GAIL CHORD SCHULER’S VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENT (August 29, 2002)
GAIL CHORD’S VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENT (August 29, 2002)
As I presented this to Brent Spiner on cassette tape (in an unstamped enveloped in my Tallahassee mailbox), to assist him with his legal case against LoreeMcBride and the Roman Catholic Church in August 2002.
August 29, 2002:
I have developed multitasking skills over the past several years to survive against Jesuitic attacks. This has become a survival skill. Some of this survival skill is evidenced by the way I present this tape. I tend to jump from one topic to the next, because that reflects my life–chaotic and crazy.
When the Jesuits attack me, it’s like a blitzkrieg. To survive, I must do the work of twenty people in one day. So I tend to go from one task to another, changing my priorities throughout the day, making myself extremely flexible. When you deal with Jesuits, you can’t be too rigid. Because they always surprise you with something. They always come up with something different and creative, and they’re very smart. So I’ve learned an essential survival skill is creativity. You can’t have any preconceptions about what you will do on any given day. You can see these survival skills I’ve developed in how I present this tape. This tendency to jump from one topic to the next, trying to hit what is most important then going back and hitting topics less important. That’s a battle skill I’ve developed over the years. I try to attack what must be attacked most.
People need to know the truth. We cannot allow these criminals to get away with this.
It’s really painful for me to bring back a lot of this stuff. This is difficult for me. This is August 29th, 2002. I’m taping in bits and pieces–reading the paper, etc. That’s a skill I’ve developed to survive.
One of the reasons this Brent/Loree case has been so stressful for me, has been that I realize that much of what I say about myself is hard to believe. Frankly, I’m just an unusual person. Because I am, and there aren’t many women like me, that many won’t believe me. This is why I didn’t offer to marry Brent Spiner for a year after he propositioned me. I feared people would think I only wanted him for his money. I’m very aware of public stereotypes.
While I courted Brent with my letters, I was very active at my church in Lynnwood, Washington. I went to church Sunday morning, Sunday night and Thursday night. Sometimes I missed the midweek service or the Sunday night service. But I was very active in church. I felt close to many at this church. I really liked this church and its pastor. I thought it was one of the best churches I had been a member of. The whole time I courted Brent, I was very active in church, because my relationship with God has always been important to me. I wanted God to bless my love for Brent. I didn’t see how He could do it, but I knew nothing was impossible with Him.
But I must say this, one of the biggest advantages the Vatican has had in this case is the fact that I am an unusual person, so unusual that when I give my testimony, most would think I exaggerate or that I lie. I’m aware of this, and that’s one reason I have been so tight mouthed about my life. Frankly, there aren’t a lot of people out there like me. I’m unusual. People tend to look at you from the framework of themselves. When we judge our fellow human being, we tend to see people through our own eyes–the way we approach life. So when you meet someone who’s really different from you. . .as a writer I’m fascinated with human behavior. I’m a character writer, which means I’m a bit of a mini-psychologist. I’ve noticed people tend to see others through themselves. Unless you have greatness within yourself, you won’t believe there’s greatness in others. This is a big problem Brent and I have had to deal with, with Jesuits and Loree McBride. They are such small people. They’re so petty, that they can’t understand and appreciate the greatness that Brent and I have. It explains why I’ve handled my fellow human beings the way I have, why I’ve been so secretive.
I’ve been very reluctant to discuss my feelings for Brent with anybody, because I didn’t think they could understand, because I was afraid I’d be misunderstood. It’s like trying to expose the diamonds in your heart–to the pigs. Mt. 7:6–”Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under your feet and turn again and rend you.” I did try with some of my Christian friends to open up a little bit about my feelings for Brent, but I was so afraid Brent would get into trouble that I didn’t tell them everything. I wanted to talk about this with somebody, it was so hard to keep this all to myself. But I did a very good job of keeping secret the communication that Brent and I had. And that was very hard on me–to have such strong feelings for a man and not be able to talk about it to anybody.
I think that’s one of the reasons I turned to writing. I had to find a way to let the world know about this awesome thing that happened to me, to communicate it somehow. Writing was my catharsis, because I couldn’t talk about this. My Christian friends would have condemned me. I knew I would be misunderstood. That nobody could understand that Brent wasn’t just some sex maniac who called me on the phone, that he really was a deeper person than that. I was so afraid for him, so afraid that my Christian “friends” would not be as gracious, tolerant and forgiving with Brent as I felt he deserved. That’s why I didn’t talk about him to anybody, because I knew his outward actions made him look very bad.
But I knew the man. I’m very good at reading people. I knew that he was a good person. That he wasn’t shallow. And yes it’s true he has a brilliant sense of humor. He made me laugh so many times, when he went on talk shows–I thought he was so funny. I have quite a sense of humor myself. But Loree and the Jesuits often tried to portray Brent as only having a sense of humor, and a shallow one at that. Brent is very funny, because when he called me on the phone. . like I heard Gates McFadden on the phone one time. . .she said daaaaaa, and I could tell that this was meant to be funny. I could tell whoever this caller was they were very witty and funny. He used very humorous methods to communicate with me. Sometimes it was borderline crude, but never cruel. I never sensed any cruelty in Brent. The nature of his phone calls to me indicated that whoever this caller was they had the personality of Brent Spiner: very witty, charming–which is what most of his friends and acquaintances knew about him.
