An old friend called recently and asked me to meet with a co-worker of his who was struggling with some mental health issues. My friend felt that, as a leading researcher in the field of neuro-digalytic gaslight therapy, I might be able to help his associate.
We met at a trendy brewpub near his townhome one day after work. It was perfect weather, and he asked if we could sit outside. “A lower chance of people hearing us,” he explained. He was quite friendly and seemed well-read. We talked over delightfully hipsterious hefeweizens. He asked about my studies in gaslight therapy, and how they meshed with L.L. Thurstone’s multi-factor model of behaviorism. Soon enough we developed a rapport, and he opened up.
Despite the risk of being stigmatized for seeking mental health care, he agreed to reveal his name here. His hope is that others can learn from his experience, and know they are not alone. This is his story.
Virgil Sirver was born in Boston. He went to the prestigious Cliffdane Academy in Brookline and was often featured on his grandmother’s refigerator for his musical abilities on the contrabass ukelele. He was the pride of his next-door neighbor’s cousin, and he once saved a small child from a rabid mongoose. Shortly after high school he moved to Los Angeles for college. That didn’t last long; he discovered he would rather work with his hands. He took a job as a machinist’s apprentice at an aerospace company and is still there today.
He lives in the neighborhood now known as Digital Heights, and he stands out from the sea of tech workers surrounding him. He moved here when it was an ungentrified blue-collar neighborhood and has stayed ever since. Mr. Sirver says he doesn’t have much in common with his newer neighbors, but they are nice enough. He ignores their obsession with reruns of The Big Bang Theory and college lacrosse.
But to the main point; Virgil Sirver is paranoid. He hears people talk about him everywhere.
“It started a few years ago” he said. “I would be at a bar or in a restaurant, and sometimes I would hear people talking about me like it was nothing. Like I wasn’t even human! I remember the first time like it was yesterday. I’m eating a burger and I overheard this guy say, ‘You’re using Virgil Sirver for that aren’t you?’ I turned around and looked at him, and you could tell it didn’t bother him one bit that I was right there. It was really bold.”
It only got worse after that, he said.
I’ve heard people say things like ‘Just delete Virgil Sirver when you’re done.’ Is that techno-mafia talk for killing me? They talk about pictures a lot. Images, snapshots, things like that. I’ve even heard replicas tossed around a bit. Does someone want to use the pictures to make clones of me, like some b-movie horror show?
I’ll be really honest, it freaks me out.
Virgil pauses; “I’m not the only one who has this… ‘thing,’ you know. I knew a guy back east, everybody called him Sal. Last name was Monella. Anyway, he went through the same kind of struggle. Always hearing about people trying to avoid him, even eliminate him. Some days he couldn’t even leave the house. It’s just sad.”
Cromwell Throckmorton is a tenured professor of psychology at Sonoran University in Bombay Beach, California. A spiritual descendant of Ferdinand Demara, his theories are widely taught in for-profit colleges and strip-mall massage parlors.
