{"id":2746,"date":"2011-01-12T21:51:04","date_gmt":"2011-01-12T20:51:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/geoffjones.com\/?p=2746"},"modified":"2011-01-12T21:51:04","modified_gmt":"2011-01-12T20:51:04","slug":"a-night-with-google-reader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/?p=2746","title":{"rendered":"A night with Google Reader"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now for the first time in ages I’m having time to explore my google reader feeds and experimenting with the Chrome browser. \u00a0Tonight I was reading “My hearts in Accra”<\/a> feed and I came across this:-<\/span><\/p>\n

Everything the Internet Knows About Me (Because I Asked It To) \u2013 Digits \u2013 WSJ
\n<\/span>Zach Seward looks at the data trails he leaves from his online activities. Suggests that heavy users of social media tools are logging their online behavior much as personal trackers and diarists are logging their physical activity<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Which I followed through and came across this in the article:-<\/p>\n

Princeton\u2019s\u00a0released graph your inbox\u00a0an extension for Google Chrome. The tool lets you graph the frequency of words, email addresses, subject lines, ex-girlfriends, unpaid bills or whatever else is hiding in your inbox<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I installed the extension and did a search for the word ‘apartment’ (I’m meant to be writing emails to folks who want to book my apartment). It came up with this nifty graph:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Which I thought was pretty good!<\/p>\n

Then I started to read the comments and came across this link about the extension author, Bill Zellers<\/a> suicide. Which was sad enough but even sadder is this suicide note that he left and wished for open publication:<\/p>\n

I have the urge to declare my sanity and justify my actions, but I\nassume I'll never be able to convince anyone that this was the right\ndecision. Maybe it's true that anyone who does this is insane by\ndefinition, but I can at least explain my reasoning. I considered not \nwriting any of this because of how personal it is, but I like tying up\nloose ends and don't want people to wonder why I did this. Since I've\nnever spoken to anyone about what happened to me, people would likely\ndraw the wrong conclusions.\n\nMy first memories as a child are of being raped, repeatedly. This has\naffected every aspect of my life. This darkness, which is the only way I\ncan describe it, has followed me like a fog, but at times intensified\nand overwhelmed me, usually triggered by a distinct situation. In\nkindergarten I couldn't use the bathroom and would stand petrified\nwhenever I needed to, which started a trend of awkward and unexplained\nsocial behavior. The damage that was done to my body still prevents me\nfrom using the bathroom normally, but now it's less of a physical \nimpediment than a daily reminder of what was done to me.\n\nThis darkness followed me as I grew up. I remember spending hours\nplaying with legos, having my world consist of me and a box of cold,\nplastic blocks. Just waiting for everything to end. It's the same thing\nI do now, but instead of legos it's surfing the web or reading or\nlistening to a baseball game. Most of my life has been spent feeling\ndead inside, waiting for my body to catch up. \n\nAt times growing up I would feel inconsolable rage, but I never\nconnected this to what happened until puberty. I was able to keep the\ndarkness at bay for a few hours at a time by doing things that required\nintense concentration, but it would always come back. Programming\nappealed to me for this reason. I was never particularly fond of\ncomputers or mathematically inclined, but the temporary peace it would\nprovide was like a drug. But the darkness always returned and built up \nsomething like a tolerance, because programming has become less and less\nof a refuge.\n\nThe darkness is with me nearly every time I wake up. I feel like a grime\nis covering me. I feel like I'm trapped in a contimated body that no\namount of washing will clean. Whenever I think about what happened I\nfeel manic and itchy and can't concentrate on anything else. It\nmanifests itself in hours of eating or staying up for days at a time or\nsleeping for sixteen hours straight or week long programming binges or\nconstantly going to the gym. I'm exhausted from feeling like this every\nhour of every day.