There is something to be said for simplifying your life to the point where you can do what you think is valuable. It took a trip from a friend to help me remember that "value" is sometimes measured in the good that is done and not the money that you make. I'm reminded as well that as life, for me, gets more complicated, that many of my friends are looking to simplify their lives after their "big careers".
I don't think that I could ever have foreseen what my life would become when I made the decision to let go of my career for the safety of the people that I worked with, to pursue whomever it was that was stalking me. If I had known that it would have included doing television interviews about "hearing voices" in my head, I sincerely doubt I would have looked forward to it. Somehow I knew that I had a story to tell, in some ways I've always felt that way. I didn't know if it had to do with the gay thing, the HIV thing or just a feeling I had inside. When I least expected it, my life, in total, became the story. Encompassing so many other people's stories is the amazing part. There were so many others that had a story about this crime that telling my part seemed like a springboard for change.
I couldn't have imagined that online people were already discussing what I was experiencing. It wasn't until one of my team members contacted Dr. John Hall, that I realized there were already people calling what I was experiencing, "gang stalking", even now I'm surprised at how long it took me to relate "being followed" with the "voices in head". I took time to put the pieces together into a puzzle that made sense. When I stepped back to look at the picture, I was looking into the face of hate that I'd seen once in my life. I thought I'd never have to see that face again. Interesting how life hands us the same obstacles over and over until we learn to deal with them, isn't it? All of a sudden, the path was cleared...I knew who was behind my terror. I'd seen it before. I didn't know how to handle it. I let it control how I felt and it guided me into law enforcement in the courtroom. There I felt safe. That's where justice was served daily. I never thought the same evil would dare show up there. It did.
The kind of security that I felt working in the chambers of the judges that employed me, made me feel strong. It made me feel important. Suddenly all those student that got into all those law schools had to come to me for answers. Boy did that feel good. I was working with Stanford, Harvard, Cornell and Berkeley graduates, United States Attorneys, federal criminal defense lawyers and the judiciary tried to lure me to work for other chambers. I felt extremely secure in knowing that I'd found my niche. The days leading up to the darkness entering the courtroom are the subject of my first diary, written as a way to hide my secret and let out my fear. I was screaming with my pen, punching with my words, while cooly working out at the beach. I couldn't figure out why these people, without smiles, were following me, but I wouldn't let them see me crack. Only my diary listened to my anger and questions, nobody else would have believed me, and of course, it provided no answers.
I somehow knew that if these "actors" saw themselves getting to me, breaking me down, shaking, worried, that they would get worse. More violent, more aggressive and more inside of my head. I didn't realize for a long time that they were already there. I can remember reading self help books like, "The Four Agreements" and "Conversations With God", on the bus, thinking, "How could anyone follow someone that was trying to be a better person?" They were not only nonplussed, they scoffed at the idea that whomever I was, I had no business trying to be a better person. It was as if the damage was already done and I'd left the scene of the accident. I was a federal agent without protection from an evil I couldn't quantify. I just couldn't tell the judge that I was working for that I felt as if I was being followed to and from work, because I didn't have proof. You have to experience this for a while before you notice the subtleties of stalkers that don't talk. Most of them reminded me of Neo from "The Matrix" with their dark sunglasses and their scowls. No emotion and if you were polite to them, there would be no response. What if, and this was a true feeling, someone had seen me out partying and the stalking was being done by my own employer?
I'd worked very hard to abide by what I like to call a "moral code of conduct" which meant not going to bathhouses, bars to get drunk and just about anything that would cast a shadow on the light of the torch of Justice. I had to be "that guy". The one that looked perfect, worked perfect, behaved perfect and above all else, made my judge look perfect. The job of the court clerk is to make the judge look good; not to draw attention with some kind of scandal. I became as statuesque and hard working as I could. I moved into THE apartment in THE right part of town and I was doing the job. Evil entered my apartment when I wasn't there. My landlord let him in. Within months I was asked to leave because someone had made an offer to buy the condo I'd just moved in to. I was crushed and my "safe haven" was no longer, I moved with a boyfriend into an apartment downtown, first floor, into a place a friend of mine owned. It wasn't THE place, but it would do for then.
A home on the corner of a downtown street in San Diego is like living in a fishbowl, which meant I was seeing "Neo's" all day and night, walking all around my apartment on the sidewalk outside. This is the apartment that I moved in to with the kindness of my friend Gary, who owned the places. I had to move very quickly as the property manager was needing to sell this condo quickly. I spent days cleaning that place to get my deposit back and strangely, she called me and told me that I'd left drug paraphernalia all over the house and I wouldn't get my money back. Mind you, I'd had the carpet professionally cleaned and had left it spotless...it was newer than the day I moved in. I thought she was just mean...I wrote it off.