There was a side to him that a lot of people didn’t know about. Not only was he witty and charming, he was the ultimate in finesse and sensitivity. He knew when it was proper to joke and when it was proper to be serious. He had a very fine-tuned sense of appropriateness, of knowing when he should be compassionate, or when he should be witty. Underneath that humorous exterior. . .I think one of the reasons he was so witty, was this was his way of coping with pain. It worked real well for him and he was genuinely funny. But I could tell that there was more to the man than his sense of humor. Because of the way he talked to me and made love to me on the phone. . .I have never heard such depth of feeling, such emotional sensitivity and intelligence. I could tell whoever this mystery caller was was highly intelligent and very quick on his feet. He caught on very quick to anything that I communicated with him. It didn’t take him long to figure out how my emotional health was. He was very in tuned to my emotions. He always seemed to handle my emotions with the utmost finesse. He always seemed to have an uncanny ability to know exactly how to keep me calm, how to make me feel important to him, and how to nurture me when he sensed I was down.
That’s why I couldn’t understand how someone as emotionally supportive as he was, and as generous as he was in expressing his feelings, why he could give me three weeks of silence in September 1992. One of the reasons I was devastated was not so much that I felt sorry for myself, I was worried about him. I sensed that something terrible happened to him, something catastrophic. When I tell you about the suffering I went through with the H.R.S. and with that three weeks of silence, I’m not exaggerating one bit. I was in so much emotional pain, that three weeks in September when he didn’t call me, that I told God that I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to live.
The pain was so intense, that I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t function. I said God if you don’t do a miracle for me, I’m gonna die. It was devastating to me. Through Brent I found completeness, wholeness as a person. He made me feel integrated. He gave me confidence. And, all of a sudden, like a split second, he was cut out of my life, for no apparent reason. It was like having my arm cut off and I was bleeding. That’s how I felt. I felt like the blood gushed out of my body and I was losing all my strength. The only way I could stop the flow of blood coming from my severed arm. . .I agonized in prayer that three weeks. I said, “God, you’ve got to do something for me.”
Usually, when I was in emotional distress Brent called. It used to be, before September 1992. . . in January 1992, Brent gave me about two or three days of silence, which was unusual–he was very attentive. No, I think it was about a week of silence. So I wrote him a letter and said, “Brent, did I do something to offend you?”
The next day, he about deluged me with phone calls. My phone rang all through the day. He did not want me to feel that he was losing interest in me.
So I was so puzzled in September 1992 why he wasn’t doing the same thing. I said, “Brent, I’m not sleeping. I can’t eat. I’m so worried. What have I done? Are you saying goodbye?”
Silence. Absolute silence.
I said, “This isn’t like him. Something must be terribly wrong. What’s going on? Is he dead?” I didn’t know what was happening.
I was worried sick about him. You must understand my feelings for him were so intense that I was willing to write a teleplay, where I stayed up until 2 a.m. I pushed myself so hard on that teleplay I averaged five or six hours of sleep most nights. Plus, I wasn’t sleeping good any ways because I got off all my psychiatric meds and tranquilizers, because I didn’t want to get back on them.
But it was more than that. I pushed myself to write a masterpiece for him.
When I grew up as a teenager my mother used to accuse me of being too honest. “Gail, you know what you’re biggest problem is. . .You’re too honest. It’s going to get you in trouble. Sometimes you need to lie a little bit. Because if you tell people the truth, they’ll use it against you.”
I got in trouble one time for being too honest. When I worked for I.R.S. attorneys in 1984 and 1985. The second attorney in charge, asked me to lie for him on the phone. I told him, “I can do anything you want, but I’m sorry, it goes against my Christian convictions to lie for you on the phone and I’m not gonnado it. I refuse to do this.”
He got mad at me. He looked at me like you’re being ridiculous. I said, “I won’t lie on the phone.”
I’ve changed and have gotten a little more flexible about this. I agree with my mother. But that’s the way I was.
He was getting aggravating calls from people mad about their taxes. He didn’t want to talk to them. He told me to lie and say he wasn’t there. I said, “I’m sorry. I’m not gonna do that.”
He got really mad at me. That’s how I was. I refused to lie for him on the phone.
What made me start becoming a little more dishonest, was after Brent came into my life. But I really had some scruples about lying about Brent. If my husband asked who that was, I wouldn’t tell him that was Brent. If I went to mail a letter to Brent, I’d lie and say I wasn’t doing that.
That’s when I started lying, to protect Brent. I justified it by saying that Rahab the harlot lied when she protected the spies. Which is true, and God rewarded her for it.
But I have been a very honest person. That’s why you won’t find inconsistencies in my statements. The reason I let the world read my mind (via 666-Computer) and will subject myself to lie detector tests and to air my statements publicly is because I know I’m honest. They won’t find inconsistencies in my statements and testimonies. I’ve told the truth always as I see it.
If I’ve lied, it because I believed a lie. Because I know I’ve told the truth always as I see it. The only time in my life, where I’ve really lied, is when I’ve tried to protect Brent. And that’s the biggest lying I’ve done in my whole life. And I didn’t enjoy it.
I’ve always been honest and I’ve gotten in trouble for it. And I almost lost a job over it. That lawyer didn’t appreciate it that I wouldn’t lie for him. But, to my amazement, we came up with a compromise, he found a way to work around my Christian views. The lawyers said, “Alright, we’ll respect your Christian beliefs. But do us one favor, please don’t witness to people on the telephone.”
I said, “Oh no, I won’t do that. I don’t think that would be proper. I won’t witness to people on the phone about Jesus.” They were worried about that. They could tell I was very devout.
I never smoked a cigarette my whole life. I’ve never been drunk. The most alcohol that I drank my whole life, I think was two sips of a beer and I concluded that it tasted terrible and I wasn’t gonna waste my time with this stuff. And I’ve never used illegal drugs.
