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The original was posted on /r/india by /u/Suspicious-Ad1320 on 2024-09-27 10:48:31+00:00.

I am an Indian guy living and working in the US. It started in the June of 2017. I was a single guy living the dream life, working in a Fortune 500 company in Chicago. I went to visit my friend in Boston, and enjoyed everything there except a singular incident - the misbehavior of a waitress at a restaurant we went to. The waitress behaved well with my friend but was rude with me and laughed at me. This annoyed me and I did not tip her, determined not to come back to the restaurant at any cost. When I flew back to Chicago, I was paranoid, thinking that the flight attendants and crew were watching and profiling me due to my brown skin. A few days passed. I was feeling lonely and was advised to make new friends in Chicago. I met a potential roommate in early June, and spent 6 hours befriending him in Chicago. I bared my heart out to him over alcohol, confiding in him my deepest and darkest secrets. I thought I had made a friend for life, but later found out that the person was a sociopath. He didn’t care about me and about what I told him. I had just told all my secrets to the sociopath. This broke me. I tried to cry but only a single tear rolled down my eye. I requested the landlord to not allow the guy to live in the house. The landlord agreed and I was at peace for a few days. But I was still scared of the guy and what he could do with the information I gave him.

Then, a new guy moved in. That guy laughed at me when he saw me and told me “I know where you work” in a chilling voice. The landlord and my other roommate started laughing at me. I was horrified and concluded that the sociopath had spread some information about me to the new guy, landlord and my other roommate. I was worried because my parents were coming to my house to visit me, and I was scared of what the new guy could blackmail them and me with. I tried to find a new apartment but the new landlord seemed to know me and laughed at me too. I was now terrified and decided to stay in the same apartment, as I had no other options. I went to office the next day and heard people laughing at me behind my back. I heard my manager and colleagues laughing at me. I was in disbelief and shell shocked.

My parents landed in Chicago. I told them everything about how people were laughing at me, but they refused to believe me. They said I was imagining things. Then the next day I went to work and on the way to work I saw people in the streets of Chicago laughing at me and saying nasty things about me. I panicked and threw my phone into the dustbin because I thought the police were tracking me (for no reason). I bought a new phone and removed all my old contacts. I tried to stay under the radar for as long as I could. But wherever I went, people would laugh at me. They would point and make sarcastic comments and laugh at me. I went to the temple to volunteer and while I was volunteering I saw people laugh at me. That hurt me because I loved volunteering at the temple. I lost faith in god. I didn’t know why the world had become so cruel all of a sudden. My parents took me to a doctor. He said it was work stress ( but he was winking and laughing at me). I went back to work. My manager would shout at me because I was unable to work because everybody was laughing at me everyday. She put me on a performance improvement plan. I worked my ass off ,ignored everyone and got good reviews in the PIP. People were still laughing at me. But I was someone now. I had become a man again. I had proved that even if the world laughs at me, I can become successful.

Thus 6 months passed. I ignored the laughter as much as I could. However other delusions started entering my mind. I thought my parents were aliens and I was the only human being left on Earth. I struggled with other delusions. I went to India for a month and suffered more hallucinations there, but I was used to the laughter and could bear it better now. I came back to Chicago in January 2018. Then the worst phase started. It was freezing cold in Chicago and the visual and sensory hallucinations began. I started seeing ghosts at night, I started feeling ghosts entering my body and possessing me. The feeling of demonic possession devastated me. My mother came to visit me in Chicago around this time. I thought she was a ghost as the government had killed my parents last June. The hallucinations persisted even in my dreams, people laughed at me there as well. One chilly morning, I beat up my mother (thinking I was Hanuman (a Hindu god) and she was the devil) and ran out of the apartment. I finally was free and ran barefoot on the cold pavement. The police came. They put me in handcuffs. They took me to hospital. I was screaming that I hadn’t done anything wrong. Then I lost consciousness and slept. The next few days were blurry. I heard voices laughing at me, but they became weaker. The doctor would pop pills in my mouth every night. I was in hospital for a week. I went on a leave of absence from work. I realized that I had schizophrenia. The medicine would make me very drowsy and sleepy. But it helped make the voices go away. I switched to a new doctor and new medicine , and felt better. I have been on medication for over a year now. I’m working well and received a performance bonus for last year. My new boss respects me and considers me his best staff. There is no cure for schizophrenia. It can only be treated. But I know now that the world does not laugh at me.

It’s been 6 years since this incident. I moved back to India and I do not have any hallucinations or delusions now. I know now that I am strong and brave. I know now that I am a man. And I know that I will keep fighting. Until the very end.