further fed by Edward Snowden's revelations about the global surveillance undertaken by the NSA and its counterparts in allied countries, although some TI's dismiss Snowden as a "false flag" or "limited hangout" operation given that none of his revealed NSA documents point to the targeting of individuals for touchless torture, gangstalking, and all that jazz.

Concern—even alarm—about the NSA's global surveillance apparatus and its impact on civil liberties is an entirely rational position. So is outrage over COINTELPRO, and activism to avoid repeat performances from the FBI and other Big Brother agencies. But, to understate, the TI movement is not characterized by such rational interests and justified fears.

JTRIG
Of the many Snowden NSA revelations, none got TIs more excited than Glenn Greenwald's reporting on the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group, or JTRIG. This (reprehensible and actually alarming) program undertaken by the British version of the NSA, and in partnership with them, involves;

Especially resonating with TI's, and fueling their paranoia, is that:

This all "confirms" what "they" are doing to the poor TIs. JTRIG explains why they do not know whom to trust even among themselves, because, you see, "many" TI web sites and individuals are actually plants.

As a result of this intense interest in JTRIG, TIs began to deeply infest Greenwald's comments section, certain they had found a receptive home. Typical of their prodigious ranting were such gems as:

Eventually, all of these tragic, pitiable people had to be banned because they were taking over the discussions in nearly every NSA related article. This, of course, simply convinced them that Snowden, and his chosen journalist, Greenwald, are both "false flags" actually operating for "them".

Examining the TI narrative
I believe I've been under surveillance 24/7 for the last seven years, and I do recieve these—at times—painful shocks to my body, they're like the- they shocked me in the testicles, enough to make me flinch! Despite frenzied efforts from the TI movement to be taken seriously via the appearance of scientific pursuit and weaving in actual reasonable concerns (regarding the NSA and related issues vis-a-vis other government and corporate surveillance), the TI take on all of this is just tossed in as part of the word salad that is the crank TI narrative.

As with any movement not using established empirical methods for determining its fact base, the narrative given by different sub-groups and indeed various individual adherents often differ on fundamental points (as every TI is able, and even encouraged, to apply their particular viewpoint on the overarching context). Regardless, TI narratives generally share the same fatal points which utterly fail at describing purported (non)events convincingly, or even plausibly.

The below analyzed text is taken from typical summary of the TI experience from the Targeted Individuals United Association;

Are they all lunatics?
Not necessarily all TIs—though probably many—clearly suffer from mental illness in a clinical sense. A former national security reporter for the Washington Post, Sharon Weinberger, has provided in-depth coverage of the TI phenomenon. As she noted in an interview about her work:

Weinberger points out that not all TI's report the more extreme symptoms, and auditory hallucinations may have neurological causes that are not yet well understood. It can be hard to know where eccentricity ends and clinical mental illness begins. The voices, the sense of being watched, of being physically molested, have been reported throughout human history and ascribed to the causative agents popularly feared at the time, e.g., demons, aliens, and now government weapons and surveillance. Perhaps many TIs are trying to make sense of genuine experiences in the terms their culture makes available to them.

Some TIs are successful professionals, and many have decent marriages and other relationships. The renowned African-American writer, Gloria Naylor published a memoir in 2005 setting forth what she describes as being targeted by the U.S. government for surveillance, harassment and "mind control." She did see a psychiatrist and consider that she could be having psychotic episodes, but anti-psychotic medication did not stop the voices or the sense that she was being watched and stalked. It should be noted, however, that Naylor hasn't published a book since her 2005 work about being a TI.

Certainly TI symptoms can do serious damage to people's lives. Weinberger interviewed a young medical doctor, anesthesiologist Ed Moore, who discontinued practicing medicine, and his initially supportive wife eventually filed for divorce. Moore was hospitalized with depression and auditory hallucinations, but no treatment—including medication—alleviated his sensation of being harassed with "electronic voices." He eventually took comfort in the support he believes he found at online TI message boards, but states he is skeptical of "wacky claims" from some of his fellow targets.