I was saved when I was fourteen years old, and I concluded that it was not wise to mess with narcotics, drinking, or cigarettes. And I’ve never messed with any of those things. It tended to make me self-righteous. I think that’s one of the biggest reasons God allowed Brent Spiner into my life, to make me realize that I should be more gracious and lenient in judging others for their fleshly sins. That was something He had to work on in me, so He could use me. And he used Brent Spiner, because Brent does smoke, and he does drink. That was quite a feat for God to show me that you cannot always judge people by outward appearances.
Because I learned with Brent Spiner, that even though he may have some bad habits, even though he may not have had a perfect past. I’m sure he’s had sex before marriage. That God looks at the heart. That there’s more to Christianity then following rules and regulations.
While I was wise not to smoke or drink or use narcotics, it should not give me cause for pride against my fellow man, which I used to be like. God has had to work really hard to chisel that self-righteous pride out of my life. And Brent Spiner was the instrument He used.
Another instrument God used to take self-righteousness out of my life was my marriage. I learned from my marriage (full of rules and regulations) that just because you don’t drink, smoke, and are regular in church attendance, and you follow all the rules–there’s something more important than the letter of the law, and that is the spirit. It’s your attitude. It’s who you are on the inside. Because Brent was not obsessed with rules and regulations, I turned to him.
I learned through Brent Spiner, that more important than a good outward appearance, is a good heart. Because I sensed Brent had a good heart, I could not betray him. I could not allow him to be the victim of the world’s stereotypes about Hollywood celebrities.
Brent was the total opposite of rules and regulations. Brent Spiner showed me that there are men in this world who are sensitive. I’d never really grew up with men. I grew up in a female family.
When I was a young lady, there was a lot about men I didn’t understand. And I think I was a victim of a lot of stereotypes about men. As a result of my experiences with Brent and my marriage, I’ve formed a more realistic picture of the male sex, to the point that I understand them very thoroughly.
I wanted to have a good marriage so bad, that I chose a man who fit a list of righteous requirements. I made a list of qualities that I wanted in a husband. I was tired of going out with all these guys who’d gone to bed with women before marriage. And I knew I had saved myself for my husband and I wanted a man who was willing to do the same for me. And I thought that was very important.
Feeling like I was in a straightjacket, I started writing Brent Spiner, who made me feel free like a bird. By the time I got around to writing Brent, I decided that all those things that I, as a single girl, thought were so important in a man, that he had the criteria of a list-he didn’t smoke, drink or have premarital sex. That, yes, having high standards is important, but it’s also important to have the right spirit. To show forgiveness, generosity, and to have a lot of love in your heart. I began to realize that just because someone goes to church all the time and they live the outwardly exemplary Christian life, does not mean they’re an outstanding Christian.
It was at the Sutera revival that God showed me that the greatest quality a Christian can have is humility I learned that some devoted church goers put on a good spiritual performance, but lacked the true spirit of Jesus Christ.
That’s why I fell for Brent Spiner. Brent was the total opposite of what I endured in my marriage. He was more concerned about being the genuine article than in appearing to be that way.
And that’s what I loved about him. That’s why I so viciously defended him, because I respected him for that. Because, in private with me, he was always the utmost in finesse and sensitivity and he was more concerned with giving me emotional support when I was in trouble than he was in his own reputation.
I thought what a contrast Brent Spiner was to some of those in my life. I felt like I’d die for that guy. I didn’t know there was such a guy on this planet. I thought how ironic that this man who gives me such incredible emotional support is world famous, probably a millionaire, probably not a Christian. And yet when it comes to emotional support and sensitivity and just being a kind, caring, generous and loving human being–he made some of the “common” folks around me look sick.
What was even more ironic is Brent didn’t have to give me emotional support. I didn’t promise him marriage. The only thing I could give him was my companionship through letters, tapes and videos. I didn’t promise him sex. I didn’t give him any money. The only thing I could offer him was my companionship through writing, through words.
And I found, that that meant everything to him.
And he didn’t give me any money. The only thing he could offer me was emotional support and a good listening and ready ear. And I found, that meant everything to me.
It was funny. I realized that all the things I thought were so important–going to church regular, playing the game, being on time to all your appointments. I’m not saying these things aren’t important. . .But I found what really mattered to me were the things the world never noticed. . .the time to smell a flower, to notice the beauty of a sunset or a sunrise. He taught me to slow down and smell the flowers, to enjoy the beauty of life, to express it with my art, to meditate and think on why I’m here on this planet, what my purpose is. . .for living.
If you want a real example of how I feel about him, read Silver Skies or Emerald Towers. I had to find a way to communicate the awesome effect that Brent had on me. I knew there were a lot of stereotypes about Hollywood celebrities, and I could tell that Brent Spiner broke just about every stereotype. So, I was not pleased when I heard about him hanging around this blonde.
I call her a blonde because this was how she was always described. I have nothing against blondes. The impression I got about her, was she made him nervous. And I thought she doesn’t have the effect on him that I do. I knew that I brought him some calmness, some soothing. ‘Cause when he talked to me on the phone, even though he may have been a little nervous at first because he opened his heart to me, I never sensed I made him nervous. I sensed I made him feel whole, complete.
I was tickled when I found out he had started writing. I actually inspired him to try to write, too. We had an interesting effect on each other. We inspired each other to set new goals in our lives. And we felt totally at ease with each other.
I felt more comfortable emotionally and in every way with Brent Spiner, this world famous celebrity, than I did the people at the church I went to. Because with Brent, there were no barriers. He accepted me the way I was. At my church I felt reluctant to divulge everything about myself. I was afraid there were some areas they wouldn’t understand or that they would find threatening.
With Brent, he didn’t find anything about me threatening.
