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Sacrifices and BetrayalAt
some point, Cyndi convinced me that we could choose our next lives after we
died, and that I could choose to be her daughter after I died.
I attempted suicide several times. I
even studied how to succeed at killing myself so that I would not fail in
subsequent attempts. There was a
part of me that wanted attention, and in that part, my suicide attempts were a
cry for attention. But, there was
another part of me that truly believed that self-inflicted death was a viable
option and would lead to a better life. I
chose to act on my intentions and not discuss them.
On the last serious attempt, I would have succeeded, according to the
doctors, had I gone a few more hours without medical attention. I asked my mother how she knew I wasn’t just sick, and she
told me I had confessed to taking the several boxes of Contac.
I don’t recall telling her. I
do recall being disappointed that I had made it so close to death, and failed.
If I had made another serious attempt, I would have succeeded.
I reasoned, though, that if I were truly ready to die, I would not have
told my mother that I had taken those pills, even unconsciously.
I
went through more therapy sessions at the pleading of my mother.
I went through more prescription drugs.
I attempted suicide at least twice before they committed me to an
institution. The
institutionalization was not entirely because of a suicide attempt.
I
had gotten concert tickets to go see her for the first time on her True Colors
tour. They were general admission
tickets, and I had planned on camping out in front of the theater to get good
seats. I did not care how cold it
was going to be. It was in January.
I was going to be in the front row.
They
committed me because they were afraid I would try to commit suicide at the
concert, or because I might take something I heard at the concert and interpret
in such a way as to cause me to want to commit suicide. It was not like that! I
had a specific plan. I had gone
into a deep depression about two weeks before the concert was to begin.
I wanted to have a few days to swing back into an ultimate happiness for
the concert. My mother got nervous
about my depression, and spoke to my therapist.
I had not brought it up with my therapist because I felt like I was in
complete control of my feelings. Anyway,
the second step of my plan was to write “M.U.S.I.C.A.L.” on a piece of paper
with my name and phone number on it and throw it up on stage.
Then I would just wait to see if I got a call.
If she knew, she would call, and nobody would be able to call me crazy.
I
had thought for sure she knew about me because of the experiences I had.
But I still doubted it. I
had never joined a fan club as I figured if she did know, then the fan club was
unnecessary. If she did not know, then the fan club was pointless, as I
was nobody to her. As for what she
might say in the concert, I might have very well taken it to heart, but I
thought they were crazy to think I was going to commit suicide because of it.
I thought this even though I had shown a history of suicide regarding her
image. I might have very well read
things into her words that would tell me to go through with it, but certainly
not before waiting for a phone call. And
if she never called, I would have seriously doubted the reality of what I was
believing in the first place. I
had some advance notice that they were going to institutionalize me.
Well, I figured out that something big was going to happen at the mental
health center that day. My parents took me out to lunch… together… for the first
time in years (they had been divorced for a few years before this).
Then they told me we had a group meeting with my therapist, which had not
happened since the last time I was institutionalized (I had individual meetings,
but not group sessions). Before we
left, I went into my room, and I asked Cyndi what to do.
I wanted to run. I was
heading to the window to leave when Cyndi assured me it was part of her plan,
and that I needed to go along with this. I
was devastated when they told me I was not going to be able to go to her
concert. I was offended when they
told me it was for my own safety. To
this day, I feel utterly betrayed by the mental health system in this instance.
I fully believe that I would have found she did not know about me, and I
would have been able to move on to the next phase of my life.
I believe they delayed my growth in this area for a long period of time
by not allowing me to go find this out. I
also feel robbed of the pleasure of being able to see her in concert, even if it
was nothing more. When
I knew the concert was taking place, we were watching a very boring movie.
I had plenty of time to think about the terrible injustice that was being
done to me. I wanted so badly to do
something stupid so that they would put me into seclusion.
At least then, I would be able to meditate in private.
But Cyndi kept urging me to be calm, and go with the system. This confused me because, though I knew Cyndi and I did not
always agree on things, I thought for sure there would be one thing we would
agree on, and that would be that I should be going to her concert.
Later on, this helped to reinforce my notion that there was an
intelligent force behind whatever Cyndi was.
