I AM A HUMAN BEING. NOT A PIECE OF MACHINERY. There is something profoundly disturbing about a society that increasingly believes the answer to human suffering is to take a person, place them inside an institution, subject them to a prescribed system of behavioral correction, and then declare the process successful when they have learned how to become more acceptable to everyone else. Whether it is a police department, an intensive outpatient program, a behavioral health institution, or some other supposedly therapeutic intervention, there is a fundamental question that nobody seems particularly interested in asking: Are we actually helping human beings live, or are we simply teaching them how to become more manageable? Because there is a difference. A very fucking significant difference. There is a difference between helping someone recover their ability to live freely and teaching them that their freedom is conditional upon their willingness to conform. There is a differe...
Jeffrey, I’ve said what I needed to say about how I feel, what I feel about you, and what I expected. I love you. I truly do. I hope you are not a willing part of this. The man I know and love could never become what they are trying to make him appear to be. By your nature you have always been a being of divine love. I could not have loved or married anyone who was not. We both loved the gods—as far as I know—and I pray that has not changed. That is still who I believe you to be. --- I’ve been through hell. I’m still in it. This is what I believe. This is what they have spent years trying to force me to believe about you. This is the version of you they need me to accept so the rest of the machinery can keep running. I hope I am wrong. I hope it is only their game. But if any of it is true, then I hate that truth with everything I am. And I still love you. I know that, to you, it ...