And I didn’t find anything about him threatening. We were totally at ease with each other.
If he was totally at ease with me, then why didn’t he talk to me on the phone? I presume that was because I was married. So I understood. I was very patient with him, because he hardly ever spoke to me.
He communicated in unusual ways. I would send him a letter, and he would let me know if he liked what I had to say by the calls he would make the next day. Like if he really liked it. . .the one thing I knew for sure about Brent was he loved hearing from me.
In 1991 and most of 1992, if I even dropped the slightest hint that I might cut back on my correspondence with him, or that maybe I thought he was getting tired of me. The next day the phones would ring all day long. He did not want me to think that. He wanted me to know that I was very important to him.
Brent Spiner became my sounding board. I wrote a journal and I sent it to him. There were no barriers between us. I felt more at ease and comfortable with Brent than I have any human being in my life. I didn’t sense there was anything about me that he didn’t like. Everything I sent him, he was such a positive person, so opposite some of those around me.
He was so positive about everything I sent him. He was my biggest cheerleader.
Let’s go back to September 1992. He broke the silence after I decided I would pray for him for half an hour every day at the window. But I was worried about him. I was afraid that something terrible happened to him. So I decided to type him a page by page transcript of War on the Saints by Jessie Penn-Lewis.
I talked about everything to Brent. He knew all about my Christian beliefs, all about my beliefs about love, marriage and sex. There were no barriers between us. Total openness. But we were never crude. And whenever we talked about sex or love or romance, I felt he had such good taste in the way he went about it. The man was the epitome in class in the lovemaking department.
Even though he spoke intimately to me on the phone, there was nothing offensive about it. The way he made me feel when he made love to me on the phone, he just made me feel like I was the most beautiful, gorgeous, voluptuous woman on the planet. By the time he was through talking to me, I felt like I’d been tenderly caressed every inch of my body, and that he was making passionate, erotic, sensual and yet very sensitive, deep love to me. I was absolutely thrilled by his lovemaking approach. I thought I never knew there was a man that could be so. . .One may think he was just an expert manipulator. .
That was what was so different about him. . .it wasn’t so much that he was sexy. . .there was a depth of feeling in his expressions.
I could never find a man attractive just because I thought he was a sexual firebomb in bed. I always sensed that with Brent, that it was more than just trying to turn me on sexually, that he had a depth of feeling and a commitment there. He really didn’t win me over until I heard his music album Ol’ Yellow Eyes Is Back. And if you listen to the singing on there, you don’t sense a shallow person.
The best way to describe how I see Brent as a lover, is listen to that music album he made, especially the song “Goodnight Sweetheart”. The way he sings that song is how he made love to me on the phone.
Goodnight sweetheart, though I’m not beside you. . .listen to the song. . .that’s how he made love to me on the phone. Just like that. I sensed that he really cared about me. It wasn’t just a shallow, tantalizing bounce in bed type of thing with him. He was committed to me. It was the real thing. He had marriage love for me.
That’s why I couldn’t give him up. I was basking in that love, and I could not give him up.
I was so frustrated that I couldn’t give him my body. And that’s why I strived to be a brilliant writer. I thought if I write something great enough, and he reads it, that’ll be just as good as giving him sex.
The biggest frustration I had in 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995 was that I couldn’t give Brent my body. And the way I took care of that was with my writing. I said, well, I’ll make love to him with a great love story. So I decided to become a romance writer.
I said, I’ve gotta find some way to communicate what this guy has done for me. So I started writing love stories. I started writing Silver Skies.
Anyways, I typed to him (October 1992) the book War on the Saints. I continued writing him every day. And it appeared everything was back to normal. He didn’t tell me what happened in September 1992. And so 1993 rolled around. I was taking care of my child at home. I loved my son. And I tried not to let Brent interfere with my mothering duties. And I did try to be a good mother to my son.
That was another reason it was hard for me to go to Brent right away. I was thinking about the effect this would have on my son. It was a complicated situation. I wanted God to bless any union between Brent and myself.
I didn’t feel it was a sin for me to love him.
So things went pretty much the way it had in 1991 and 1992, except I noticed he no longer called me on holidays. I noticed there was a change in policy. I wasn’t sure how to interpret that, but he was just as attentive as he was before.
But I did remember, that every now and then when I would read Data Entries, I’d hear about the blonde, the cute blonde. And she kept coming up. So, I started wondering if maybe there was something more to her than I thought. I wrote Brent and I said, “I heard about this blonde you’re going out with, but I know you don’t have a girlfriend. You couldn’t have a girlfriend. There’s no way any woman would put up with all the attention you give me, and still be your girlfriend.” So I didn’t worry about it. I didn’t even ask him if he had a girlfriend, because I just knew that anybody who loved me like he did, couldn’t have a girlfriend.
I knew he flirted with women. That didn’t bother me. I believed in freedom. I didn’t want the guy to feel caged in. I wanted him to enjoy other women. I knew he wasn’t going to bed with them, because he loved me. I could tell he loved me. He was giving me far too much attention. Why, no woman would put up with all the attention he gave me, so I wasn’t worried about a girlfriend at all.
And I didn’t believe in being possessive with him, because he made me feel free as a bird, and I wanted him to feel the same. I don’t care if you hang out with other women and have fun with them. That’s perfectly fine. I’m not the jealous type. I want you to enjoy yourself. I wasn’t worried about a girlfriend. In fact, I encouraged him to have female friends. And I heard about him kissing his co-worker Marina Sirtis on the lips. That’s cool. I liked Marina. I thought she was nice. It didn’t bother me a bit. And I knew that he had women friends. He was a very physical, huggy type of a guy. I figured any guy who’s as warm and generous as this guy–that’s just the way he is. He knew how to have the right balance in his relationships with women. He knew how to express the affection, but he knew how to cut if off before it went too far. I had faith in him. Because he was sensitive in his handling of me, that I just knew that he understood women. He knew how to handle us.
I used to read comments where women would chase him at Star Trek conventions and how he’d crack jokes and get away from them. I’d laugh and think it was hilarious. I thought, “That sounds like him.”
If he got in an uncomfortable situation, he’d crack a bunch of jokes and joke his way out of it. You can’t afford to be the jealous type, if you’re in love with a Hollywood star. And I wasn’t. I never got mad at him about this. He was getting about fifty marriage proposals a month. I wasn’t worried about him at all. I sensed he had a very mature, intelligent grasp of the female sex. That he knew how to handle us. So I was a little puzzled about this blonde. . .The conclusion that I came to was that she probably worked for Paramount studios and she was a business associate.
And so I just wrote it off.
I figured if she was something I needed to know about, that Brent would tell me about her. I was writing him love letters, and making love to him in my letters, because I was so frustrated. I wanted to marry him. And I felt guilty that I couldn’t give him my body, because he made it plain that he wanted that.
But he dropped off on that after a while. We just settled off into a semi-romantic, semi-platonic friendship where there were no barriers between us. We talked about anything and everything. There was a very lighthearted, freewheeling, very witty, and I should say very warm and deep friendship between us. The exchanges most of the time were very positive.
I don’t think we ever had an out and out fight. It was a very positive relationship. Whenever there was a problem, I usually just cried a lot and I’d tell him what he was doing that bothered me. The most frustrating thing about this relationship (if you want to call it that ) is he never talked to me. The communication was lacking.
But, usually I figured things out after awhile. I figured something was blocking him. I didn’t know what it was, but I figured it was legitimate. And so I just respected that and I was very patient with the fact he wouldn’t talk to me. Ninety nine percent of our communication was very positive. We hardly ever were mad at each other. Maybe one percent of the time, I would be crying, usually because of a silence. And I usually had a legitimate reason.
1992 goes by and 1993 was pretty uneventful. I wrote him everyday and shared my life with him. I was still working on my writing, still a student at The Institute of Children’s Literature. And my goal was to become a professional writer. I dreamed every day about becoming his wife, and helping him in his work, as a writer. . . maybe a screenwriter. I did look a little into some screen writing. But after my script got rejected, I decided I wanted to be a novel writer, a prose writer. I decided I didn’t want to work for Hollywood. I sensed that as a Hollywood writer that I would not have creative freedom, that I would be bound too much by the rules of the studios and that I would be hindered as an artist. So I wanted to work in a medium where I would have the ultimate in artistic expression, where I wouldn’t feel like I had to follow rules, that I could make my own rules.
So I thought the best route for me was to become a novel writer, so I could create the story that I wanted, and not be bound by the guidelines of the studios. I didn’t want anyone telling me what was good art, because my goal as a writer was to write stories that I liked.
And I didn’t want to have to follow some silly guidelines that I thought would stilt my artistic expression or that would make my writing inferior to what it could be. So I thought the best route for me was to be a book writer.
I didn’t trust Hollywood. When they rejected my script I sensed that there was something wicked going on there. And I decided I would be a frustrated writer if I worked for Hollywood.
So I decided to develop my prose writing skills, and my goal was to become a novel writer, a writer of books, and I wanted to write love stories, ‘cause I thought that way I could make it up to him. I said, I’d write a great love story and pattern characters after our relationship, and that’s what I did.
Another interesting incident happened to me in 1993. In 1992, my son had to go to the hospital. And that happened again in 1993. Something hit him. He had asthma really bad. He was outside playing and I had to take him to the hospital. And usually if I was going through a crisis, Brent was unusually supportive. About a week before my son ended up in the hospital, I was getting the silent treatment again. The week before my son went in the hospital, Brent didn’t call me. And then when my son was in the hospital, Brent didn’t call me.
You know, looking back, I think the Vatican put something in the Seattle air which made my son have a severe asthma attack. I think they orchestrated the whole thing to make Brent look like he didn’t care when I was in trouble. ‘Cause here I was losing sleep, I was by myself—just me and my and my son was having trouble breathing. We had to admit him to the hospital. He had pneumonia and asthma. I was tired. Here I was in a crisis with my son, and Brent was giving me the silent treatment again. And I was puzzled. How strange. . .
And I was getting a little worried again. I thought, is this a repeat of September 1992? I said, and when my son’s in the hospital? What’s going on?
One of the doctors there said she was worried about me, that I looked unusually tired and she wanted me to see the hospital social worker, J—— F——. I really didn’t want to see him. But the pediatrician in charge of my son’s care said I looked stressed out, and she wanted me to go see him.
So I went to this social worker and there was something about him, he managed to get my secret from me. I told him my secret, that I was in love with Brent Spiner. And I said, I’ll tell you this only on one condition, that you don’t tell anybody. And he promised me he wouldn’t. So I told him about my life and how I felt constricted. I told him how comfortable I felt around Brent. And I told him that sometimes the stress of having to juggle all this around might have affected me a little in the care of my son, but I loved my son.
Back to September 1992, when Brent gave me three weeks of silence, was during the time of my birthday. And he didn’t call me at all on my birthday, so I knew something must be seriously wrong.
Back in 1986, when I was in Michigan, I started accounting studies, I decided I wanted to be a C.P.A. I knew I was highly intelligent and I wanted to use my brain, and go into some field where I could be considered a professional, and where I could bring some income into the family. So, I started accounting studies. It was a correspondence school, because I didn’t want to leave my baby. I wanted to stay home, be an at-home mother. So I started accounting studies and my son was just a baby, about one or two years old. It was with I.C.S.
