I have come to the conclusion that while my approach in sharing my conversations with the spirit of a somewhat well known person was naive, my reasons for doing so were positive if ill advised. I was and remain disgusted by the extreme expressions of thought regarding this fragile, mentally ill young man. People tend to either lionize or demonize him. He was neither heroic nor evil. He was a troubled person who struggled with debilitating psychological problems, and those problems eventually won out. He was in desperate need of help and support. He received neither.
My wish was that by illustrating this tragic figure through what I hoped was an interesting story, I could shed light on the important issues of proper treatment for psychiatric illness and on seeing those living with these conditions as people, not freaks.
I did not look ahead enough to anticipate that the majority of what I would attract were not individuals who felt genuine concern or sympathy for this unfortunate individual. Instead, the bulk of respondents were what I would term "fan girls." These young ladies were more interested in organs located much lower on the young gentleman's body than his brain. The fact that he was no longer in any condition to service their desires seemed to be inconsequential. The most dismaying aspect of this was the fact that I (and I am not alone in this) perceived the subject as having the emotional state of a child even though he was physically an adult. Thus, the fact that these young ladies saw him as merely a sexual object was particularly distressing.
While these people were not direct attackers, I found them parasitic.
The second category of negative respondents were those who were angry with me for portraying their EVIL HERO as human and not in fact evil. There were far less of these than there were of the fan girls, and the majority of them were male.
The third category of negative respondents were those who disliked said fellow and wanted to take me to the task for speaking in his defense. If I recall correctly, all members of this category were male.
Having to deal with my own ration of psychological shit, I realized that I was not capable of taking on such a project and standing my ground. It has been very draining for me and I am by far the worse for wear for having done it.
I do not entirely regret my decision. I look back and feel that my motives were laudable, but my approach was folly.
I will not apologize for my claim that I had contact with the spirit of this person. But nor will I discuss it further.
Thank you to those who supported the true spirit of the project. I apologize for letting you down.
