interesting story about grayson hall

[joe integlia]

http://davidsopenforum.blogspot.com/2008/08/on-fessing-up-recalling-my-first.html

[David]

I'm sure the story in the link, from my blog, will shock people here.
But it's all too true.

I had asked Joe to send the link to his email list, but he posted it here as well.
I'm glad he did.

I just got a PM rom a DS Forums member who's been battling depression.
I'll be getting in touch with this person today.
Though I'm not a doctor & cannot treat symptoms, I can certainly lend suppot & a sympathetic ear.

No one need suffer in silence or alone.

Peace & love to all.

David

[Mysterious Benefactor]

It isn't just in Grayson's bio that those phone calls are infamous - the Halls have also commented about them in interviews.

[adamsgirl]

I can understand your harboring guilt and regret, David, but it wasn't "you" doing those things. It was an illness over which you had no control. I thank God Mr. Hall accepted your apology, and somewhere, I believe Grayson, wherever she is, now understands. Kudos to you for your courage in posting that on your blog and for your bravery in pursuing a diagnosis and treatment.

[Taeylor Collins]

Very brave for you to come forward David. That is the problem with our world so many problems so many people uncomfortable talking about them.  I glad your mental state is much better I you sir!

[David]

Well, I just responded to the board member who's battling depression.
I hope I can be of some help to this person.

That's how I'm making ammends to Sam & Grayson~~by coming clean, and using my blog to get stories like mine~~and others~~out into the open.

People who suffer from these illnesses need not be left alone to languish as I was.

I wish Sam & Grayson had tracked me down & gotten the police on my tail.
A judge would have taken one look at me and sent me to a hospital, where I could have gotten treatment long before I did.
I wish that had happened, but it didn't.

But maybe I can help others.

Thanks to everyone for their kind remarks, here, via email, and at my blog.

David

[David]

Here, from my blog, is the follow up post to my Grayson Hall confession:

http://davidsopenforum.blogspot.com/2008/08/whos-judging-who-follow-up-to-my-first.html

David

[retzev]

What is the name of this illness that compels a person to make heavy-breathing phone calls? 

[David]

Reztev's question is an example of why there needs to be more education regarding mental illness.
People really don't understand what these illnesses
can do.

No worries, Reztev. I'm happy to talk about it.

Manic depression, in a brief nutshell, causes the bearer
to have extreme highs of manic, out of control behavior, followed by extreme lows of deep, debilitating depression.
This is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain.
My meds control the imbalance, which ends the highs & lows.

My manic state caused me to lose control of my judgement, get very hyper, and do all sorts of crazy things I would never otherwise do.
The phone calls were just one way this manifested itself, and I'm not sure if there's an explanation for why I did this & not something else.

I know a bipolar woman who would throw dishes & food at people when her mania took over.
I never threw things at people, she never made phone calls.
Who knows why I did this & she did that, rather than the other way around?

David

[retzev]

Ok, so you've admitted to tormenting the Hall family for 10 years. I see no reason to applaud you for this.

Here is a direct quote from your blog:

"The curse of manic depression.
Hurting people with no knowledge of your own actions, then remembering what you've done long after the fact.
Who's hurt more, the Halls, or me?
It's a toss up."

Do you honestly believe this? According to your own story, you continually brought misery to the Hall family during Grayson's twighlight years, for 10 full years, and you didn't stop until she was dead. I'm glad to hear that Mr. Hall has accepted your apology. If anyone deserves applause and commendations for his bravery, it is Mr. Hall.

Why do you want to make your crimes known to all of DS fandom? Are you not ashamed of the misery you've inflicted on these peoples lives? Are you actually proud of what you've done? If you want to help others that suffer from your condition, you can do so quietly, and on a local level. I see no good reason for you to boast about this on an internet forum.

[Teresa]

I did not get the idea that David was boasting or looking for undue sympathies from us/anyone. Just sharing his story.  People with mental illness sometimes have unusual compulsions and are unable to control them. The illness chooses the action not the person.
If just one person on this board read and felt they had a similar issue or might know someone who does then it may lead them down the road to a happier healthier life and prevent another family like the Hall's from going through something like that.   Mr Hall does deserve applause and commendations for forgiveness ( or compassion) is not something we always find easy to do.

