Journal Entries
My Mother's Operation
Posted Nov 6, 2001
My mother went for an operation today - a hysterectomy. Last week she started to get pains in her abdomen. She went to the doctor, they scanned her abdomen and discovered that she had huge cysts in her ovaries. They had to come out. So today, around three o' clock, they operated on her. We went to see her from about 7 to 8 o' clock the evening. She was still very groggy, and her mouth was very dry, but apart from that, she was fine. The cysts were completely benign. We are very thankful that it went so well. My mother has some problems with her lungs, and we were worried that there might be complications with the anaesthesia. There weren't. Nevertheless, she was on oxygen when we saw her. That is probably just a precautionary measure. She will be in hospital until about friday, and then will come home and stay here for the rest of the year ... no more work for her! It will be nice to have her around. Me and my dad will take good care of her!
It's her fifty-seventh birthday this Thursday ... so she'll celebrate it in hospital. My father and I still don't know what gift to get her!
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Latest reply: Nov 6, 2001
Where I was ...
Posted Oct 13, 2001
This is what my Userspace used to say, from 23 September until 12 October:
"On Sunday Morning, 23 September, between 9 and 11 O'clock at morning, I was here in the study with a loaded 38 special revolver, intending to kill myself. First I wanted to talk to my friends over here ... I was afraid they might take it a bit hard, I wanted to leave some messages for them ... at the same time, to tell them it was not so bad, but also tell them why it was so bad that I wanted to kill myself over it, and all the while unable to tell them what was so bad, because it was just *so* bad. Well the servers did not co-operate. The journals loaded way too slow. So it took way too long. In between I went out and fired a shot off into the compost heap in the back yard, just to convince myself I had it in me to pull the trigger. It was easy, and the leaves muffled the sound so that it sounded like little more than a loud firecracker. It also made it seem, for me, who have in so very long time (fifteen years, about) not fired a gun, a very natural act to do, again. I got back online. Some of my friends notified people in South Africa, but got very frustrated by the response. My parents were in church, and I wanted to do it before they left. But I was held up by the slow servers and all the messages. So sometime after eleven o'clock my parents showed up here and I could not do it in front of them. We then talked about it ... I still despeartely wanted to do it. We talked some more. At last I gave up the gun and admitted I need help. Then I went to a doctor for an injection. I talked with the doctor as well. Soon I will leave for a mental institution. There I will stay for probably a long while. You can still contact me. You can post messages on my userspace ... mark them clearly, put the words 'for Willem' in their titles. I will ask my fater to drop in every day or two, log in here, open messages and print them out and send them to me there in the clinic. Over there I will write messages on paper, and ask my father to come here and post them here from time to time. I will also respond to email in the same way ... remember to clearly mark the email title as well so it is clear it's not some s****y spam message. Please ... I will need contact. I love you all and want to hear from you and will feel very alone over there."
I am now back home from the clinic. I just want this old message to appear in my journal, so it stays publicly visible, because I will now write a new introduction. Allow me to say thanks to everybody who sent their messages ... they really boosted my spirits a lot.
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Latest reply: Oct 13, 2001
Here I am again!
Posted Oct 12, 2001
Just to let you all know - I am back, and will log on for a long period tonight! (It's 12.50 afternoon here now.) How'z everybody?
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Latest reply: Oct 12, 2001
A second letter from the bin
Posted Oct 8, 2001
Hello again Everybody,
8 October 2001
I hope everything is going as well as possible with/for you all. I want to thank all of you who continued to send messages. I would really like to send individual answers to all of you but I don't want to make things too difficult for my parents. As you know, my father has been through a harrowing ordeal a while ago and is currently also suffering from post traumatic stress. He said he would help me and I do need his help, and I'll also try to help him in return. To make his part easy I'm going to restrict my messages to mainly my journals here on h2g2 to minimize the number of separate postings that need to be done. My father also does not have lots of time to read through h2g2 and my e-mail does not work at the moment. Please remember to send urgent messages to my father's e-mail address here ([email protected]).
Now for a few specific messages:
First A Girl called Ben: Thank you for all your letters; thank you for the care you put into them and also I wish for courage for you, so you can face your own difficulties. I am thinking of you and stroking all the cats here a lot as you asked me to.
Next, Fenny: Thanks for your constant stream of letters, for your jokes, your stories, for thinking of us and for praying for Zero Intolerance. Valerie and Vivienne are both doing their darnedest and will soon let hear of them again.