\n\nThree to four nights a week I have nightmares about what happened. It\nmakes me avoid sleep and constantly tired, because sleeping with what\nfeels like hours of nightmares is not restful. I wake up sweaty and\nfurious. I'm reminded every morning of what was done to me and the \ncontrol it has over my life. \n\nI've never been able to stop thinking about what happened to me and this\nhampered my social interactions. I would be angry and lost in thought\nand then be interrupted by someone saying \"Hi\" or making small talk,\nunable to understand why I seemed cold and distant. I walked around,\nviewing the outside world from a distant portal behind my eyes, unable\nto perform normal human niceties. I wondered what it would be like to\ntake to other people without what happened constantly on my mind, and I\nwondered if other people had similar experiences that they were better\nable to mask. \n\nAlcohol was also something that let me escape the darkness. It would\nalways find me later, though, and it was always angry that I managed to \nescape and it made me pay. Many of the irresponsible things I did were\nthe result of the darkness. Obviously I'm responsible for every decision\nand action, including this one, but there are reasons why things happen\nthe way they do.\n\nAlcohol and other drugs provided a way to ignore the realities of my\nsituation. It was easy to spend the night drinking and forget that I had\nno future to look forward to. I never liked what alcohol did to me, but\nit was better than facing my existence honestly. I haven't touched \nalcohol or any other drug in over seven months (and no drugs or alcohol\nwill be involved when I do this) and this has forced me to evaluate my\nlife in an honest and clear way. There's no future here. The darkness\nwill always be with me. \n\nI used to think if I solved some problem or achieved some goal, maybe he\nwould leave. It was comforting to identify tangible issues as the source\nof my problems instead of something that I'll never be able to change. I \nthought that if I got into to a good college, or a good grad school, or\nlost weight, or went to the gym nearly every day for a year, or created\nprograms that millions of people used, or spent a summer or California\nor New York or published papers that I was proud of, then maybe I would\nfeel some peace and not be constantly haunted and unhappy. But nothing I\ndid made a dent in how depressed I was on a daily basis and nothing was\nin any way fulfilling. I'm not sure why I ever thought that would change\nanything.\n\nI didn't realize how deep a hold he had on me and my life until my \nfirst relationship. I stupidly assumed that no matter how the darkness\naffected me personally, my romantic relationships would somehow be \nseparated and protected. Growing up I viewed my future relationships as\na possible escape from this thing that haunts me every day, but I began\nto realize how entangled it was with every aspect of my life and how it \nis never going to release me. Instead of being an escape, relationships \nand romantic contact with other people only intensified everything about\nhim that I couldn't stand. I will never be able to have a relationship\nin which he is not the focus, affecting every aspect of my romantic\ninteractions. \n\nRelationships always started out fine and I'd be able to ignore him for\na few weeks. But as we got closer emotionally the darkness would return\nand every night it'd be me, her and the darkness in a black and gruesome\nthreesome. He would surround me and penetrate me and the more we did the\nmore intense it became. It made me hate being touched, because as long\nas we were separated I could view her like an outsider viewing something\ngood and kind and untainted. Once we touched, the darkness would\nenvelope her too and take her over and the evil inside me would surround\nher. I always felt like I was infecting anyone I was with.\n\nRelationships didn't work. No one I dated was the right match, and I\nthought that maybe if I found the right person it would overwhelm him.\nPart of me knew that finding the right person wouldn't help, so I became\ninterested in girls who obviously had no interest in me. For a while I\nthought I was gay. I convinced myself that it wasn't the darkness at\nall, but rather my orientation, because this would give me control over\nwhy things didn't feel \"right\". The fact that the darkness affected\nsexual matters most intensely made this idea make some sense and I\nconvinced myself of this for a number of years, starting in college\nafter my first relationship ended. I told people I was gay (at Trinity,\nnot at Princeton), even though I wasn't attracted to men and kept\nfinding myself interested in girls. Because if being gay wasn't the\nanswer, then what was? People thought I was avoiding my orientation, but \nI was actually avoiding the truth, which is that while I'm straight, I \nwill never be content with anyone. I know now that the darkness will\nnever leave.\n\nLast spring I met someone who was unlike anyone else I'd ever met. \nSomeone who showed me just how well two people could get along and how\nmuch I could care about another human being. Someone I know I could be\nwith and love for the rest of my life, if I weren't so f..ked up.\nAmazingly, she liked me. She liked the shell of the man the darkness had\nleft behind. But it didn't matter because I couldn't be alone with her.