Tim, I Know How You Felt:

Two Enigmas Had Awaited Death

Well, a lot seems to have happened this week, the seven days that will live in infamy for at least two of us. I am referring to the variously messages on my board that, more than likely, have damaged our cause to a certain and disturbing extent.

First off, I still hold by my assertion that the board will NOT be censored, no matter what anyone says or does. It would be preferable to try to co-exist with one another without pulling out all of the emotional stops. But that is unrealistic, concerning the controversial elements of this site and the fact that, for better or for worse, words will spew forth in the heat of argument and quite often, we lose our manners to a certain degree. If this was a "Law & Order" fan fiction page, nobody would be defending ideas and ideals to the degree that those of us who admire Tim will find ourselves enmeshed in. As a matter of fact, I have such a fanfic site and our arguments centre around who's the better ADA, Ben Stone or Jack McCoy and why didn't the resident hunk, Mike Logan stay around longer.

But this is a Tim site and all decorum and mannerisms often go to hell on a handcart, putting it mildly. So many people disagree with the subject matter of this site and write us off as a class of morons, that when a group of Tim lovers gather at the virtual coffeehouse to talk about the tragedy of McVeigh's execution, what the death of Tim means to both anti-death penalty and pro-death penalty people, we can set off flamewars that haven't been part and parcel since the early days of the Courtney Love newsgroup. My family has no idea why I care about "a killer," but they leave me to my own devices, as bizarre as they think these are.

Thus, I am exercising the better part of valour by taking a breather from my board and lying low until the radioactive dust settles. I encourage all of you to stick around, for many of you have been good to me and I consider you as friends. It's been wonderful to find out that I wasn't alone in my belief that Tim didn't get an adequate trial and that he had many virtuous portions of his vibrant personalty.

Now, to the credibilty issue: I feel that I have allowed my emotions to override to the extent that I really should take a step backward and regroup, lest I lose my credibity and dash my ultimate goals on the pavement. Yes, I probably overreacted the other night when I read that people were accusing me of posting fake letters from Tim. I was caught offguard, having come to the end of a troubling and depressing summer with ragged emotions and a bleak forecast for the future and if I had a place in it. I hadn't planned to post that letter at first, as there would be those who figured I'd be lying through my teeth, or that I would be proven to be nothing short of a slut. The letter had been safely tucked away for many months. In retrospect, I should have held onto my resolve to keep it secret, but no, I posted it anyway.

Several of you were very kind and compassionate after reading my posting to the board. You know who you are and I love you for it. Please do not think for one instance that it was the board that pushed me over the edge, because that is simply not true. I have had a nasty virus and have been unable to keep my medication down. Some of you likely know someone with bipolar affective and boarderline personality disorders. I was "lucky" enough to have dual diagnoses and so treating them has been difficult at the best of times. I lost my beloved cousin to liver and pancreatic cancer, then my grandmother died last Remembrance day. Eleven has become my unlucky number: Tim was executed on June 11th, 2001, then there was the infamous 9/11 and Grandma died last November 11th. It was terrible.

I self-medicate with painkillers like Percocet and Dilaudid, to feel slowed down and "normal." These drugs are bad for me, but so is having my mind travelling at warp speed all the time. I'm either high as a kite or very, very depressed. I seriously considered suicide earlier this week, but then realized that I'd be killing my mother too---she said she would and I believe her.

I have posted several chapters of my autobiography, "Let Me Make It Good: A Chronicle Of My Life With Borderline Personalty Disorder" on this site. Talk about a loooong title. The book was a marginal success, but I'm hoping my novel-in-progress will be better received. One posted chapter is entitled "Auschwitz In the LPH" and gives a detailed account of my "sentence" on a behaviour modification unit of the mental hospital in my town. I was there for three long and painful years and suffered untold abuse by staff members who should have known better. My "crime" was being mentally ill and these incompentent doctors and nurses msde sure that I was punished for it. Weeks in seclusion---solitary confinement---resulted from my experiencing way too heavy doses of such anti-psychotic drugs like Haldol, Modicate and Chlorpromazine. I was alone and forgotten by the outside world. Staff members said I'd never get out and would be put on the horrific geriatric wards for my "fifty year program" punishment.

So you can see why I felt so much compassion for Tim and his life on death row. After the initial incarceration following his grossly unfair trial, the letters dried up and there he was, on a six-year program alone and forgotten. Oh, Tim, I know how you felt! He may not have been the one standing in line for the executioner, but they killed him anyway. At the end of my second year on B Mod, I tried to kill myself but got caught just before hanging myself in the shower stall. If you've spent a lot of time locked up and mistreated, you lose hope. So did Tim.

Good grief, how I've prattled on here. I guess where all of this is leading is, that those messages on Tara's board were NOT the reason I nearly overdosed the other night. But I'll tell you something, my friends: When Tim called his impending execution "a state-assisted suicide" he was right.

And it sucks--bigtime.

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