Paranoia

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"Paranoia is the irrational and persistent feeling that people are 'out to get you' or that you are the subject of persistent, intrusive attention by others." From 1976 until 2017 I had a really good friend. I know some of you remember her, Maggiepie. What l found amusing and, honestly, didn't try to stop her from doing so, because her paranoia was... interesting? She was sure our phone was tapped. Sometimes, where there wasn't anyone around, she'd call and pretend something, like people following us... or committing a crime. "Did you get the stuff?" she'd ask. "Yeah," I'd answer. "Did you drop it off?" "Yeah, where we arranged." Junk like that. Did I think we were having our phones tapped? No. But she did. I don't know when she went from paranoid about the government to supporting the people who might've tapped our phone. I will say it was in the time frame of those 'deprogramers' when someone would join a religion their family didn't like and they sent out a deprogammer. The church I was joining had a monk in Oklahoma who had been grabbed by deprogammers who took him to Arizona. He played along with them after a bit and managed to escape, and find a monastery that did join with the religion. After that... well, Maggie's paranoia hit new heights. IF her mother had the money, I'd bet she'd have been looking for them, happily she was barely surviving. I was happy after about a decade, with the deprogammers being arrested and stuff, her paranoia abated. And then she went from a former hippie liberal to a super conservative. And then she starting being really weird. I thought the paranoia was bad when I met her, now it was a whole new level and... I couldn't live with her anymore. Have you known anyone like this? She did tell me that she knew she wasn't as smart as she used to be... yeah... I blame it on being ventilated... more than once...