\nIt was never just the two of us, it was always the three of us: her, me\nand the darkness. The closer we got, the more intensely I'd feel the\ndarkness, like some evil mirror of my emotions. All the closeness we had\nand I loved was complemented by agony that I couldn't stand, from him. I\nrealized that I would never be able to give her, or anyone, all of me or\nonly me. She could never have me without the darkness and evil inside\nme. I could never have just her, without the darkness being a part of\nall of our interactions. I will never be able to be at peace or content\nor in a healthy relationship. I realized the futility of the romantic\npart of my life. If I had never met her, I would have realized this as\nsoon as I met someone else who I meshed similarly well with. It's likely\nthat things wouldn't have worked out with her and we would have broken\nup (with our relationship ending, like the majority of relationships do)\neven if I didn't have this problem, since we only dated for a short\ntime. But I will face exactly the same problems with the darkness with\nanyone else. Despite my hopes, love and compatability is not enough.\nNothing is enough. There's no way I can fix this or even push the\ndarkness down far enough to make a relationship or any type of intimacy\nfeasible.\n\nSo I watched as things fell apart between us. I had put an explicit time\nlimit on our relationship, since I knew it couldn't last because of the\ndarkness and didn't want to hold her back, and this caused a variety of\nproblems. She was put in an unnatural situation that she never should\nhave been a part of. It must have been very hard for her, not knowing\nwhat was actually going on with me, but this is not something I've ever\nbeen able to talk about with anyone. Losing her was very hard for me as\nwell. Not because of her (I got over our relationship relatively\nquickly), but because of the realization that I would never have another\nrelationship and because it signified the last true, exclusive personal\nconnection I could ever have. This wasn't apparent to other people,\nbecause I could never talk about the real reasons for my sadness. I was\nvery sad in the summer and fall, but it was not because of her, it was\nbecause I will never escape the darkness with anyone. She was so loving\nand kind to me and gave me everything I could have asked for under the\ncircumstances. I'll never forget how much happiness she brought me in\nthose briefs moments when I could ignore the darkness. I had originally\nplanned to kill myself last winter but never got around to it. (Parts of\nthis letter were written over a year ago, other parts days before doing\nthis.) It was wrong of me to involve myself in her life if this were a\npossibility and I should have just left her alone, even though we only\ndated for a few months and things ended a long time ago. She's just one\nmore person in a long list of people I've hurt.\n\nI could spend pages talking about the other relationships I've had that\nwere ruined because of my problems and my confusion related to the \ndarkness. I've hurt so many great people because of who I am and my\ninability to experience what needs to be experienced. All I can say is\nthat I tried to be honest with people about what I thought was true.\n\nI've spent my life hurting people. Today will be the last time.\n\nI've told different people a lot of things, but I've never told anyone\nabout what happened to me, ever, for obvious reasons. It took me a while\nto realize that no matter how close you are to someone or how much they\nclaim to love you, people simply cannot keep secrets. I learned this a\nfew years ago when I thought I was gay and told people. The more harmful\nthe secret, the juicier the gossip and the more likely you are to be\nbetrayed. People don't care about their word or what they've promised,\nthey just do whatever the f..k they want and justify it later. It feels\nincredibly lonely to realize you can never share something with someone\nand have it be between just the two of you. I don't blame anyone in\nparticular, I guess it's just how people are. Even if I felt like this\nis something I could have shared, I have no interest in being part of a\nfriendship or relationship where the other person views me as the\ndamaged and contaminated person that I am. So even if I were able to\ntrust someone, I probably would not have told them about what happened\nto me. At this point I simply don't care who knows.