I signed up for the first semester in their two-year associate accounting degree. I did very well. I made hundreds on just about every test I took. I took business writing, introduction to accounting, business math, introduction to management, introduction to business (?). There were a total of five courses. I was making straight 100s on just about every test on every subject. But when we got transferred to Florida and the H.R.S. came into my life, I was so stressed out, I couldn’t get myself to take the proctored final exam for the first semester of accounting. I was so stressed out, I couldn’t stay focused enough on my accounting studies. And the damage that I received from the H.R.S. was that I was so stressed out that I dropped out of my accounting studies, even though I was making 100s on all the tests, and I had finished all my course work, and the only thing I had left to do was to take the proctored final exam. But I was so stressed out because of the H.R.S. that I never took it. And I dropped out of my accounting studies.
Everybody was disappointed in me. Apparently, they didn’t realize just how stressed up I was about the H.R.S. I almost got an ulcer over that. If I didn’t get transferred to Seattle, I think I might have went crazy. I was very worried about losing my son.
My goal was to get a bachelor’s degree in accounting, ‘cause at that time my son was one or two years old, and I presumed that when he was ready for first grade that I’d have my bachelor’s degree. So my plan was to get a bachelor’s degree in accounting and when he started first or second grade, I could work. I didn’t expect the H.R.S. They threw a wrench into my plans. I was so stressed out, that all I could think about was keeping my son. Accounting just went off the wayside.
The only other time I decided to advance my education, after marriage, was when I went to Seattle and Brent came into my life. He encouraged me to explore myself more. He gave me the courage to not hold back my artistic side. I’d always been kind of ashamed of my artistic/creative side. I felt like maybe it was a little sinful, because it was so uninhibited. I thought it was proper to be more rigid in my Christianity. Brent took that away. He gave me an inner freedom, a courage to explore new vistas on my inside, to embrace parts of my personality that before, I kept inhibited, because those around me constricted me.
And as I grew as a person, and my marriage seemed more and more distant to me, it almost seemed like I wasn’t married. But I got closer to Brent.
I couldn’t get rid of Brent because he helped me find myself, he helped me to have the courage to say to the world, “This is me. You can like it or lump it, but this is who I am, my faults, my strengths, my weaknesses”. And for the first time in my life, I had the courage to show the world who I really was. I never had the courage to do it before, because I never felt that I was totally acceptable. And I think that was why I was so shy when I was a little girl. Brent made me blossom. That’s the reason he’s had such a strong impact on my life, and why I felt so deeply in love with him, to the point where he inspired me to perform far greater than I ever thought I could.
I was determined that when I studied writing. See, he was a big star. To me, he was my example of a person who had the courage to be true to their artistic side, to follow their dream, and to not be dissuaded by those who would laugh at trying to reach the mountain. So I told myself, I’m going to make him proud of me. I’m going to try to find a mountain with writing.
I was determined to be a great writer–for him. I wanted him to be proud of me. And I thought another advantage in learning to write is that if I learned to write greatly, not only would I be a blessing to Brent, but I would be a blessing to the world. And. . .I would leave behind a legacy after my death. To me, writing was one of the most awesome gifts that I could develop. I took it as a calling from God, as well as a way of giving something back to Brent to compensate for the fact that I couldn’t give him my body.
So I said, I’ll write for him. I said, I love this man so much, and he’s done so much for me, that I’m gonna let him see it in my writing.
I’m gonna write a masterpiece.
And that was my goal. I said, everything I write has to be great, because my writing honors a great love.
And I was so passionate when I taught myself how to write. . . this was my standard. . .I told myself, when I was a student at The Institute of Children’s Literature, a correspondence school. I said, I’m not studying to make straight As. When I study this craft, I’m going to go beyond that. I want to write something so great that I’m going to leave behind a monument, that I’m going to leave behind a legacy. I am not satisfied with just making straight As or just meeting the criteria of this writing school.
So when I studied, I tried to get everything out of that course that I could. I got everything from my instructor I could get out of him.
I let Lesleigh Jacobs look at my teleplay, because I sensed that she was an artist, ‘cause I heard her play guitar in church. So I wanted to pick somebody that I felt had an artistic sense, and who would be a good critic. Somebody intelligent, so I picked her and her husband. And they did critique my teleplay and give me some good suggestions. They were so afraid that they were going to insult me when they put some constructive criticism in there. I told them, “You have not insulted me. You have pointed out some serious flaws in here, and I’m honored that you took the time to critique this and you greatly helped me. Please, don’t be afraid to criticize my writing”.
I encouraged my writing professor. I encouraged anybody who looked at my writing, I said, “I do not want you to be kind to me when you read this script. I want you to rip it apart. If you see anything in there that you don’t think is right or that weakens the writing, don’t worry about hurting my feelings. I want you to rip it apart top to bottom. I want this thing to be great”. I was writing it for Brent. See, I didn’t tell her that. I said, “I want you to rip this thing up. Don’t worry about hurting my feelings. Rip it up from top to bottom. You see anything in there, don’t worry about hurting my feelings”.
Thank God, she followed my advice. She ripped that thing up top to bottom and helped me to find some flaws in there. I said, “I am so grateful that you had the courage to tell me the truth about this teleplay”. That was a labor of love for me. And I worked so hard on that teleplay that I was often up til 2 a.m., then I’d get up about 8 or 9 the next day, and I’d hit it again.
And I worked on that thing round the clock, going to my word processor, rewriting, rewriting, ripping up papers. I think I must have filled garbage cans. I mean I was really upset that I couldn’t give Brent my body. I was determined that with my writing I would make it up to him.
