Bared Souls

[strat-0]

I offered my condolences on another board. Sorry to hear the way it worked out also, Phil.

[phil]

Thanks! In a way, it is a relief to see him go
cause his mind went AWOL more than a year ago
and it was hard to see him that way.

As a matter of fact, we stopped visiting him last year
because he did not recognized anybody and he became
quite aggressive with people around him even though
he was in a good home for elderly priests like him ...

[Ayinger]

Sorry too to hear about your uncle's passing. On the other hand, it was warming to hear of how the family was to come and spend time together. I've been one to view a funeral as both a time to mourn AND celebrate a life.

[strat-0]

True words, Don. Especially if it's for someone who lived a full and long life and it wasn't a shock. I've been to funerals for far too many young people though, such that I prefer not to attend them at all any more.

[phil]

Funerals are the only occasion now where the cousins can stay in touch and meet.
We get to show how tall our own kids have become ...

Last year, when my other uncle died (from Alzheimer desease),
we ended up having a big party where our own kids got to know each other more ...

Sadly, there is only one aunt left "alive", she has been bedridden for the last 10/12 years
and she lost her mind two years ago ...

Even all their spouses are gone ...

I guess we're next in line !

All Things must pass ...

[strat-0]

I'm such a hopeless romantic! I was in the grocery store yesterday and they had 5.3 ounce solid chocolate hearts marked down to a dollar a piece. That's cheaper than a candy bar! Good quality chocolate, too! So I bought one for me and one for my honey. See what I mean?

[RocDoc]

...AND it was even cheaper than cigarettes!

better for ya even!

[JACkory]

My idea of a good joke…my twisted sense of humor…

The first time I was in the nuthouse I was there on a Voluntary basis (this is not including the 6 months I spent in the Naval Hospital’s 4th Floor Psych Ward prior). I didn’t even NEED to be there. I was being kicked out of the house I was staying in and had nowhere to go. Rather than spend who knows how long out on the streets, homeless, I went to the Mental Health service place (whatever it’s called, I don’t know) and I told them that I was obsessed with killing myself and suicide in general. I told them that I had a calender at home where I put a star next to the date on which “famous people” had killed themselves (like Marilyn Monroe, Ian Curtis, Virginia Woolfe, et. al.). It is true that I had made such a calender, but it was more of a morbid hobby than a symptom of suicidal fixation. At that time I didn’t have any real suicidal thoughts. Desperate, yeah. But if I were suicidal I would have just offed myself instead of trying to find a free meal and shelter for the next month.

They didn’t know that, though, and with my track record from the Naval Hospital I was quickly admitted into the Hospital (I think it helped a lot to tell them that I wasn’t taking any medication at the time, too). Those folks get very jittery when they’re in the presence of a manic-depressive who is off of his meds. Not that I’d been on any kind of medication regiment since leaving the Navy, but I had more faith in my ability to “keep it together” than they did.

I was in there for a few days when I noticed a woman with a big crucifix necklace around her neck. Ugly woman, red hair, skinny, very introverted, so it seemed to me. I struck up a conversation with her and learned that she was a devout Catholic. Back then I had very little tolerance for Christians and Catholics in particular. So I decided to mess with her mind a little bit.

I asked her where she was from and she told me. She asked me where I was from and I said, “I come from a planet on the other side of the solar system. I’m here to observe the neuroses of people like you.”

That kind of freaked her out. She thought I was full of shit (she might have been crazy, but she wasn’t too dumb, not quite THAT gullilble).

“I see, from the crucifix you’re sporting, that you are what I’ve come to learn is a ‘Catholic’, am I right?”

She replied in the affirmative.

“That’s odd,” I said. “on my planet, everyone is a Satanist.” Then, as an aside, I put my hand to my chest and reverantly intoned, “Hail Satan, Master of All.”

The point wasn’t to convince her that I was actually a Satanic alien. I wanted her to think that I was the most insane motherfucker there. I wanted her to be frightened of me.

Our conversation continued. I was amused to see the look on her face as I expounded upon life on my planet, the Satanic rituals we performed there regularly, how our mission to earth included converting all human beings to Satanism. She was dumbfounded. I knew that once this discussion was over she would likely avoid me like the plague.

“What do you people eat here, anyway?” I asked. She reeled off a few examples of food items, and I said, “Oh, man, that’s gross. Where I come from we eat nothing but bugs.” She couldn’t believe that, but I insisted that my race was sustained by insects.