Views of mental health professionals
Already in 2008, psychologists and psychiatrists were concerned about the burgeoning TI phenomenon. The Internet's midwifing TIs into communities was something new in the field and needed examination.

The problem that presents, though, is that when enough people share a delusion, medical science has said it ceases to be one. Psychologist Vaughan Bell has researched the effect of the Internet on mental illness and has concluded that TI sites are “likely psychotic.” However:

But even if the TI sites are psychotic, is that so bad? Bell isn't sure. "Things like social support, all of these positive social aspects are very good for people’s mental illness,” he said. “I wouldn’t say it’s entirely and completely positive, but it can be positive.” Dr. Ken Duckworth, the medical director for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, observes: "This is a very complex little corner. Some people may find it’s healing, but these are really hard questions. The Internet isn’t a cause of mental illness, it’s a complicating new variable.”

Myron May, Targeted Individual
Little doubt exists that Myron May was mentally ill before he was shot dead by Florida police in November of 2014. In the course of a gun-toting rampage at the Florida State University library, May shot and wounded three before law enforcement ended both him and his shooting spree (an occasion where law enforcement's shooting an African-American male wasn't especially controversial).

May had belonged to Facebook group called "Targeted Individuals International." A week before he gunned down people at FSU May had left a voicemail for one of his fellow TIs, claiming, "I am currently being cooked in my chair. I devised a scheme where I was going to expose this once and for all and I really need you." He added: "I do not want to die in vain." An hour before the shooting he sent an email to this same TI, stating, "I've been getting hit with the direct energy weapon in my chest all evening. It hurts really bad right now."

Formerly a high-powered employment lawyer in Texas, May left a lucrative career representing management for a smaller firm on the side of labor—because he didn't want to help corporations. Then he tried his hand at criminal defense as a public defender in New Mexico. A month before his shooting rampage, May had been a successful and respected associate trial attorney in the felony division of the Third Judicial District Attorney's Office in Las Cruces, NM.

May's former girlfriend from New Mexico—Danielle Nixon, a physician—said he'd recently had a mental health evaluation and she'd been concerned about his increasingly erratic behavior and eventually would only meet him in public places. Nixon said May had seen a therapist who was not alarmed: "My honest feeling is because Myron was a lawyer and he was high functioning, people overestimated him. They didn't think he was as sick as he was." In September of 2014, May checked himself into a mental health unit which released him only four days later.

Nixon continued to worry about May after breaking up with him, and when he showed up at her apartment she called police who reported: "Myron has recently developed a severe mental disorder. Myron believes that the police are after him and are bugging his phone and car, as well as placing cameras in his home and car." Additionally, May was sending packages to friends to "warn" them of the attackers who were after him. In early October 2014, May resigned from the prosecutor's office, to the surprise of his co-workers.

Later in October May made his way to Florida and a month later committed the FSU shooting which ended his own torment—with the "help" of local cops. Many TIs, however, regard May as a martyr, one who was "murdered, forced to defend the world from our tyrannical government."

Scammers, true targeting
For those suffering from psychotronic attacks, you need a defense system. Defend yourself from remote EEG by covering your head with an aluminum beanie. Make sure to wear a cotton cap below (I use the lightweight chemotherapy caps). The aluminum foil beanie should cover the frontal, temporal and parietal lobe, as you want to cover your speech and auditory areas of the brain. To defend yourself from heart rate monitoring, hang a personal Quwave defender from your neck. Recommend buying a couple of safety vests and coating the insides with 6 layers of aluminum foil (the reflective sides out). Then sow the safety vests together, against each other. The population identifying as "Targeted Individuals" is actually being targeted—not by evil government or other forces—but by enterprising hucksters and scam artists who exploit the fear and ignorance of these often unstable unfortunates.

One such product is the "QuWave Defender." For a mere $297, TIs can acquire a "personal defender" unit that will supposedly protect them from "Electronic harassment, mind control, V2K, psychic or HAARP". Or, if they're willing to dip into the kids' tuition fund, TIs can obtain a "powerful briefcase defender" for the bargain price of $1150. This amazing product is available on Amazon, with an accompanying product description loaded with enough crank buzzwords to fill several pseudoscience bingo cards: