3,181 Comments Posted by Lynne

Now I am REALLY likin' Van Gogo here. :-)

Wasn't ripping you a new one - however, yours was the comment that tipped me by suggesting, as many others have (see above) that perhaps I should adopt the view that "art is in the mind of the beholder" when so many people already view the entire field through a filter of "creative art." That was my point. If you look at the comments I was pointing out, THAT is where the "creative art" is. Those were written by people who don't have a clue about how these places work or used to work, and now they all have something to say, and almost every bit of it negative. I don't want to be THAT creative - I just want to point out what has happened - the bad stuff AND the good stuff. Most of the times that I have tried to pull us all back to reality I have gotten:
1-) asked to look at this as "art".
2-) told that I am cold and sterile.
3-) told of a story that happened to one person that obviously means that everything I have said must be false.
4-) told that if I can't see it there way I must be one of the Nazis.

Sorry if you were in the way when I exploded, but I am also tired of being picked at for telling about reality - what it's like to live and work here - and it grieves me repeatedly to see the lives of the people who live(d) and work(ed) here reduced to someone's "artistic fantasy."

reddll,

Well, bless your aunt! People like that make it all worthwhile! :-)

CAS,

I know. [sob] I feel the same way. [heavy sigh] The only thing that keeps me going on, bravely, is the sheer terror that if somehow I break down, they will haul me away to a psychiatric facility. And you know what THAT means. It means that there is (apparently, from all the creative writing posts I have had the extreme pleasure of reading) an extremely high chance that I will:
1- be kept away from society against my will for long periods of time for no discernible reason.
2- be locked up in seclusion for long periods of time at the whim of cruel staff (mostly those "fast-assed lazy nurses").
3- be starved.
4- be forced to use the torturous machine of jiggling weight reduction.
5- be stuck in a small room with only a slot in the door near the floor, forced to stick my fingers out, looking for nonexistent human warmth and contact.
6- be put in hydrotherapy for weeks at a time in ice cold water after they dump trays and trays of ice cubes in it.
7- be shocked.
8- be lobotomized.
9- be given a "chemical lobotomy" in the way of massive oversedation, mostly as a form of experimentation, partly as a means of keeping me tranquil and zombied out.
10- be given no privacy when bathing or using the bathroom.
11- be forced to sleep in a large crib.
12- have my fuzzy teddy bear taken away from me as a particularly cruel form of abuse.
13- be cremated if I die there (and I probably will, given all the horrors I have described above).
14- be compelled, after I die, to roam the halls of the deserted asylum I last lived in, only in the shape of a fat white blob (not too different than how I currently look, at least), caught on photos only when a piece of lint happens to fly by or a drop of water gets on someone's camera lens - mistaken at times for the orb of Radical Ed's beer instead of the tortured soul I will be.

But worst of all, they will force me to read comments like the ones I previously quoted and they will try to brainwash me that these were the only pieces of reality that ever existed and that any other beliefs I might have had were just delusions - the ramblings of an overactive and demented mind.

And I will be released only when I come out of there thinking that everything is black and white.

CAS - help! They are trying to make me (gasp - choke - sputter) "NORMAL"! AAAAEEEEIIIIEEEEEE!!!!!!! Run for your very life, my friend! =8-o

So . . . I am guessing you might not appreciate this?

My post was written a month or two back when I still had enough energy to try to deal with peoples' negativity and lack of attempt to see that there was also a positive side to the field, both historically and presently. I have spent many hours hoping to get people to see a more rounded picture and not a one-sided picture, such as is commonly portrayed in the media and only attended to by most of the public if there is something gruesome or terrible involved. Like everything else, the field has changed as our knowledge base has increased.

However, I admit that I have had so many people try to argue me out of this larger more objective viewpoint that I don't care anymore. Yes, we have had so much in the way of "art is in the eye of the beholder" here that I might as well join along with the rest of the people. So I offer this as my humble part toward apologizing for trying to paint a larger, more hopeful picture of where we have been and where I hope to see us going. I will now stop trying to be objective and will start demonizing the entire field and admitting that there was never anything good that happened ever even one time no I'm not kidding what a bunch of evil-doers bad bad people shame on you all.

Yes, that cute little bear belonged to some perfectly fabulous child who would have been fine if he had not been kidnapped by the bad institution staff http://www.opacity.us/...ows.htm#comment_5907 (or placed there by an obviously unloving family because who but a pervert would abandon their child to such a hellhole? http://www.opacity.us/...ib.htm#comment_5334.) This child was starved and forced to work out in the "torture room of weight reduction," http://www.opacity.us/...ss.htm#comment_27916 and then they dangled the teddy bear in front of him, sneering that he would never see it again.http://www.opacity....ange_bathroom.htm#comment_27931

Then they did experiments on him - hideous, unspeakable tortures that we can only dream of.
http://www.opacity.us/...ub.htm#comment_31014 http://www.opacity.us/...ame.htm#comment_8435

Then they put him in a hydrotherapy bath for weeks at a time, full of ice cold water and ice cubes.
http://www.opacity.us/...py.htm#comment_13309
http://www.opacity.us/...te.htm#comment_16897

Then when his little body could hold on no longer, they probably burned him in the crematorium that was handily attached to every single residential facility that was ever built ("just in case").
http://www.opacity.us/...ts.htm#comment_34248
http://www.opacity.us/...ck.htm#comment_34808
http://www.opacity.us/...nt.htm#comment_19205

And with all those hand-dandy coffins lying about, they could just zip him away with no one the wiser.
http://www.opacity.us/...raw.htm#comment_1713

Yeah, I guess you are right - art IS in the eye of the beholder.

Given that this was a power station, I would have to agree - who knows just what the heck happened here? ;-)

Definitely torture. Jo or surly girl will chime in here at some point, or Dr. Sketch or Tony or someone, and we will all agree - DEFINITELY torture. ;-)

So he stayed in the fridge from age 7 to age 9 till he figured it out? =8-o

Oh sure! Thank me and then call me "long winded" in the next sentence! Boo hoo! 8`-(

Plenty of room for more - plenty of room. Come on over to the Forum and fire one up with us. :-)

Magg0t,

Come on over to the Forum and find out!

Magg0t,

Radical Ed IS Byberry. Can't think of any other way to say it.

I can't even use the word "abnormal" in a sentence any more without breaking down into some serious giggling - not a good thing for a clinical psychologist. :-(

Dang! I was looking for a little excitement, romance, and glamour in my old age. :-(