Sometimes, we get paranoid for good reasons. Sometimes, we aren’t as delusional as we think. Sometimes, things aren’t mere coincidence.
The other week, I clocked out of my part time job and got in my car to go home. Immediately after pulling out of my parking space in the employee lot, a silver truck did the same. Yes, I noticed it - My father’s years of trying to convince me that everyone was going to try and kidnap me or steal my identity had planted a small seed of paranoia.
But even with my taking notice, I convinced myself it was strictly coincidence. As I continued on my route home, the truck followed close behind. It was strange. I felt strange. And as frightening as the situation seems, there was a sense of excitement. Of danger. In my imaginary world where my life is a movie, this was the suspenseful thriller part where I played the heroin followed by some evil government organization. But fun and games stop being fun and games when the imaginary becomes reality.
The truck followed me almost all the way home. I took a sharp turn up the hill towards my house, and that’s when the truck kept on driving. I thought to myself that I was being narcissistic - thinking that I could be important enough to be followed like that. It was purely coincidental…
And then last night, I became frozen with fear: My coworkers had been harassed by a strange male client. We had been receiving unusual phone calls. And two of my coworkers had also been followed out of the employee lot by a silver truck. The silver truck that followed me.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think about anything other than the fact that this man knew my route home. What if he had followed me before and I hadn’t noticed? What if he knew where I lived? Is my life in danger? My safety?
This morning, I opened as scheduled. Alone. I’ve never been so scared to be alone. And I stand here now, in this large, relatively vacant, tanning salon; staring intently outside of our large windows - searching for any sign of peril. I feel like a sitting duck. Like an animal in the zoo. Prey.
The likelihood that anything significant will actually happen to me is probably minimal. I still think it would be self-centered to think that I could be important enough to someone else that they would go out of there way to harm me… But then again, we all think these kinds of things won’t happen to us. I feel slightly in danger. My safety has been compromised. I don’t want to become one of those girls on the news. I don’t want to be in this situation.
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