\n\nI feel an evil inside me. An evil that makes me want to end life. I need\nto stop this. I need to make sure I don't kill someone, which is not\nsomething that can be easily undone. I don't know if this is related to\nwhat happened to me or something different. I recognize the irony of\nkilling myself to prevent myself from killing someone else, but this\ndecision should indicate what I'm capable of. \n\nSo I've realized I will never escape the darkness or misery associated\nwith it and I have a responsibility to stop myself from physically\nharming others. \n\nI'm just a broken, miserable shell of a human being. Being molested has\ndefined me as a person and shaped me as a human being and it has made me\nthe monster I am and there's nothing I can do to escape it. I don't know\nany other existence. I don't know what life feels like where I'm apart\nfrom any of this. I actively despise the person I am. I just feel\nfundamentally broken, almost non-human. I feel like an animal that woke\nup one day in a human body, trying to make sense of a foreign world,\nliving among creatures it doesn't understand and can't connect with.\n\nI have accepted that the darkness will never allow me to be in a\nrelationship. I will never go to sleep with someone in my arms, feeling\nthe comfort of their hands around me. I will never know what\nuncontimated intimacy is like. I will never have an exclusive bond with\nsomeone, someone who can be the recipient of all the love I have to\ngive. I will never have children, and I wanted to be a father so badly.\nI think I would have made a good dad. And even if I had fought through\nthe darkness and married and had children all while being unable to feel\nintimacy, I could have never done that if suicide were a possibility. I\ndid try to minimize pain, although I know that this decision will hurt\nmany of you. If this hurts you, I hope that you can at least forget\nabout me quickly. \n\nThere's no point in identifying who molested me, so I'm just going to\nleave it at that. I doubt the word of a dead guy with no evidence about\nsomething that happened over twenty years ago would have much sway.\n\nYou may wonder why I didn't just talk to a professional about this. I've\nseen a number of doctors since I was a teenager to talk about other\nissues and I'm positive that another doctor would not have helped. I was\nnever given one piece of actionable advice, ever. More than a few spent\na large part of the session reading their notes to remember who I was.\nAnd I have no interest in talking about being raped as a child, both\nbecause I know it wouldn't help and because I have no confidence it\nwould remain secret. I know the legal and practical limits of\ndoctor\/patient confidentiality, growing up in a house where we'd hear\nstories about the various mental illnesses of famous people, stories\nthat were passed down through generations. All it takes is one doctor\nwho thinks my story is interesting enough to share or a doctor who\nthinks it's her right or responsibility to contact the authorities and\nhave me identify the molestor (justifying her decision by telling\nherself that someone else might be in danger). All it takes is a single\ndoctor who violates my trust, just like the \"friends\" who I told I was\ngay did, and everything would be made public and I'd be forced to live\nin a world where people would know how f..ked up I am. And yes, I\nrealize this indicates that I have severe trust issues, but they're\nbased on a large number of experiences with people who have shown a\nprofound disrepect for their word and the privacy of others.\n\nPeople say suicide is selfish. I think it's selfish to ask people to\ncontinue living painful and miserable lives, just so you possibly won't\nfeel sad for a week or two. Suicide may be a permanent solution to a \ntemporary problem, but it's also a permanent solution to a ~23 year-old\nproblem that grows more intense and overwhelming every day.\n\nSome people are just dealt bad hands in this life. I know many people\nhave it worse than I do, and maybe I'm just not a strong person, but I\nreally did try to deal with this. I've tried to deal with this every day\nfor the last 23 years and I just can't f..king take it anymore. \n\nI often wonder what life must be like for other people. People who \ncan feel the love from others and give it back unadulterated, people who\ncan experience sex as an intimate and joyous experience, people who can\nexperience the colors and happenings of this world without constant\nmisery. I wonder who I'd be if things had been different or if I were a\nstronger person. It sounds pretty great. \n\nI'm prepared for death. I'm prepared for the pain and I am ready to no \nlonger exist. Thanks to the strictness of New Jersey gun laws this will\nprobably be much more painful than it needs to be, but what can you do.\nMy only fear at this point is messing something up and surviving. \n\n---\n\nI'd also like to address my family, if you can call them that. I despise\neverything they stand for and I truly hate them, in a non-emotional,\ndispassionate and what I believe is a healthy way. The world will be a\nbetter place when they're dead--one with less hatred and intolerance.\n\nIf you're unfamiliar with the situation, my parents are fundamentalist \nChristians who kicked me out of their house and cut me off financially\nwhen I was 19 because I refused to attend seven hours of church a week.