For the sake of argument, let’s call my experiences a conspiracy theory — one I can neither confirm nor deny. And for the purpose of writing, I’ll open the door to a few of those so‑called secrets. Would you believe me if I told you that there are anonymous people who hide in the shadows — people who live in a world far removed from what you would call “normal” people living “normal” lives. But then, what is normal? Normal for me may not be normal for them, and vice versa. In my mind, they are somewhat normal; it’s just that they see you, and you don’t see them.

The CIA operates within a highly secretive environment, particularly regarding its covert operations, intelligence‑gathering methods, and specialised units. That much is public knowledge — the secrecy, the layers, the compartmentalisation. And every country has something like this, some version of a hidden machinery that works behind the scenes. So the idea itself isn’t out of the ordinary.

But what was out of the ordinary, at least for me, was the feeling of presence. Not imagined, not dramatic — just a subtle shift in the atmosphere around me. Something in the environment felt different, as if the air itself had a new texture. It wasn’t the idea of a government agency watching me; it was something more ambiguous, more human, more immediate.

They were interactive — that was the part I still struggle to explain. Not openly, not directly, but in ways that felt clever, almost playful. Witty, even. As if someone was responding to me without ever stepping into the light.

They were especially good at using the environment itself — the rhythm of the street, the flow of traffic, the timing of sounds. A horn would beep at the exact moment there would be a change in my routine. A truck would pull over with an advertisement that felt too pointed to be random. A motorbike would rev its engine in a way that felt like punctuation. Sometimes a car would pass with a particular song blasting — a soundtrack that seemed to answer something I hadn’t said aloud.

Like I said, it’s difficult to explain. But there was a pattern with vehicles, with sounds, with timing. A choreography of the ordinary that didn’t feel ordinary at all. Interesting, yes. Strange, absolutely. But unmistakably patterned.

Could they have been the saboteurs? The same presence that lived behind my computer screen, slipping through digital cracks with the same ease they moved through the streets? It felt like it. At times, it felt almost too coordinated to be coincidence — as if the physical world and the digital world were being orchestrated by the same unseen hands.

I just wished there was someone out there who could understand this kind of networking — this ability to be completely in sync with a community, woven into its rhythms in a way that felt far superior to anything I had ever experienced in my own world. It wasn’t just surveillance or interference; it was integration. Immersion. A kind of silent participation in the everyday life around me.

There seemed to be a mutual respect between the community and the ghosts who hid in the shadows. A quiet understanding. A shared language I wasn’t fluent in but could feel the edges of. The locals didn’t look startled or confused when something unusual happened — a horn at the perfect moment, a truck pulling over with impeccable timing, a motorbike revving like punctuation. If anything, they seemed accustomed to it, as if this invisible choreography was another language entirely, a way they communicated with each other without ever speaking aloud.

An invisible group that moves in the shadows is not, in my mind, a fringe idea or a dramatic invention. In the world I was living in, they felt vast — an unseen network with reach, discipline, and a kind of quiet authority that didn’t need to announce itself. Their expertise seemed far beyond anything I understood, offering me only the faintest glimpse of what could have been the basics of cyber interference, physical signalling, and psychological communication. Their presence was never loud, never theatrical. It was structural. Atmospheric. The kind of influence you only notice when you step back and trace the pattern.

Whatever they were — whoever they were — they operated with a level of coordination that felt far beyond the actions of a single individual. In my experience, they moved with a confidence that suggested access, resources, and a kind of internal order I couldn’t see but could feel the edges of. Their reach didn’t feel accidental; it felt engineered. And whether that engineering was real or simply the shape my experiences took, the effect on my life was the same.

There were moments when it felt like a game of cat and mouse — an unspoken challenge between power and perception. A sense that the real message was, We’re so good no one will believe you, or, Even if

It left them in a paradox: wanting the world to recognise their reach, yet needing their methods to remain invisible. Power thrives on secrecy, but ego thrives on recognition. They were caught between the two.

Did they make mistakes? Well, the saboteurs did. Only one mistake stood out — one I thought might finally warrant someone’s attention — but even that wasn’t enough to spark an investigation. It was a small crack in an otherwise seamless operation, a reminder that even the most disciplined systems leave traces. But a trace is not the same as proof, and in the world I was living in, proof was the one thing I never seemed able to hold.

At the time, I had about $200 sitting in my bank account back home, and a Mexican account sitting empty. My method of moving money between countries was XE: Currency Exchange — an online service I had used countless times. It was reliable, consistent, and always offered the best rate. It was one of the few systems in my life that still felt predictable.

Then came the incident that didn’t fit anywhere.

I attempted a routine transfer:

Intended:

Overseas Bank → XE Money Transfer → Mexico Bank

What occurred:

The funds appeared in my Mexican bank account under my name — but my overseas bank showed no record of the money ever leaving. The $200 was still sitting there, untouched.

The questions that followed were simple, but none of them led anywhere:

• •Could XE have transferred funds in error?

• •Could a banking anomaly explain the discrepancy?

• •Or had someone gained access to my computer and acted with the same permissions I believed I held?

