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| "When the spy operation or schizophrenic episode started, I felt like I had woken up in the middle of a science fiction movie or the novel 1984." by Myra Sue St. Clair Baldwin Photo by Orion Moon. November 2019. |
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| "When I was staying at the Hope House shelter in downtown Spokane, Washington, I had to leave the shelter every day and carry my bags around with me everywhere. Bags are heavy to carry and will really weigh you down. Fortunately for me, I had a monthly bus pass, so I only had to walk a couple of blocks to get to a bus stop wherever I went. I'm no longer homeless, but brought some bags of props with me for the photo-shoot." by Myra Sue St. Clair Baldwin Photo by Orion Moon. November 2019. |
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| "Desperate for Police Attention" Photo by Orion Moon. November 2019. |
The “Privacy Invasion Stunt”, My Descent into Homelessness, & Life Before Privacy Invasion
by Myra Sue St.Clair Baldwin
Upcoming Brand New Essays, & Recap of Pilot Essay
A Sneak Peak into the Future & Previously…
- Essay 2 Preview: Kicked to the Curb & An Underground Journalist
- Essay 3 Preview: A "Useless Hoarder" with "Junky Behaviors"
- Essay 4 Preview: Drama Therapy: Playing Pretend & Dress Up
- Previously: Essay #1 (Introduction): A Carrie Brownstein Wannabe Tries on Different Hats!
Previously: A Recap of the Pilot Essay:
Essay 1: A Carrie Brownstein Wannabe Tries on Different Hats! (Pilot Essay: Preview)
An overview of the worst part of the “spy
operation”, which I endured while I lived at the Coeur d’Alene Plaza
apartments, above Boo Radley’s and Atticus, in downtown Spokane, WA.
The voices I heard through the walls, in my
home, and in my head questioned if I have multiple personality disorder and if
I had good acting skills. I
demonstrated how to play pretend (adults usually forget how to play pretend) by
playing pretend at being Carrie Brownstein. I told them I was a Carrie
Brownstein (of the show Portlandia and band Sleater-Kinney) wannabe and showed
them how I had worn different hats through-out the years and in various roles.
I went from imagining a world in which no one is locked up into imagining a
world in which my many, many spies (including family and neighbors at the time)
would be locked up for the rest of their lives for their part in what I called
a psychologically torturous “Mind Control Stunt”! I wanted to end the “Age of
Garbage” and thought of myself as an almost-famous civil rights activist
standing up for the privacy rights of each and every United States American citizen
nationwide!
Read the full essay here.. Click on “Subscribe” to stay in the loop
about upcoming essays on the “Privacy Invasion Stunt”, video interviews &
lectures, plus opinion articles about my views on religion & politics.
Coming Soon - Preview of Brand New Upcoming Essays:
Essay 2: Kicked to the Curb & an Underground
Journalist (Preview)
In January of 2016, I lost my apartment due
to hoarding. In late February, after a couple of months of staying with my
parents until the low temperatures were above freezing, I was ready to venture
out and try life on the streets (and give my parents and I some much-needed
space from each other). Mostly, I stayed in a shelter. The first couple of
nights out there, there weren’t enough beds at the shelter, so I slept on the
streets and proudly imagined my “street credentials” growing exponentially.
Gaining “street credentials” is a good goal for a wannabe underground
journalist and wannabe anthropologist, so I proudly slept on top of cardboard,
with my purse wrapped around my neck in hope that my most important belongings
wouldn’t get stolen, and went to sleep. I woke up, still alive as I hadn’t been
beaten to death like some homeless people are.
I started staying in the shelter and found
extra-curricular activities to do in town to occupy my time. At the time, I
found just sitting around thinking to be highly disagreeable to me, but didn’t
quite yet feel ready to write about the privacy invasion experience. I bounced
from activity to activity to outrun the voices and memories that plagued me and
also to imagine myself being the great award-winning free-lance journalist the
voices had told me I could be.
Essay 3: “A Useless Hoarder” With “Junky Behaviors”
(Preview)
During the spy operation, I heard my Brother
Gene’s voice calling me a “useless hoarder”. I also heard one of my neighbor’s
voices say “She has all these junky behaviors”. I looked around at my so-called
“junk” (which I took great pride in) and wondered what EXACTLY he meant by that. Besides left-over disassembled pens and
left-over bent paperclips, I was also saving left-over melted candle-wax,
left-over soap, pencil shavings from color pencils and regular pencils,
left-over markers that I planned to someday refill, clothing scraps from used
cut-up clothes (for doo-rags and other neat stuff), left-over reclaimed leather
from a coat left outside the dumpster behind the apartment complex, washed out
Pringles containers and other packaging, jelly jars and other jars, card-board,
plus various other stuff. I also had a huge collection of books and years worth
of unorganized paperwork stuffed into boxes. There were books on stacked
milk-crates and stacks of books on the floor.
Essay 4: Play-Acting & Dress Up
(Preview)
Before the spy operation began, I had begun
playing pretend at being an underground journalist, a comedian, a storyteller,
and a great artist. I was loud and laughing and a friend thought I had a
“following” of neighbors who listened to me through the walls and enjoyed what
I was saying. I was having lots of fun cutting up old garments and using them
to make doo-rags, tube tops, mini-skirts, and other fashionable attire. Then I
would play “dress up” as part of my mood-busting routine that I had developed
to chase the blues away and keep them away. Later, when I became homeless, I
imagined myself as a star out there on stage. I checked out a couple of books.
One was “Man at the Helm” about a pill-popping mama who was also a playwright
and performed play-acting for her family. Another was “A Streetcar Named
Desire” which I checked out because the Spokane Civic Theatre was going to show
that play and I thought about rehearsing for it and showing up to audition
(though I’m not sure if the shelter would have saved my bed each night while I
was doing rehearsals). I think I realized at some point that I wouldn’t have
the long-term energy needed anyway to be an actor. So much for needing a year
or two of drama school like one of the voices suggested.
The perceived issues of a schizophrenic are considered imaginary and invisible. No one is evicted from an apartment for hoarding. One could see your blasphemy as the demons in your head speaking through you. One cannot take a schizophrenic seriously if they do not speak in a reputable and respectful way. Your outspeak against God is the persecution of a being's freewill to choose what is right for them, on their own accord, without influence or persecution. I refuse to take you seriously because of your lack of effective communication. One who acts as a vagrant, and a beggar, choosing to force their views on other people is nothing more than a misled individual. Do not attempt to peddle your beliefs if you are not of sound mind. No one, including myself, will take you seriously.
ReplyDeleteI'm medicated and AM of sound mind. I was an anti-theist long before I became schizophrenic. And actually, people DO lose their housing over hoarding because they're often considered a fire threat. I'm not forcing anyone to choose atheism or anti-theism over God. I'm simply providing rationale for why I believe the biblical god is a genocidal dictator. Also, there's so many different gods out there; who is to say which God is the correct god to follow. I consider myself more rational than many theists.
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