Then, a little bit later on in the day, while she was eating lunch in the cafeteria, I went to the vending machines and bought a bag of jelly beans. Next I went outside into the courtyard where patients went to smoke, get a little fresh air, maybe some exercise shooting hoops. There were bushes lining the half circle concrete wall, and I strategically placed jelly beans on the ground next to these bushes, all the way around. Then I went back inside and waited for “the earthling” to return from her meal. The staff were very insistant that we go outside for at least a few minutes every day, so I knew she would be out there soon.

The door to the court was unlocked and she went out and sat on a bench against the wall, by herself (I don’t think many people there associated with her).

Then I came out and made a point to walk in front of her. As I did I muttered, “God damn, I am HUNGRY! I hope there are a lot of bugs out here.”

I walked away from her to the first bush. Her eyes were fixed on me. I bent over an picked up a jelly bean, lifted it up to where she could see that ~something~ was in my hand. No doubt it looked like a bug from her vantage point. I examined it, sniffed at it, and pretended to pull it’s “legs” off. Looking directly at her I popped that jelly bean in my mouth and said, with a sated look on my face, “Oh, yeah. That’s delicious!”

I might as well not have planted those other jelly beans, because when she saw me eat the first one she looked like she was going to scream as she got up and high-tailed it back into the ward. I laughed my ass off.

She really started staying away from me after that. I’d made quite an impression. Every once in awhile I would look across a couple of tables and see her staring at me.

I took a ball point pen and drew a pentagram on my palm. It covered the whole inside of my hand and could easily have been seen from across the room. She wasn’t that far from me, so I knew she would see it. I locked eyes with her, gave her a wicked smile and raised my hand, waving the pentagram at her.

Sure enough, next thing you know she’s up and off away to somewhere as far from me as she could get. As it turned out, she went straight into the nurses’ station and told the doctor what was going on.

Soon afterward they called me into the doctors’ office, sat me down and asked me if I’d really been doing the things she said I was doing. Honesty always being the best policy, I told them I had. The doctor said I had this poor woman believing that I was actually a Satanist from another universe and that I ate bugs.

“Did you really eat bugs in the courtyard?”

“No, they were jelly beans I planted out there by the bushes.”

I still thought that was very funny. I don’t think the doctor thought it was quite as humorous (but you never know, he might have laughed his ass off about it with the nurses after I left). He gave me the obvious spiel about how the people here are already fucked up enough and the last thing they need is another patient messing with their heads even more. That made sense, and I told him I was sorry and that I would’nt do it again.

And I didn’t. But I never apologized to my victim and I never refuted what I’d told her about being a bug-eating alien. To tell the truth, I was surprised that she bought all that shit. As I said before, I would have felt like the joke was successful if she only believed me to be the biggest basket weaver in the funny farm.

Such fun is rarely experienced in state mental institutions. No doubt the fact that I was there voluntarilly (I could have left any time I wanted) and not really suffering from any mental problems made me feel free to screw around like that. I know this…, several years later when I was locked up there on a court order, the circumstances were quite different. In that situation it’s hard enough keeping yourself sane without trying to drive another person closer to the edge.

No, I wouldn’t do it again. Yes, I kinda feel sorry for the gal. I hope she got the treatment she needed. I hope she’s okay today and that she’s completely forgotten my little escapade.

But do I still think it’s funny?

Hell, yeah.

[RocDoc]

hmmmm...you've actually posted that somewhere else once...maybe it was even here...

i think i kept whatever opinion i might've had that time to myself too.

i mean i'd already seen a pointlessly mean side to your personality (which is NOT to dredge up any sort of beef with you; it was simply the truth THEN and you've admitted as much), so what was left to say?

i can only hope (as your last paragraphs sorta do imply) that you're doing better now.

[samplestiltskin]

At first when my friend started in on another paranoid schizophrenic bender and started calling me at all hours screaming at me that I had stolen his "patent" and I was going to "get what was coming to me", the friends I asked advice from said I should just agree with him and fuck with his head. "Yes Mark, I took your patent and I used your name to procure a government job in the CIA. I took all your money and I'm pretending to be you."

I suppose it would be amusing to do if I didn't love the poor guy to death. As it stands, I honestly don't know what to say to him. I waited a couple months and didn't talk to him at all because all he would do was scream threats at me through the phone, and when I finally called him again he said it was all a mistake, that some girl he knew from college had called and left messages pretending to be me and SHE was the one fucking up his life. So I'm the good guy again, for now. He calls me at 4:30 in the morning from the homeless shelter (yep, he lost his apartment, he won't tell me why, he probably doesn't even know) and will talk for two hours, just an endless stream of paranoid delusions -- his parents stole him from a woman who died last year, his sister is trying to kill him, my ex-boyfriend's apartment is haunted by an evil sexual incubus entity, he just goes on and on... It makes me terribly sad to see him in this state. Mental illness is not fun.

