Ask HN: Is mental illness an ad-targeting category?
Hi HN, hope this topic is ok. I'm looking for commentary or advice from readers familiar with ad systems.

A few years ago I got involved with the wrong wealthy, connected crowd and many weird/violent things happened. The story is strange, so people assume mental illness. I'm seeing a counselor, taking pills that don't seem to help except make me fat and sleepy, and doing my best to get back to dev work before my funds run out.

I wanted to talk about my internet experience, though. I used to get ads for food, clothes, consumer tech. Now I get strange ads which are really not helping my situation.

On Twitter, ad with only a few views about "losing a game, checkmate the cost is your soul".

On IG, which I use to look at cat pictures and my friends, I get ads for Freemasonic end-of-life care, occult ritual materials, bizarre poetry sometimes containing my name/usernames, artwork with the tagline "Maybe you aren't paranoid and people are following you ;)", going blind, car accidents, ALS, cancer, organ failure. Or, my personal favorite when I've managed to distract myself from my troubles for a few hours, paraphrased "DID SOMETHING EXTREMELY BAD HAPPEN TO YOU AND YOU CAN'T STOP THINKING ABOUT IT?". I usually see that one multiple times a day.

I've shown these ads to other people; I don't have any history of seeing physical things others don't. I try to scroll past them fast but usually still see what they say. I usually don't take screenshots because I don't want the pause to register as engagement.

I get that most people would just ignore this stuff. I would have in the past. I don't know how to explain the change in perspective after you've been in life-threatening situations, had your windows smashed, or had weird totems left in your yard, etc etc. It's not a stretch to think "maybe this IS relevant to me, or a message warning me: bad thing going to happen!". Regardless, I want to avoid interacting with content like this.

I have long been opted out of search history or ad personalization on G/FB/AMZN/Twitter/Instagram/Verizon, and have repeatedly clicked "hide ad - irrelevant or not interested". "Why am I seeing this ad?" says "(wide age group) in your area", yet I've asked and my peers don't get ads like this.

I think I'm privacy savvy somewhat. Logged out, incognito/Ublock/Ghostery. Few apps, all permissions denied. DDG. Unique usernames, lurking or throwaways. No prescription rewards. I only visit a few websites. I don't share my computer. No other devices listening in the house.

The only information leaks I can think of are:
* credit card billed for telehealth
* short text journal on dropbox
* friends may have discussed me/topic in their chats
* a friend asked on Messenger why I disappeared, I said something like "I might have schizophrenia. Some violent situations happened and I'm struggling now."

I know, Messenger wasn't E2E, but I didn't realize it might flag me so easily. I haven't done anything else to indicate my interest in this topic; it's not like I'm posting in "targeted person" forums, buying anything other than groceries, or watching horror movies.

Even if the explanation is just "machine learning black box parses chat, determines unlabeled cluster demonstrates increased engagement with thrilling, morbid, suggestive, edgy content", well, I explicitly rejected opting-in to that. The supposed "opt-outs" have little effect, at best hiding one specific ad but not actually updating to the point of "I don't want to see ads about PTSD, dismemberment, horror, paranoia, accidents, tragedy, eschatology, or the occult, please start showing me only normie ads again".

I'm not sure what to think at this point, short of going offline or quitting social media. I did that in the past but I am trying to keep my weak network alive. Anyway, I'm curious to hear if anyone has feedback or advice on this situation. Am I missing something, mistaken, doing something wrong? Thanks!