[retzev]

Oh well, who knows. God bless you all the same David. Forgive my outburst.

[David]

 
Retzev, it's OK.

What you expressed is what I came to feel.
What I did was horrible, and I would never choose to  behave that way.

I brought the story here because, to be honest, I saw a lot of untreated mental illness at the Fests years ago.
Though no one knew about my phone calls to the Halls, people at fests saw me in my hyper manic state.
I was unable to sit still, I talked a mile a minute, I was all over the place.

I was judged harshly then, sometimes by people who needed to look in a mirror.
One guy, whose name I won't mention, actually thought the Fest committee was "out to get him."
He told me he was going to "bring the fests down."
I have no idea how he intended to do this, but he asked me to help him.
I swear I'm not making this up, just as I'm not making my own story up.

For years, people like he & I were allowed to languish
as we were, and that's not OK.

People don't choose to act this way, they act this way because they're sick & need help.
If someone had dragged my sorry butt into a police station, if a judge had thrown my ass into a hospital back in 1976, imagine how much anguish could have been avoided.

Here's another story:
For five years I was in a relationship with Beecher, another manic depressive.
His right wing friends and siblings used our illnesses as a tool to enrage us against each other & destroy the relationship~~because they thought the relationship was wrong.

If I had been properly treated long ago, instead of being laughed at & judged, this too, could have been avoided.
There are millions like me out there.

When a person has diabetes or cancer, we don' laugh at them or judge them, we treat the disease.
It's time to adopt this same policy regarding mental illness.

And that's why I'm telling my story so bluntly and so harshly.
To kick the door open.
To help make sure that what happened to me~~and to the Halls~~doesn't happen anymore.

Don't applaud me.
What I did was horrible.
But honor Grayson's memory, by helping others like me to get help sooner rather than later.

David

 

[MagnusTrask]

I realize we're now getting far off from the topic of DS now, but I hope I'll be allowed to add a necessary voice to the discussion before we go back to DS.

I hate to talk so early in this, and want to be nothing but supportive, David, but there's also another side to the legal aspect of all this.   In some cases like yours David, earlier treatment apparently would have saved you and others a lot of time and agony, and you're suggesting forced treatment.   I understand why.   There are also other cases, though, many of them, where the legal mechanisms that make it possible to commit people have been abused by an individual's family who consider the family member "strange" and "wrong" (I'm sure it's happened to many gays over the decades).   Often the family has a financial stake, but there are other reasons too.  It's far too easy in many cases for the family to get the cooperation of a psychiatrist in this, who are often not nearly as nice and respectful as yours must have been, David.   

Non-conformity has very often been "medicalized" in the thinking of doctors and society.   This is always a danger, in any society, and not just in totalitarian societies like the old Soviet Union.     The label of mental illness is justifiably liberating to some such as you in your situation, David.  At the same time, in very different situations, it's also used by more imperious, intolerant psychiatrists to label and then confine and drug the wrong individuals involuntarily.    I have some personal knowledge of this, and know of many other cases too.    Drug the wrong people with certain drugs (neuroleptics especially) and damage can easily be done, which psychiatrists don't necessarily have to acknowledge, because psychiatrists decide whether a person in confinement has been helped, not the patient.    Confined patients are invalidated people and often aren't heard.

So the whole issue of committment is a muddy and messy one.   We can't do without it as a society, but we really need for it not to be an easier process, and there need to be more safeguards against abuse.  Maybe there's a way to have those safeguards and still make it easier and faster for people in your position to get help, David.

I also take a bit of a risk by saying this kind of thing.   People often react angrily or contemptuously, no matter how hard I try to show that I'm taking everyone's experiences, both positive and negative, into account as best I can.   Everyone's stories need to be told and heard.

[David]

I know what you're talking about, Trask.
What you describe actually happened to the actress Frances Farmer. (Chris Pennock played Farmer's first husband in the Jessica Lange film)

One way to stop abuses such as what happened to Farmer
might be to get second & third opinions from different doctors at different institutions.


David