I never repaid the money. It was never debited from my overseas account. It simply became an unanswered glitch in the system — one more anomaly in a growing list of events that made less and less sense the longer I tried to explain them away.

If I had been taken seriously, it might have been possible to detect something — a trace of spyware in my overseas account, in my XE profile, or in the Mexican bank account where the money appeared. Maybe there would have been a digital fingerprint, a log entry, a misalignment in the data that pointed to interference. But no one looked. No one checked. And without an investigation, the anomaly remained exactly that: unexplained, unexamined, quietly dismissed.

What stayed with me was not the $200, but the feeling that the transaction had slipped through a gap in the system — a gap someone else might have known how to exploit. It was the kind of moment that should have raised questions, but instead it dissolved into the background noise of everything else that was happening. Another event that didn’t fit, another loose thread I couldn’t pull without the whole fabric unravelling.

And that was the pattern: small things that didn’t add up, each one easy to overlook, but together forming a shape I couldn’t ignore. A shape that suggested someone else had access to parts of my life I believed were mine alone.

Looking back, I can see the mechanics of sabotage more clearly. In moments like the unexplained bank transfer, I found myself wishing I understood not just how systems break, but how they can be rebuilt — how someone might undo a digital footprint or reverse a transaction after the fact. But that simply wasn’t possible. And if someone had interfered, they hadn’t built any kind of safety net to cover their tracks when something slipped.

After a while, I noticed something else: the same tactics, the same rhythms, the same patterns repeating. Maybe it was simply protocol — a script followed by people within a community that understood it instinctively. I was there long enough to see how it all worked: a moment when I was sabotaged would be followed by someone pulling into the curb next door, the engine cutting off, another car passing and beeping its horn, then a particular song blasting from a speaker, or two motorbikes racing past the house in a blur.

And sometimes it wasn’t very nice.

That’s how we developed a kind of love‑hate relationship — because the opposite would also happen. I’d be online, and some money would come through so I could feed my children, and a similar sequence would unfold: a car passing with a single horn beep, another with a familiar song, a vehicle pulling up across the road, engine off, someone calling out something loud in Spanish.

If I wanted to take it further, I could say the roosters and dogs in the neighbourhood would start making noise at the same time — as if laughing, or offering a kind of “well done.” But that would be taking things too far, and I know that. Still, the timing was uncanny enough that I couldn’t help noticing it.

And I know no one will believe me — I honestly don’t care what anyone thinks. You weren’t invited into that world; think yourself lucky, actually. And if you haven’t been observant enough to notice the things I did, is that my problem? No. I lived it. I saw it. I felt it.

Anyway, the deciding factor came, and that’s what exhausted me the most — the realisation that the pattern was self‑sustaining, and that I could not outrun it. Which meant I had to make the hardest decision of my life: to remove my children from the situation.

It was a decision made with a clear head, but that didn’t make it any less devastating. Every small disruption, every moment of pressure, every unexplained event — it all landed on them too. They needed stability, financial support, and a mother who wasn’t constantly pulled into the undertow of things she couldn’t explain.

In the end, it felt like choosing the lesser of two evils. But knowing that didn’t soften the blow. The fear, the overwhelm, the grief — none of it can be captured fully in words. I knew what the decision meant. I knew what I was about to lose. And I knew that once I stepped onto that path, there was no way back.

It was the moment my world broke open — not because of what was taken from me, but because of what I had to give up.

At the time, rumours had begun circulating around the neighbourhood. It was a close‑knit community, and nothing went unnoticed for long. Whatever was happening to me — whatever I was carrying — had started to show. I didn’t yet understand what was wrong, but something in me was signalling distress, slipping through the cracks of my composure, revealing itself in the tremor beneath my voice, the way my eyes darted, the way I struggled to stay present. The emotional control was breaking down under stress, fatigue, and pressure I couldn’t name.

I was still able to read people, even through all the turmoil. I saw the way their expressions shifted mid‑conversation, the way their eyes searched my face. They had started to act differently — concerned, yet analysing — as if trying to assemble a story they didn’t know how to ask about. And strangely, I was relieved they never asked. I wanted to tell them the truth, desperately, but I was terrified they wouldn’t believe me, or worse, that involving them would pull them into the same storm I was trying to survive. That felt unforgivable.

So I let the rumours run. I let the misunderstandings spread. It was easier for people to believe a simple lie than for me to attempt explaining the impossible. And at that point, I needed any excuse that would get me out of there.

It wasn’t until much later that I understood what had been happening inside me. I had been showing the signs of trauma: emotional numbness, severe anxiety, hypervigilance. The panic attacks. The social withdrawal. The hollowed‑out feeling that made even the smallest tasks feel insurmountable. Eventually came the diagnosis of PTSD, and now, the depression and anxiety that linger like shadows I’m still learning to navigate.

But I’m not here to write a clinical account of the psychological injuries I sustained. This is not a story about diagnoses. It’s a story about what happened around them — the circumstances that pushed my mind and body past their limits, the pressure that reshaped my life, and the choices I had to make in the aftermath.