You do know that this isn’t normal, right? I think you’re a little too hung up on the word “crazy” here and are not allowing for more subtle descriptors. Clearly, if you go through periods where you think government and spiritual agencies are stalking you, that’s not a normal state of mind. I gotta tell you, if a friend of mine told me that they thought they were being stalked by government agencies and that it might not be real, I would take that very seriously with concern to their mental health. I mean, can you honestly say that you could blame people for being concerned about you when you have thoughts like this? It’s natural for other people to want you to get help because you don’t seem to think these delusions are real today, but that doesn’t mean you won’t tomorrow.
Wow. That’s a pretty big statement. Mainly what I’ve seen here are people reading the posts in this thread and making judgements based on not only what you’re saying but how you’re saying it. They may be right and they may be wrong. I do have to say, though, that usually when people say that their entire family colluded together because they’re all crazy to project everything on the only non-crazy person in the family… well … sorry, man. Not sure I buy it. Sure, I don’t know the whole story, but the side I’m hearing doesn’t add up in my opinion. Say what you will about me, I’m basing literally everything I know about your situation from what you’ve said here so yes, I don’t have the full story.
In this thread alone, though, we’ve gone from “I’m not crazy” to “Sure, I have delusions that I’m not completely sure are real, but everyone who thinks these types of things are suspect probably abuse their children”. If some other poster on this board said these things, how would you react?
No. When you’ve published your work, we’ll evaluate it on its merits, just like we do with Poe’s. Until then, “I’m as mentally stable as {Edgar Poe, Emily Dickinson, Sylvia Plath}” is not the best strategy to convince people you’re sane OR to sell your novel.
And, as Rubystreak said, “The Tell-Tale Heart” was fiction, not autobiography.
Let me see if I understood you correctly: you’re **not **crazy, but being crazy is cool, and you **were **crazy, but you figured it out, so you’re not crazy anymore?
I know the thread has moved on a bit from this, but I just wanted to say that this sounds like a truly awesome way to impress your family with your sanity, get them to trust you and invite you to visit their kids and treat you with the respect you deserve.
What a nightmare it must be for the family in this case.
I have a sister in law with bipolar disorder, several friends with depression/anxiety issues and few of each struggling with substance abuse. They’re all fundamentally good people who are suffering and they sometimes can be a bit difficult to be around. But they are never vicious, or make ugly threats and I’ve never felt like they are dangerous to others.
Then unfortunately, there are people like the OP who are both sick AND vicious. How do family protect themselves from people like this? What is his sister, for instance, to do if the OP starts filing false reports that her and/or her husband are child molesters? What is the brother to do if the OP really follows through on his threat to lie to police and get him involuntarily committed to a mental ward? The damage that a mentally ill, vicious, vindictive, obsessed person could potentially do other people’s lives seems staggering.
Is there a legal avenue the family could pursue, perhaps some sort of pre-emptive statement filed with the courts, saying that they have reasonable grounds to anticipate attacks like this and for law enforcement to be made aware of this statement in the event any accusations are made? Or are there other options for friends and family members to protect themselves when cases like these arise?
With SDMB posts searched in Google, it’s not unreasonable that one or more of the OP’s family might stumble upon this thread. Hope so anyway, no one deserves this.
I wouldn’t worry about it. This does happen and for the most part once police start investigating and determine the accuser has a well-documented history of mental illness, the issue isn’t pursued.
This happened to one of my mom’s best friends, “Auntie Bea”. Her eldest daughter developed schizophrenia in her 20s and once decided to accuse the family of sexually abusing her daughter and contacted both the newspapers and the police. Both the newsies and cops quickly determined the case was without merit because the woman’s mental illness had been well-documented from run-ins with the police, child protection services, and the courts (in Canada, a court order is required for involuntary commitment), so their are plenty of records to support the unjustly accused.
It’s quite possible that your family are a bunch of malignant low-lifes, and that they’ve badly mistreated you over the years. It’s also possible that they’ve intentionally misrepresented your illness or lack thereof, although I fail to see a plausible motivation for their doing so, or what they’d hope to gain from it. (Your being “crazy” and their being vindictive assholes are not mutually exclusive concepts.)
Unfortunately, all we have to go on is your account in your own words, and IMO you do not present yourself well. It’s possible you’re truly manic, or perhaps have simply learned to “talk the talk” and leverage the “crazy” persona, because on some level you enjoy the attention it gets you and the feeling of power/retribution derived from creating chaos in the lives of others. I certainly get a sense of that in your posts on this board.
On the whole, you come across as extremely immature (I’m not sure how old you are, but I presume it’s older than 15).
I’ve already PM’d him. The weenie’s too chickenshit to reply privately, apparently. So it’s gotta be here where I address him. Okay, maybe he’s not a child molester, or at least he hasn’t molested any children recently. But I’m convinced he’s a sock, just don’t know who exactly (his aura is identical to Der Trihs, but his writing style doesn’t match, so I don’t think it’s him) and frankly, I can’t be bothered to investigate further – if I do figure it out, I’ll report him to a mod.
Why are you hung up on the word “normal”? Even my evil ex-shrink discouraged me from using the word “normal” – that peer pressure bullshit.
