Update on my life

For y’all who are curious as to how I am doing. In a word, excellent:

I am feeling remarkably cheerful at the moment, better than I have in a long time. I’m making great progress in my psychotherapy and have had a few heart-to-heart talks with my dad, saying things that I ought to have said a long time ago. I’ve stopped brooding so much over problems I’ve had in the past and bad things that have happened to me. I’m learning more social skills. Michael and I are getting along well. And my head almost never hurts anymore, which is worth as much as all the aforementioned things put together. I don’t know if the Cleveland Clinic worked some kind of magic and cured me (which they said they could not do) or whether the headache just ran out of gas or what. I don’t even care, as long as it stays gone.

I don’t feel depressed at all anymore. I think it’s mostly the medication, especially the Depakote I started taking in June. I turned out I have a mild form of bipolar which had been undiagnosed for years. The result was that every week or two, for a few hours or a few days, I’d plunge into suicidal despair for no apparent reason (sometimes I’d just burst out screaming and crying in public, saying I wanted to die, unable to stop myself; it was very embarrassing), then come out of it just as inexplicably, and then go around talking too fast and being way too enthusiastic about random things and generally creeping people out. I had just tried to deal with it and figured it was depression, or maybe just part of my personality. But then I started taking the Depakote and, almost instantly, all that went away. I’m so glad. The mood swings were exhausting to me and my loved ones. Michael said he never knew what person I would be when he came home from work at night. I still take two anti-depressants though, cause depression has always been my primary problem. That’s why I say I have “depression/bipolar.”

I’ve been reading less, only about half as much as last year. This bothers me a bit, since there are so many good books out there that I want to finish. (Number of books on current to-read list: 697.) But I think it’s actually a sign of progress. The primary reason for my reading so much was to distract myself from severe pain, depression or personal problems. I’d leap frantically from book to book to book to book as if they were boulders above a terrible lethal rapids I was trying to cross. Now, I don’t read as much because I don’t need to distract myself anymore. I have fewer problems and have developed better coping skills.

I’ve also just started my college classes again, chasing after that ever-elusive degree, after giving my studies a break for almost a year due to my health problems. This makes Michael and my parents happy.

Terry Rouse’s cousin charged with his murder

Craig Lester Thrift, the cousin of Terry Eugene Rouse, has been charged with his murder. Terry disappeared from Waycross, Georgia in May 1991, when he was 24. The two men, in addition to being kin, were coworkers and best friends.

Thrift had apparently been a suspect since the beginning, but the cops never found enough evidence to charge him until now. Terry’s body hasn’t been found, though. During the investigation, the police searched Thrift’s house and found pot and guns, which resulted in charges against him. Several witnesses said he’d told them he’d shot Terry to death.

More on Dwight Stallings

I wrote about Dwight Stallings on Sunday. The eleven-month-old has been missing for over a year and the cops just found out about it, and his mom, Tanisha Edwards (the last person known to have cared for him, now in jail on unrelated charges), has not been terribly helpful in locating him. It’s an all too familiar story. Well, I found this article with more details on the case.

According to new information from the Sheriff’s Department, Edwards’ accounts have included the following: That the baby grew sick and died at an unknown hospital; that the baby was with relatives she wouldn’t identify; that the baby was with black Muslim women she didn’t identify; and that the baby was taken by two men dressed in black.

[…]

Among her conflicting statements to detectives, Edwards has said she had no way of contacting the people who she gave her son to and that she kept communication minimal to protect herself, according to the Sheriff’s Department. She said two women had been calling her cell phone with updates on the child until December, when they stopped contact.

Sure. Whatever, Tanisha. It’s your own grave you’re digging.

UPDATE: He is now on NCMEC.

Anniversary article on Taj Narbonne case

Nine-year-old Taj Narbonne disappeared from Leominster, Massachusetts (my idol Robert Cormier’s hometown, incidentally) thirty-one years ago on March 31. I’ve had a lot of contradictory information on this disappearance, but the primary suspect is his then-stepfather, who was violent and seemed to detest the child. His stepfather is now in a state mental hospital. Recently the cops found some photos that resembled Taj, but the FBI said they weren’t a match.

I found this article about the ongoing investigation into Taj’s disappearance. The article needs a bit of editing: they say “After pouring over reports and accounts of what happened that night, Aubuchon said a few things struck him that lead to Dean being a person of interest” and then go on about Dean, without saying he was Clarence Dean, Taj’s stepfather. They also fail to identify “Annette” as Annette Dean, Taj’s mom.

Springtime, when the crazies come out of their dens

An email today, which I quote in its entirety:

So let’s recap. While the overpaid police union SCUM were throwing pot and sex parties on someone else’s property in accordance with their “liberaltarianism politics” (used as an excuse) and harassing
(for example “the panty raid” where I got stuck with the ticket even though the accuser didn’t show up and the “fleeing and eluding” where I somehow managed to collect a signed ticket (two weeks after the other one and seconds before I decided to take the great $2500 legal advice of “Get out of town )and then make a magical “escape” from the entire Whitehall PA Police Department)
the ONE supervising PERSON who spoke out against the “skinnydipping” at Camp Good News whose pedophile and porno addicted doctors and Camp Directors later contacted Robert Wood and wrote his trailer trash sermons for him (just before the Sara Wood Kidnapping), Camp Director Chuck DeVita was spending as many as 20 years groping pre-adolescent boys AND working as a teacher in Upstate NY …AND Ernie Milnes (later convicted as a Tier 3 Sex Offender) had free roam of the countryside.

I don’t suppose the general public will ever see the news because the most important “thing” is that the overpaid, inbred, lazy stupid racist pig animal police union scum don’t get publicly (and widely) “reformed”.

Oh-kay. *backs away slowly*