Guess I just needed to let some of that frustration out. I'm at a loss as to what to do for him. He has no friends except the people he met through me, and they are all too terrified to let him stay in their houses. He's wandering around dangerous parts of Denver probably yelling at people... My only hope is that someone will call the police and he'll get involuntarily committed and forced to start taking some medication and get stabilized, but if he doesn't stay on the medication (and he won't) he just continues this cycle. Gets a job and makes some money, goes nuts, loses job and housing, runs his credit into the dirt, somehow resurface to sanity only to find he has nothing left.

[JACkory]

Well, everybody has a "mean" side. Some don't want to admit it and some just don't realize it's there. I've confronted mine, and I don't think I'd ever treat anyone with such callousness again.

I think I have mentioned this event before, maybe even on this board. I don't know. I doubt if I went into this much detail, though. I've got an anonymous b log in which I explore my dark side and I wrote this for it earlier. I figured I'd put it here as well. Might as well...

Samps...good to see you back. All I can say about your friend is that I hope he gets a handle on the situation. Sometimes it takes an extermely traumatic event to make some people see the light and get help.

[JACkory]

Just finished watching "1408". Interesting concept: Hell in a Hotel. Not bad. Not bad at all. Based on a Stephen King short story. That's why I rented it, even though I know that almost every time Hollywood tries to do a King tale it winds up sucking. I haven't read this particular one, so I don't know how the movie stacks up against the original story.

I don't know why but it brought back this memory:

I can't be much older than 9 or 10. My parents have befriended a couple. I have no idea who they are or how (or why) my folks have made their acquaintance. It didn't last for very long. Maybe not even a month. It began and ended so fast, I have no idea what their names where.

They had a son. Might have been a couple of sons, not too much older than I was. Maybe even a little younger. The family stayed in a two story house on the northwest side of town. Typical small town home.

One time, and only once, we visited them in their house. Dinner? I don't think so. I have no idea what the occassion was, if there was an occassion at all. All I know is that once the grown-ups got settled in to visit, their son (one of them, at least, if they had more) took me and my brother upstairs.

It didn't look like a furnished room, the part that I remember. There may have been other sections to the upstairs area, but the one I saw was more like a bare attic, with a window or two.

A stack of magazines. Old pulp magazines. Did the kid show them to me? Or was I just being nosey? Either way, I found my way to those magazines and had me a look-see. All of them were of the "True Crime"/"Official Detective" stripe. I looked through a few of them. Page upon page of black and white photographs. Real crime scenes. Dead bodies, lying in pools of blood, black blood on grey floors. Grey skin. Black pupils in off-white eyes, eyes that bulged, seeing nothing. Black gashes slithering across necks in some of them. In others, small bullet holes in foreheads or hearts, anywhere lethal. Knife wounds, multiple knife wounds, scattered across the voodoo doll bodies, real bodies, real enough if not. Dead bodies, on display like some kind of carnival freak show on paper, grainy photographs on grainy paper, the kind of paper that feels like sand to the touch, worse than chalkboard to the fingernails. Black and white pictures with captions describing who, why, what, where, how...pages and pages, maybe 30-40 pages with these images before the next section crowded with text (and who knows how many of the people who liked this stuff even read the words, right? Maybe this part of the rag was ignored by...what? Most of 'em?). Then, letters, words and paragraphs that describe, in morbid detail, all the carnage. All the motives. All the clues and the cops who followed all the leads. All the leads that led nowhere, mixed (in what proportions?) with the ones that led to killers and killers and killers and killers...but then agian, oh my God, all the ones that led nowhere. All the killers who got away. The ones who escaped the grip of justice. Killers whose consciences either haunted them the rest of their days or whose concsciences have themselves been killed, either in the same deadly stroke of the murderers act or long before at the hands of another, a different kind of killer, the kind that kills the soul, the kind that kills the soul and sleeps soundly at night, perhaps not even realizing the damage done. Or not caring, their own conscience nothing but a vague memory stolen by someone else without a conscience. Where do all those dead consciences wind up, anyway?

Surely no one with a conscience could have done the things I saw done to the people in those pages. Those sandy, gritty pages of those "detective" magazines, those grotesque periodicals that sold for less than a dollar at the grocery store. It seemed as if every cover showed some buxom female in trouble. Headlines like "The Rope Killer With 'Honorable Intentions'", "Does a Bride's Incest Justify Murder?", "Gang Rapes Were Fun-Until They Tried Murder", "Girl Buried Alive After Sex Session", "Wanton Murder Climaxed the Orgy at Gunpoint", "Murder Ended the Wife Swappers' Party"...these are actual titles, each one in large, bold print on the covers of these magazines. There was a whole row of the things on the magazine racks, right there where anyone could look at them.