Here is the apartment I moved in to:
This would be my last apartment in San Diego before the shooting. It was haunting to see the array of "Neo" vehicles that would arrive soon after I got home from work and that pass by all night long if I was up. None of the other streets were busy with traffic at night. Not ever. San Diego downtown closes down after about 6 pm and it is quiet. I noticed right away that the people following me to my work were now everywhere.
By the time I was ready to stop partying, to make me feel better about being followed, I got shot at with a small caliber hand gun, through the driver's side window of my Honda Civic. It missed me by five inches, but it might as well have pierced my temple and lodged itself in my brain; I couldn't forget that feeling of being someone that someone wanted to kill. It didn't matter, at that point, if the bullet was intended for Kevin or just me the human being, but it sure felt personal. I'd been stalked for years and years and this was the first night that the Neo's weren't around. It was a silent night and I'd not seen one of those in years. It was so eerie that I took another route home than my usual path...through the Italian Village and right by the El Cortez. The bullet was the only thing out and about that night. The bullet and the smiling hooded criminals that tried to kill me. I remember their faces and everything. Mostly I remember the smile of the driver. Did he actually smile at me knowing that I'd be dead a split second later?
A shooter in an American made truck with a white camper shell...silver or gray paint...took the rest of my feelings of accomplishment away. Now I wasn't just being followed everywhere, someone was firing bullets. Once again, it sure felt personal. The next day the Neo's were back again, full force. In the courtroom and all over the federal plaza on Front Street. I was still working, but mentally I was on that street with the smashed window every day. I went to counseling and when I went to my boss with the directions from the EAP counselor, he suspended me. Worse, he told me the worst thing of all, "I have people following you everywhere, I'll know what you are up to." That was it. He was behind it. I went from being his "star performer" to his chief screw up. I certainly couldn't tell anyone that I was being stalked now, who would care? I made the decision to leave that job and San Diego to pursue what I knew was this crime against me. I knew it started there, I knew I'd experienced it there since. Somehow I knew it was time to face my fear and Palm Springs was the place.
What you've read on this blog is the product of years of investigation. Hard work. Informant discoveries. Disappointments. Small successes. Rape, stalking, tears and one more thing, love. You see this project has VALUE in it. It's already touched the lives of the men you see in the television interview on the right of the page. It has curbed the appetite of the criminal responsible for our rapes and infections. It has taken away the mystique and stigma of a crime that the police department is well aware of. This project has an unseen value for my personal life with Christopher. The value for this project with my team members and friends is to educate and allow them to tell their own stories. To free themselves from the evil. To face their fears with me so that we are safer. This project's value can't be measured in money or prestige, but it meant that I finally could stop screaming with my pen and start informing with my words.
It has been worth it.
I couldn't have imagined that online people were already discussing what I was experiencing. It wasn't until one of my team members contacted Dr. John Hall, that I realized there were already people calling what I was experiencing, "gang stalking", even now I'm surprised at how long it took me to relate "being followed" with the "voices in head". I took time to put the pieces together into a puzzle that made sense. When I stepped back to look at the picture, I was looking into the face of hate that I'd seen once in my life. I thought I'd never have to see that face again. Interesting how life hands us the same obstacles over and over until we learn to deal with them, isn't it? All of a sudden, the path was cleared...I knew who was behind my terror. I'd seen it before. I didn't know how to handle it. I let it control how I felt and it guided me into law enforcement in the courtroom. There I felt safe. That's where justice was served daily. I never thought the same evil would dare show up there. It did.
The kind of security that I felt working in the chambers of the judges that employed me, made me feel strong. It made me feel important. Suddenly all those student that got into all those law schools had to come to me for answers. Boy did that feel good. I was working with Stanford, Harvard, Cornell and Berkeley graduates, United States Attorneys, federal criminal defense lawyers and the judiciary tried to lure me to work for other chambers. I felt extremely secure in knowing that I'd found my niche. The days leading up to the darkness entering the courtroom are the subject of my first diary, written as a way to hide my secret and let out my fear. I was screaming with my pen, punching with my words, while cooly working out at the beach. I couldn't figure out why these people, without smiles, were following me, but I wouldn't let them see me crack. Only my diary listened to my anger and questions, nobody else would have believed me, and of course, it provided no answers.