How do you know I wasn’t being stalked by the government after all? Believe it or not, there is a non-zero chance that it was really happening – but if “they” were watching, then it’s clear that “they” have figured out it was a case of mistaken identity (or stolen identity?) and “they” have moved on. Yes, I’m sure 90% of what I was seeing was either pure paranoia, or genuine spiritual forces who took advantage of the situation, or a spontaneous rift in the space/time continuum – in fact, I believe the spiritual “agents” were far more real and potentially dangerous than the “human” ones, assuming the “human” agents ever existed (and most likely, they didn’t.)
You keep assuming that these “delusions” are a bad thing. Okay, for most “crazies”, they’re bad, because most “crazies” don’t know how to deal with them. I’m actually fine with being paranoid and delusional, it’s like a role-playing game or a spy thriller novel come to life. And as I’ve said before, that is precisely what makes me non-crazy. Delusions, in and of themselves, are not a bad thing – how you deal with them is what matters.
You should read more about toxic families – this sort of thing, i.e. scapegoating one individual for the sake of “covering up” the family secrets, is hardly unique to my situation. And it’s not a “conspiracy” in the typical sense; it’s more like a “silent conspiracy”, where everyone kinda knows the real issues but they never talk about them; instead, they put on a happy face and insist that all other family members do the same.
Yeah, I know this all sounds too fantastical to be real, especially when read by someone who’s never experienced this sort of toxic family bullshit firsthand. As for motivation – well, let’s just say on my father’s side, the family doesn’t want to admit the truth about their son/brother/uncle, they’d rather pretend he’s a healthy person with a job and a wife, because that’s all that matters to them, right? And who am I to them? Nobody special. And believe it or not, he’s the less pernicious half of the equation – I won’t even get into the matriarchal half, because I fear her spiritual agents are still attempting to destroy my very soul. She will fail, but we’re not quite out of the woods yet.
And for the record, I have no illusions about convincing anyone here about the reality of my situation. I’m just venting, and it’s your choice whether to believe me or question me or mock me or whatever colour you like. I’m just venting.
So how did it all shake out in the end? Is the daughter better now? Does she remember doing this and if so, has she apologized and/or retracted the accusations?
I can’t quite imagine how things would be between the daughter and everyone else after such an incident.
BTW, this thread has encouraged me to reach out more to my sister in law that has the bi-polor thing going on. I called her earlier to invite her to a movie later and she was very happy for the invite. So, something good has come of this thread anyway.
Speaking of Der Trihs, here is the thread in which KGS introduces us to Nathaniel. Nathaniel is foreshadowed in post #453 but characterized more explicitly beginning in post #460. Guinastasia and Swallowed My Cellphone asked who Nathaniel was.
That wasn’t the first time I invoked Nathaniel. Since you’re so interested in doing research, and you clearly have no life and plenty of free time, why don’t you locate the other two times when I mentioned him? Besides, Nathaniel enjoys the attention.
How many works have you completed? Short stories, novels, poems, songs–whatever.
How many have you submitted for publication? Of course, the publishers may be part of the vast anti-KGS conspiracy. But, at least, let us know you have tried.
Do you realize how boring you are? Yes, you’ve obviously got some problems. But you seem to think they make you interesting. They do not.
I usually stay out of these** KGS **“look-at-me” train wrecks but I had to step in and refute your claim.
I don’t agree with your assessment that he’s boring. In fact this thread is one of the few interesting themes in the Pit.
As far as his writing skills we may never know. In other threads and forums this crazy side of KGS’s persona doesn’t usually show which makes me sometimes wonder if he isn’t just trotting this out here to help him sharpen up a character profile for his story/novel/whatever.
If these threads are an example of his creative writing skills, then he needs to know that his protagonist is utterly unsympathetic. I don’t find his “madness” zany, compelling, or intriguing. If he aspires to walk in Mr. Poe’s footsteps, he has a loooong way to go.
Mental illness does not ennoble a person or make them charming. Rather, a person can be simultaneously mentally ill AND an annoying, vapid, attention-whoring asshole. I would say more to be pitied than scorned, but I am capable of doing both if the occasion arises. Mr. Poe understood this all too well.
Not that it’s any of your business, but I have three complete (or nearly complete) novel-length drafts in the “trunk”, not counting my current vampire-themed manuscript. I’ve also got two large tote bags filled with short stories and poems, some dating back to when I was six years old, most of them writing assignments from high school and college (after which writer’s block set in for two decades – concurrent with the forced medication and hospitalizations, I should add. Yes, psychiatry destroyed my muse for several years.)
None so far, but then I’ve only been seriously writing for the last six years. The vampire manuscript is nearly complete, and it’s already gotten attention from people in the “industry” who are eager to read the rest, once I complete it.
Then why are you responding?? You must be really desperate for attention yourself, if you’re only speaking with people who bore the piss out of you.
And thanks, BubbaDog, for sticking up for me. Yes, sometimes these Pit Threads are merely for the purpose of sharpening my “skills”, and not just my writing skills, either.
Don’t misunderstand me. I didn’t say anything in support of you. I prefer to neither challenge nor support your perspective of things as you’ve demonstrated in this thread. I was merely stating that the thread discussion, not you, was interesting.
My statement about you “testing” a character for your writing probably isn’t dead center but I suspect much of what you brought to this thread is because expressing your thoughts in writing has little damage potential.
In writing you get to exaggerate the emotions, motivations, and qualities of yourself and others. Kind of like saying that you are going to punch somebody in the nose when in fact it will never happen.