But I didn't look at them after that day in the upstairs loft where I first saw them. They creeped me out big time. I thought, "Who would read this stuff? Who would want to look at these pictures?" It didn't occur to me then that everyone has a dark side and some folks placate it by looking at magazines like these. But at the time I was a little concerned, and frightened, as to why these people had these.

[Ayinger]

Nice write up there PotsieJac. Brought back some of my own vivid memories of those magazines and also how you don't see them on the grocery checkout aisle anymore. Guess society is more into partying celebs flashing their cracks, dropping their kids, etc. Ironic how though we've gotten more unhinged with watching violence & sex in the media, the good 'ol b&w shot of a head laying in a pool of blood isn't acceptable on newsprint anymore. Or do those rags still exist and are just escaping me?

[upinkzeppelin2]

I just read this newsletter sent by my cousin and I couldn't help but cry:


Dear Friends,

Millie's mother was an alcoholic with severe mental illness. Therefore, Millie and her five brothers were turned over to foster care. They were shifted from one home to another and mercilessly abused even to the point of malicious torture, and eventually separated. Millie's mother was able to receive the help that she needed and eventually regained custody of her 6 children, but soon realized that she was financially incapable of caring for them. Mother and children became homeless.

Millie, her 5 brothers and mother lived under a bridge for a time having to bathe and wash clothes at night in the gulf. They had to steal food in order to survive. A family member finally stepped in and offered to relocate the family to another state. Millie was 16 at the time. Rather than go with her family, Millie chose to stay behind and find work in order to help support her family.

She found herself in two consecutive abusive relationships and eventually latched on to a mentally deranged, tormented soul who continued the abuse to the point of attempted murder. Millie, literally with nothing but the clothes on her back and her young son under her arm, ran for their life and found refuge in a "safe house" for battered women. There, Millie began a new life with the Lord, but had no idea that she could ever be blessed. Reoccurring nightmares and "looking over her shoulder," Millie believed that death would be her only way to escape the abuse.

Through many obstacles, Millie earned her GED, a high school equivalency, at the age of 18. The Director of the "safe house" saw potential in Millie and insisted that she enroll in college. Millie objected at first, but day by day, was prodded to continue. She went on to her Liberal Arts degree, Bachelor's degree in Social Work and finally her Masters in Counseling. Today, Millie is certified by the Alabama Domestic Violence Coalition to teach about domestic violence. Other certifications and continued education qualify her to teach Parenting and Anger Management courses. Millie's life is blessed. She deeply loves the Lord Jesus Christ and for the past 15 years has been a surrogate mom to hundreds of ladies who have found themselves seemingly without hope.

Millie and her husband of 12 years, Mike, a former addict, have faithfully served the Lord in getting a lifeline to ladies even when there appeared to be no resources. They have been learning to trust God rather than money and, as always, have found the Lord Jesus faithful.

This January, with no manipulation or solicitation, a number of God's children were obedient and provided the funds necessary to purchase a beautiful, spacious home with 2 and 1/2 acres of land. The home is Our Father's Arms, Eagle's Nest, a place of forgiveness and healing for ladies in crisis.

OFA Eagle's Nest is also home for Mike, Millie and their precious 14 year old adopted daughter, Dannette. Dannette's biological mom was also an addict and alcoholic who could not take care of her infant child. Mike and Millie were there with open arms, and have been honored to be Dannette's mom and dad for for the past 13 years.

Plans are to expand Eagle's Nest to include a large meeting room. An increasing number of people with "church phobia" come to our nontraditional meetings and find hope and healing. Some of them find their way back to a loving church family where they won't again be rejected and hurt. We also plan to add bedrooms and eventually to build a separate home on the property to provide a safe haven for mothers with children.

Our Fathers Arms on Reality Road for men is in its 12th year and is continuing to "be fruitful and multiply." This is truly a place of God's miracles and we'd love to share with you in more detail but space here doesn't permit.

Please know that you are always welcome here. We are delighted to extend hospitality and let our friends see first hand the incredible miracles He is allowing each of us to be a part of.

Our financial policy continues to be "freely receive, freely give." Jesus died for people not money and when He guides, He provides. We are very humbled and grateful for your prayers and financial support.

Love,


Bob McLeod
1 Corinthians 13:8


"Hurting people don't care how much we know until they know how much we care."

Bob has been my mentor for nearly a decade. If anyone is possibly interested in his way of life, here's a couple links:


www.OurFathersArms.org

www.InTheCloud.org

[maarts]

The human spirit. An amazing thing.