I somehow knew that if these "actors" saw themselves getting to me, breaking me down, shaking, worried, that they would get worse. More violent, more aggressive and more inside of my head. I didn't realize for a long time that they were already there. I can remember reading self help books like, "The Four Agreements" and "Conversations With God", on the bus, thinking, "How could anyone follow someone that was trying to be a better person?" They were not only nonplussed, they scoffed at the idea that whomever I was, I had no business trying to be a better person. It was as if the damage was already done and I'd left the scene of the accident. I was a federal agent without protection from an evil I couldn't quantify. I just couldn't tell the judge that I was working for that I felt as if I was being followed to and from work, because I didn't have proof. You have to experience this for a while before you notice the subtleties of stalkers that don't talk. Most of them reminded me of Neo from "The Matrix" with their dark sunglasses and their scowls. No emotion and if you were polite to them, there would be no response. What if, and this was a true feeling, someone had seen me out partying and the stalking was being done by my own employer?
I'd worked very hard to abide by what I like to call a "moral code of conduct" which meant not going to bathhouses, bars to get drunk and just about anything that would cast a shadow on the light of the torch of Justice. I had to be "that guy". The one that looked perfect, worked perfect, behaved perfect and above all else, made my judge look perfect. The job of the court clerk is to make the judge look good; not to draw attention with some kind of scandal. I became as statuesque and hard working as I could. I moved into THE apartment in THE right part of town and I was doing the job. Evil entered my apartment when I wasn't there. My landlord let him in. Within months I was asked to leave because someone had made an offer to buy the condo I'd just moved in to. I was crushed and my "safe haven" was no longer, I moved with a boyfriend into an apartment downtown, first floor, into a place a friend of mine owned. It wasn't THE place, but it would do for then.
A home on the corner of a downtown street in San Diego is like living in a fishbowl, which meant I was seeing "Neo's" all day and night, walking all around my apartment on the sidewalk outside. This is the apartment that I moved in to with the kindness of my friend Gary, who owned the places. I had to move very quickly as the property manager was needing to sell this condo quickly. I spent days cleaning that place to get my deposit back and strangely, she called me and told me that I'd left drug paraphernalia all over the house and I wouldn't get my money back. Mind you, I'd had the carpet professionally cleaned and had left it spotless...it was newer than the day I moved in. I thought she was just mean...I wrote it off.
Here is the apartment I moved in to:
 |
| You can see from this corner view that my apartment was truly a fishbowl with windows all along side with the trees (on the left) |
By the time I was ready to stop partying, to make me feel better about being followed, I got shot at with a small caliber hand gun, through the driver's side window of my Honda Civic. It missed me by five inches, but it might as well have pierced my temple and lodged itself in my brain; I couldn't forget that feeling of being someone that someone wanted to kill. It didn't matter, at that point, if the bullet was intended for Kevin or just me the human being, but it sure felt personal. I'd been stalked for years and years and this was the first night that the Neo's weren't around. It was a silent night and I'd not seen one of those in years. It was so eerie that I took another route home than my usual path...through the Italian Village and right by the El Cortez. The bullet was the only thing out and about that night. The bullet and the smiling hooded criminals that tried to kill me. I remember their faces and everything. Mostly I remember the smile of the driver. Did he actually smile at me knowing that I'd be dead a split second later?
A shooter in an American made truck with a white camper shell...silver or gray paint...took the rest of my feelings of accomplishment away. Now I wasn't just being followed everywhere, someone was firing bullets. Once again, it sure felt personal. The next day the Neo's were back again, full force. In the courtroom and all over the federal plaza on Front Street. I was still working, but mentally I was on that street with the smashed window every day. I went to counseling and when I went to my boss with the directions from the EAP counselor, he suspended me. Worse, he told me the worst thing of all, "I have people following you everywhere, I'll know what you are up to." That was it. He was behind it. I went from being his "star performer" to his chief screw up. I certainly couldn't tell anyone that I was being stalked now, who would care? I made the decision to leave that job and San Diego to pursue what I knew was this crime against me. I knew it started there, I knew I'd experienced it there since. Somehow I knew it was time to face my fear and Palm Springs was the place.
What you've read on this blog is the product of years of investigation. Hard work. Informant discoveries. Disappointments. Small successes. Rape, stalking, tears and one more thing, love. You see this project has VALUE in it. It's already touched the lives of the men you see in the television interview on the right of the page. It has curbed the appetite of the criminal responsible for our rapes and infections. It has taken away the mystique and stigma of a crime that the police department is well aware of. This project has an unseen value for my personal life with Christopher. The value for this project with my team members and friends is to educate and allow them to tell their own stories. To free themselves from the evil. To face their fears with me so that we are safer. This project's value can't be measured in money or prestige, but it meant that I finally could stop screaming with my pen and start informing with my words.
It has been worth it.