She was set against my will. If
it were just a split personality, I would think she would have agreed that I
should have gone to see her. Unless
she had something to hide. Or
maybe, as my suspicions grew, whatever this thing was that was masquerading as
Cyndi, knew I would find out the truth at the concert, and then it would lose my
energy and focus. In
St Luke’s Psych Ward, I found out very quickly that they did not care at all
about me. They had a tight schedule
and could not even let me finish my story, about why I was there.
The lady asked me to tell her what was going on, and I even tried to give
her the short version, but when the time was up, that was it.
She did not let me say another word.
The schedule was downright stupid. They
had it structured down to five-minute intervals.
9:05 to 9:40 for this, 20 minutes for that. Oh, and we had to go back to our rooms for five minutes
between every single activity so they could do their never-ending paperwork.
What really offended me was that they would not let me have any of my
pictures. This was a sacrilege to
me. I even considered contacting a
lawyer because I thought my religious rights were being denied.
As
I said, we had a very tight schedule, and we had about fifteen minutes a day
where we could listen to music, and that was on a rotation schedule allowing
each person seven and a half minutes at two people a day.
To start with, if you take a person to whom music meant everything, who
listened to music 20 hours a day sometimes, and give him fifteen minutes with no
control over what was being played, it equates to straight torture.
I had regular dreams about music because I missed it so much. So, I bided my time. When
it got close to my turn, I started asking where my tapes were.
I asked my mother, and she said she had brought them in, but I had not
seen them. I was pissed when I
found out they were right there, in the hall closet, but I couldn’t get at
them! They refused to let me listen
to my music. I don’t remember
what it was I listened to on my turn, but it didn’t matter. I
still had not come out of the depression I started with when I was trying to get
ready for the show. They screwed
with my emotional cycle that I had thought I had under control.
It had been a delicate balance, and difficult to control to start with.
I had intentionally thrown myself into a deep depression, and had just
started to swing out of it when they pulled the rug out from under me.
I only spiraled downward from there.
I got worse with each day. Of
course they had me so drugged up that I couldn’t stay awake or focus on
anything. It did not help my
problems with the voices in my head because it was not a chemical problem.
I had proven that with Affely, but they wouldn’t listen to me.
During my previous institutionalization, every time they increased my
drug dosage, the voices would get stronger.
It wasn’t until a few months after I was released from the institution,
and the drugs worked out of my system, that Affely left me.
This proved to me beyond any doubt that this was not the Schizophrenia
they diagnosed me with. There was
one person at Saint Luke’s Psych Ward who had a different opinion about my
problems. He was a substitute
therapist, and listened to me long enough to figure that I was having a
spiritual problem. Any other
therapist would likely have been reprimanded or fired for suggesting my problem
was spiritual. This guy called it
like he saw it. He said it was the
work of the devil, and the solution was in God.
He told me I had to get down on my knees and pray for redemption from
this evil. I didn’t like what he
had to say. I thought he was nearly
as wrong as the regular therapists. But,
there was that spark of truth in what he said.
I wondered. Anyway, I was
immediately resistant to it, and tried to explain, but once again, we both fell
victim to their unreasonably rigid schedule.
My
father tried to talk some sense into me while I was there.
He told me that it was not realistic that Cyndi Lauper had communicated
with me. But if I was crazy, so was
he. Or, if I was sane, we were both
suffering from the same entity. He
had believed for years that he had been in contact with space aliens.
When he explained to me later, how they communicated with him, it was
almost exactly the same way Cyndi communicated with me, without the intense
feelings of ecstasy. Anyway, he
believed that I was struggling against a group of aliens who were no threat to
me. He said that it was my
distorted perception of the truth about what was happening to me, that made me
respond the way I did. He reminded
me of the dreams and visions I had in the past and told me that I was a lot like
he was. He had his dreams and
visions come true as well. He said
that I could be useful to his “friends”, and wanted me to stop struggling
against them, and to stop discussing it with people whose minds were closed. I did not believe him, but I agreed with that last part.
I had a big mouth from the time I was little.
I believed that keeping quiet was like lying, and I did not like liars,
so I spoke up when I was asked. But,
if I would have not told them about my experiences, I would not be in this
position at this time.
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