I had to watch Star Trek: The Next Generation in secret. I figured out a system where I could put the timer on the recorder and I could tape it.
People around me had no idea how much I was writing Brent. I really wanted to marry Brent, I wished so bad I wasn’t married at the time. The only reason I didn’t go to Brent was because I was worried that God would kill me. But I dreamed about making love to Brent every day, Brent consumed all my fantasies. The thing is, I neglected my teeth. Due to my life, I had to submit the teleplay before I could make it as good as I wanted. And then during that time, I sent rewrites to Brent, saying, “I could make this better”. I kept sending him improvements, because I really didn’t like it yet.
I was a new writer, and I wanted it to be professional level. I wanted to create something that he could act in, that he wouldn’t have to be ashamed of at all, to know that the woman that he loved wrote it for him. I sacrificed my teeth to try to get that thing done.
Because I didn’t brush my teeth properly, as I tried to accommodate my life with my love for Brent Spiner, and was so frantic in trying to get that thing done before a deadline, I ended up with root scaling and planing, numbed out in all four quadrants. And I still have recession damage from that, from the sacrifice that I made, and from staying up till 2 a.m. working on that teleplay.
I remember I worked my brain so hard, there were nights I went to bed with a headache. I was exhausted, just pushing myself, pushing, pushing, pushing. I was just obsessed with getting this thing out and making a great masterpiece for Brent. That’s how much I loved the man. I pushed myself. You can see the passion in the work. It’s an incredible feat in 1992 for somebody who’d only started learning how to write one month before she started working on the teleplay.
And I learned the screenplay form by going to the library and checking out library books and reading them from top to bottom. I found that I really enjoyed working on the screenplay, and I found that I was very good at writing. For the fact that I’d only started learning how to write one month before I worked on the screenplay, it’s incredible.
And it did make print eventually. I sacrificed my gums and my teeth for that teleplay. I started feeling pain in my gums and I went to a dentist, and he put one of them probes in my teeth. He said, “You have pockets going six, seven, I think he said eight. I’m going to have to send you to the periodontist. You’re going to have to get some work done on your gums”.
And I said, “Oh boy, that’s the price I paid for working on that teleplay and not taking care of my teeth.”
They had to numb out all four of my quadrants, and do root scaling and planing–deep, deep cleaning down into the pockets because I had gum infection, ‘cause I didn’t take care of my teeth when I worked on that script. That’s the price I paid to try to write a masterpiece for Brent, and it got rejected. But at least it made print. My passion showed, and somebody wanted the world to see that piece. So Melody Rondeau of Data Entries found out that I’d written that, and she asked to see it. She said I’d like to print it in my little fanzine for Brent. I said, “Sure. . .let somebody read it. I worked so hard on that stinking thing”. I was proud of it. I thought it was quite a feat for somebody who’d only been writing for one month.
It made print. They numbed all four of my quadrants out. It cost me quite a bit of money. I learned my lesson from that experience. I told myself, “No matter how passionate you are about your next piece of writing, make sure you take care of your teeth.” And I bought an electric toothbrush and I’ve been very diligent about taking care of my teeth since then.
I’ve decided it’s not worth sacrificing my gums to write something, so I changed my attitude about that. But back then, I was so crazy about Brent, to me, anything was worth it to write something great for him.
I also recall that during 1989 and 1990, before Brent wrote me, I had a real thing for him. There were several nights when I would get down on my knees and I felt led to pray for him all night. I prayed for him to be saved, to accept the Lord as His Savior. I don’t know why, there were just certain times, this was in 1989, 1990. . .I remember in my apartment in Miami I would pray for Brent Spiner all night, with tears, just crying for him and asking God to help him. So, even though I wasn’t after him romantically, I cared about him, enough to pray for him all night.
For several nights. Zero sleep. I was up praying for him all night. And I never told him that I did that for him. It was a secret between me and God. I just had a special love in my heart for that man, and a real burden for him.
I didn’t pray for him three nights in a row. Maybe one night, let’s say in September I’d be up all night praying and crying for him. And a couple months later, I’d be up all night again. There were about three or four nights throughout the year where I remember I prayed for him and I was up all night. I don’t know why. I just had a special burden for him. And I never told him that I did that for him. But as intelligent and sensitive as he is, maybe he sensed it. Maybe that’s why he fell for me.
I never expected him to be romantically interested in me, that wasn’t my intention. I thought it would incredibly complicate my life, and that’s exactly what it did.
But, when it happened, I handled it bravely, I just had a problem with my conscience that I couldn’t resolve. You might say, “If you were so brave, why didn’t you just go off and marry him?”
It wasn’t that I didn’t have the courage. It wasn’t that I was scared of Brent, I was scared of God. I was afraid God would kill me.
You have to understand my background. I devoted my life to God. I was willing to go to the mission field. There were times in my twenties that I asked God to kill me if I would sin against Him. I asked God to kill me so that my mother would be saved. That’s what kind of a Christian I was.
I was a very devout Christian, totally dedicated to God, when I sacrificed and went to the Christian university and turned down an opportunity to become an Air Force officer, I didn’t have any money. I went by faith. I was afraid I’d end up starving to death at that school. I did have one day that I only had a chicken drumstick because I didn’t have money for food, but God took care of me.
I learned to take it one day at a time. But I wasn’t sure I’d live from one day to the next. I remember I was on that Delta Air Lines flight from Miami to Atlanta, and I had packed my bags that night. I was kind of scared on that plane. I thought, “Am I crazy? I turned down a chance to be an Air Force officer. I go against my family. I only have about thirty bucks in my purse. I don’t even have money for tuition at this school. And God tells me to go on this plane and go up and trust Him”.