To Jenny: Thanks for everything you did and continue to do to spread peace and love around. Thanks for the closeness and honesty of your friendship. Please hang on. I'll soon be back to help out again.
To David et al: Thanks for your tireless behind-the-scene work here and elsewhere. We'll talk soon.
To Credit/Leaky? : I am really looking forward to resuming our acquaintance. Thanks for your kind messages and love and wishes for joy and strength back to you.
The same to dr. Gonzo.
To Barton: I hope you read this message. My father has found it difficult to contact you. Be assured that I am going to get out of here in one piece, and better than before.
To Dastardly: I am sorry, but my father is having problems reaching you too. I hope you are still well. Thank you very much for your messages. They have cheered me up immensely.
Last, but not least, I want to ask Pandora to stay patient in turn until I can be completely back and able to start out our friendship in earnest.
There is one thing that I am really worried about: What happened to Hoovooloo?
Okay, let me also add thanks and love to everybody else as well.
Now for the report on how I am doing. I am sad and disgusted and afraid. There are people with serious problems in here and I listen to them. I can help some of them a little bit, but in most cases I am helpless and can do nothing to make things even a little bit better. These problems are of a complicated nature, and everything indicates that similar problems will keep on arising more and more frequently in this country. The violence will not stop but only get worse and so I am facing ever improving prospects of myself, my friends and relatives getting robbed, assaulted, raped, intimidated and murdered. Here in the clinic right now is a teenage guy who was raped by a man with a knife. It happened in Sunnyside which is the part of the city where I was born and spent the first years of my life. Back then it was still safe and friendly, but now it is getting really dangerous. It is not nice to live in a place where you worry about getting raped. When I as a man hear of a man being raped, and consider what it might feel like if it were to happen to me, I am outraged, not only on behalf of those few men who are unfortunate enough to befall it, but also on behalf of the many women to whom it happens as a matter of routine. I am outraged that I am shocked to hear that a man was raped, because I am not that shocked any more to hear that a woman has been raped, as if it become more acceptable through such regular repetition. I never want to become desensitized. I never want to be anything less than shocked to hear about an assault or rape, whether of a man or a woman. It is a bad thing. I feel we need to do something about the crime in our society. We need to do something to uplift humanity. Right now all over the world people are desperate and life is cheap. There is little to respect and to appreciate. I wish I could do something to change this situation, but the truth is that even I did succumb to it and on occasion start to believe that existence is worthless. So I am still very unhappy and I am still thinking of suicide a lot. I don't know if or when I will get better. I try to remain positive, but every now and then I am just overwhelmed by helplessness, futility and expectation of the worst. This attitude is hard to overcome in a society and world where things very often do seem to come to the worst.
Okay, that is my message for the day. I hope I have not depressed any of you, but that is how I feel. Be assured your messages do serve to cheer me up. Without them I would probably have felt even worse. So I also ask don't feel down on my behalf, but try to stay happy and positive.
Love and thanks,
Willem.
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Latest reply: Oct 8, 2001
From the Bin
Posted Oct 5, 2001
Dear Friends,
October 1, 2001.
I would like to write more except that I don't want to overburden my parents. Right now here at Denmar I'm spending a lot of time writing my life history for my shrink. It's a tough task. Up till now I've progressed as far as my third birthday. I also spend a while everyday keeping myself physically fit; pushups, chin-ups and running and a bit of playing sport here and there. Then there is the sessions with my psychiatrist and psychologist and voluntary group sessions of which I try to attend at least one a day, and I also try and draw something in the workroom every day or two. I'm reading my book and making notes and writing letters and in the time that's left I socialize a little with my fellow inmates. With my psychiatrist right now, I'm discussing the need for medication. I'm being given a drug called Seroquel which, as I understand it, is an anti-psychotic medication. The doctor says it is to curb my paranoid tendencies. I perceive the world and the people around me for most of the time as being very hostile. You guys who know me well know that I'm a social critic. I think that the dominant world view right now is, in its nature, anti-human and anti-life. That's simplifying it greatly, but I can't simplify it in any other way and it is indeed the way I perceive things. The only solution I can see, is to replace the current dominant world view with one that is a huge lot more people friendly and life friendly.
Okay, that's my message for now.
I hope you're all keeping yourselves as well as possible.
Love, good wishes, blessings and thanks,
Willem
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Latest reply: Oct 5, 2001
Einauni Muznobotti
Researcher U183480
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