\n\nThey live in a black and white reality they've constructed for\nthemselves. They partition the world into good and evil and survive \nby hating everything they fear or misunderstand and calling it love.\nThey don't understand that good and decent people exist all around us, \n\"saved\" or not, and that evil and cruel people occupy a large percentage\nof their church. They take advantage of people looking for hope by\nteaching them to practice the same hatred they practice.\n\nA random example:\n\n\"I am personally convinced that if a Muslim truly believes and obeys the\nKoran, he will be a terrorist.\" - George Zeller, August 24, 2010.\n\nIf you choose to follow a religion where, for example, devout Catholics\nwho are trying to be good people are all going to Hell but child\nmolestors go to Heaven (as long as they were \"saved\" at some point),\nthat's your choice, but it's f..ked up. Maybe a God who operates by\nthose rules does exist. If so, f..k Him.\n\nTheir church was always more important than the members of their family\nand they happily sacrificed whatever necessary in order to satisfy \ntheir contrived beliefs about who they should be.\n\nI grew up in a house where love was proxied through a God I could never\nbelieve in. A house where the love of music with any sort of a beat was\nliterally beaten out of me. A house full of hatred and intolerance, run\nby two people who were experts at appearing kind and warm when others\nwere around. Parents who tell an eight year old that his grandmother is\ngoing to Hell because she's Catholic. Parents who claim not to be racist\nbut then talk about the horrors of miscegenation. I could list hundreds\nof other examples, but it's tiring. \n\nSince being kicked out, I've interacted with them in relatively normal\nways. I talk to them on the phone like nothing happened. I'm not sure\nwhy. Maybe because I like pretending I have a family. Maybe I like\nhaving people I can talk to about what's been going on in my life. \nWhatever the reason, it's not real and it feels like a sham. I should\nhave never allowed this reconnection to happen. \n\nI wrote the above a while ago, and I do feel like that much of the time.\nAt other times, though, I feel less hateful. I know my parents honestly\nbelieve the crap they believe in. I know that my mom, at least, loved me\nvery much and tried her best. One reason I put this off for so long is\nbecause I know how much pain it will cause her. She has been sad since\nshe found out I wasn't \"saved\", since she believes I'm going to Hell,\nwhich is not a sadness for which I am responsible. That was never going\nto change, and presumably she believes the state of my physical body is\nmuch less important than the state of my soul. Still, I cannot\nintellectually justify this decision, knowing how much it will hurt her.\nMaybe my ability to take my own life, knowing how much pain it will\ncause, shows that I am a monster who doesn't deserve to live. All I know\nis that I can't deal with this pain any longer and I'm am truly sorry I\ncouldn't wait until my family and everyone I knew died so this could be\ndone without hurting anyone. For years I've wished that I'd be hit by a \nbus or die while saving a baby from drowning so my death might be more\nacceptable, but I was never so lucky.\n\n---\n\nTo those of you who have shown me love, thank you for putting up with \nall my shittiness and moodiness and arbitrariness. I was never the\nperson I wanted to be. Maybe without the darkness I would have been a\nbetter person, maybe not. I did try to be a good person, but I realize I\nnever got very far.\n\nI'm sorry for the pain this causes. I really do wish I had another\noption. I hope this letter explains why I needed to do this. If you\ncan't understand this decision, I hope you can at least forgive me.\n\nBill Zeller\n\n---\n\nPlease save this letter and repost it if gets deleted. I don't want\npeople to wonder why I did this. I disseminated it more widely than I\nmight have otherwise because I'm worried that my family might try to\nrestrict access to it. I don't mind if this letter is made public. In\nfact, I'd prefer it be made public to people being unable to read it and\ndrawing their own conclusions. \n\nFeel free to republish this letter, but only if it is reproduced in its \nentirety.<\/pre>\n
Terrible what a tragedy that any child should be treated so despicably.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Now for the first time in ages I’m having time to explore my google reader feeds and experimenting with the Chrome browser. \u00a0Tonight I was reading “My hearts in Accra” feed and I came across this:- Everything the Internet Knows About Me (Because I Asked It To) \u2013 Digits \u2013 WSJ Zach Seward looks at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-products"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2746\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}