That’s kind of why we have two different threads. This way the people who want some somber can use the other thread.
I’ve got some stories, and every so often I remember them. God we did some crazy stuff. She was outright an outgoing person. She used to like the really crap wine, we’d go out and get her wine and I’d get beer. She was always bringing strange movies over to my place. We watched the entire Lexx series, and she just loved it. What a fucked up series that was.
When she got her weight reduction surgery I sat in the hospital room and watched Iced Age on her computer. I think I was one of the few people to sit with her there.
When she had gotten her plastic surgery she came over and asked if I wanted to see her new boobs, I didn’t actually get a chance to say no, she just pulled up her shirt.
I remember her doing a lot of her artwork, now I kind of wish I had taken some from her.
The last time I talked to her she told me how much she missed the boards. She seemed to think a lot of people were against her. She would lurk all the time she said but stayed out of contributing.
Let me speak from my own personal experience. YMMV.
The survivors are certainly aware of the deceased’s flaws. But they are in a vulnerable and possibly conflicted emotional state, and they simply may not want to hear about those flaws right then. It’s really much safer to be bland and kind unless you are on very familiar terms with all involved. OTOH, I only know OpalCat and JillGat (and her mother) from what they’ve posted on the SDMB, and thus absolutely no insight as to how JillGat’s remarks might be received.
From the other thread:
I have to say that I was thinking this myself.
As I said, I didn’t know Opal beyond the SDMB. She seemed to have a deep sadness and recurring problems, and her accomplishments never really overcame those. I didn’t feel strongly about her one way or the other, so I didn’t post in the other thread. But I was shocked to hear of Opal’s death, just because to me she was a de facto SDMB personality.
I don’t think you’ll find it. Opal’s board had its own meltdown some years ago, and some of the content was lost. I’ve been able to get thru to it, and no search of any terms relating to it brings up anything.
From reading her posts over many years, it was pretty obvious to me that she suffered from one or more illnesses. After reading her poem My Will[sup]a[/sup], I also have to wonder if her childhood and home life was… less than ideal.
Either way it’s sad and tragic. If you’re suffering from a mental illness, get help ASAP.
[sup]a[/sup] [sub]I won’t link to it, but it’s still on her page for the curious.[/sub]
I certainly get that. Ymmv but the comments by Jill in the other thread were basically saying that Opal shared everything online with little filter. That’s like going to a wake and saying the deceased’s eyes were blue. I saw nothing wrong with the comment. And from reading the recent comment in ATMB neither did Opal’s mother. But Jill’s defense of the comment is a complete overreaction.
In dealing with those with mental illness for a lot of years I can say anecdotally that a bad home life can certainly help contribute to the illness. But sometimes the illness can mold the perception of the past. From the outside it is often hard to see which is true in the particular case. The mentally ill often make poor witnesses. I of course have no personal knowledge of this case.
I’ve been on the SDMB for ages, but I didn’t really interact with OpalCat. I remember she asked me a question in my "Ask the schizoid’ thread, but that’s about it.
I didn’t know she was such a polemic figure until now.
I don’t recall ever interacting much personally with Opal online but hearing of her death affected me greatly. I cried for more than 2 hours the night I saw the thread.
I joined this board in 1999 and had been reading on AOL before that. I think she was on AOL; can’t remember. I remember that sometimes I’d read her threads and think, “Man this girl is WEIRD” and then the next thought would be “But she’s totally right about such-and-such and it makes total sense.” And then sometimes she’d post something about her art and I’d feel so envious of her creativity. And her logic process was very similar to my own. Maybe 7-8 years ago I found her LJ and started reading that, and then saw various of her other online presences throughout the years. She had very diverse interests. I had no idea she had created Mock the Stupid on LJ until I saw it mentioned in her own LJ, but if you read the profile on MTS, you can see it’s Opal who wrote it.
IDK if you ever have read any of her other sites - such as her personal site with bio, or LinkedIn, or her Pimp My PPT site, but she had an incredibly varied wealth of talents. I don’t think it fully came out here, where I think some people (not a lot but some) thought she was just kind of weird, with all her TMI. But she was clearly highly intelligent. And her artwork is just amazing. I mean a real, true, innate talent that if you didn’t know and ran into her work, you might say, “Oh well when she said she was an artist, I had no idea she meant she was REALLY an artist!!” The first time I saw just the little photo of her self-portrait I was floored. I imagine the real painting in person would make me stop breathing for a second. It’s incredibly beautiful work.
Besides wondering how her son and fiance are, I have been thinking continually of what will happen to all her beautiful artwork and to her cats, whom she loved very very much. she wrote a beautiful post on her LJ a while back about one of her babies, who “found” her (not the other way around) some years back. I worry he’s going to go into a depression without her.
I will never forget that thread. Every time I think of Opal I think of those buckeyes, and every time I see buckeyes in a store I think of Opal.
I think it was the first time I saw cracks in Opal’s sanity . . . and I’m grateful to her for “letting it all hang out,” in spite of everyone’s attempts to reason with her.