So I went. And I was a little scared. I thought maybe I was nuts or something. But I had no doubt that God spoke to me. See, you have to understand that I’m a Christian who came from a background like that. . .and then I was hit with the temptation of my life.
And I knew God was real. ‘Cause I’d had experience in prayer with God. I saw Him miraculously answer prayer for me when I went to that Christian university. I knew He was real and I feared Him.
And coming from a background like that, it wasn’t easy for me to sin with Brent Spiner. And yet I loved Brent. And I didn’t think that was a sin. So it was like a delicate balancing act for me. I wanted to love him and I felt like he needed my encouragement, but yet at the same time I didn’t want the love to tread over into the sin territory. I wanted to make sure I kept my power in prayer, ‘cause that’s something I always had and that I treasured.
And I didn’t want to lose it.
You may say, why did you keep it secret from everybody? I opened up a little bit to one of my family members, but I didn’t tell her too much. I really didn’t tell anybody. I opened up a little bit to Lesleigh Jacobs. I was very, very good about keeping my mouth shut.
I had a very strong motivation for doing this. I was in love with Brent. And I was afraid that if people knew that he had called me and said he wanted to rape me on the phone, that he would get in trouble. And I could tell that he was too big a man, too great a person–that he wouldn’t deserve the unfair criticism that he would get. ‘Cause I knew Americans had a lot of sexual hang-ups, so I viciously tried to protect him. That’s why I kept my mouth shut and I never told anybody the whole truth about how extensive Brent and I were communicating, or how much I was communicating with him.
My motive for keeping quiet was to protect him, because I loved him. I loved him enough to die for him. I kept my mouth shut because I knew that if word got out, that it would not be good for him. Because I was a married woman. It just did not look good.
I saw something in him that I knew the rest of the world wouldn’t see, except his close friends who know him. So that’s why I didn’t tell anybody. It wasn’t that I was ashamed of him. I was afraid that he would be hurt, that he would be misunderstood and I could tell there was something big and great about him, something very courageous and generous, and I viciously protected him. I sensed something really great about that man. And I knew he was the type of man who would risk misunderstanding, to be great in secret and to take public scorn. I could tell he was like that. I thought it was precious that he had that attitude. It was so opposite some of those around me, who obsessed over public opinion, but didn’t care about how they were in private.
Whereas Brent was just the opposite. In public he didn’t seem to care what kind of impression he made, but in private he was great. He never, ever treated me with the slightest hint of disrespect. In all of his dealings with me, he was the utmost in sensitivity, and always very kind and tender, and extremely generous, and I felt a man like that deserved my vicious protection. And that’s what he got.
I’ve always had a kind of independent streak. I’ve always feared God more than I fear men. And I make my moral decisions based on that. I’m willing to risk misunderstanding to do what I feel is loving, generous, kind and courageous, even if it means I have to risk public censure. And I made the choice that I was going to stand behind Brent Spiner, even if it meant my reputation went down the drain. ‘Cause I wasn’t concerned about my reputation, I was more concerned about my character, about who I really was. And it got me into some trouble.
But I knew that Brent was not a bad person.
But I knew that the actions and the risks that he took with me, where he made himself emotionally vulnerable, that if I was a bad woman, that I could have ruined him.
But–I had too much love in my heart. . .and, maybe I had enough greatness in me, that I could not betray somebody that I thought was great.
And I didn’t judge him to be great because of the fact that he was famous, or because he was a big star. I saw some inner qualities of generosity. . .courage. . .of a willingness to sacrifice. . .a humanitarian heart. And I realized that he was often misunderstood by the public, because he often did what he felt was right, even if it meant being scorned and misunderstood. I respected him for that. That’s why I stuck by him so viciously.
I knew that my Christian friends would think that I stood by him because I was enamored with his fame and his fortune. But in my heart, I knew that God knew my heart, and that God understood that it wasn’t his fame and his fortune I was in love with.
Many times I went to God in prayer and I said, “God, one of the biggest reasons I haven’t gone to this man is because he is famous. And if I marry him it’s gonna make you look bad, because he’s a rich celebrity. I love this man because of who he is, because of his generosity, his courage, his compassion, his humanitarian heart. I sense greatness in him. And it just aggravates me that because he’s famous, because he’s rich, that I know if I go to him that it would bring disgrace to your name, because I’m married and claim to be a Christian. I wish you would make a way for me to go to him, so I wouldn’t have to bring shame to your name in the process.” I prayed to God about this all the time. “I love this man so much, that even if he didn’t have any money, and he decided to go to the mission field, I’d go to the mission field with him. That’s the kind of a man I’d want to go to the mission field with, because with a man like that, I know I’d have a strong marriage.”
About the Star Trek: The Next Generation teleplay that I wrote called “Lal”. . . Even though it made print, the fanzine that printed it, was what I would call. . .Melody Rondeau (the editor) did not claim. . .she allowed a lot of writers to publish works in her fanzine who were definitely not writing at professional level. So, for my teleplay to make print in that magazine was not really a break in writing–to me. The only reason I allowed it to make print is because I wanted the world to see my work, because I was proud of it and I didn’t think that anybody else would publish it, simply because it was a teleplay. And at that time I didn’t have good prose writing skills. I had to do a little bit extra work to try to transform my teleplay somewhat into prose. I was having some difficulty with that, because I was a very new writer, and I didn’t really have good prose writing skills. And she asked me to try to transform it a little bit into prose. I did the best I could at the time.
The payment for the teleplay to be printed was that I’d get a couple of free subscriptions to Data Entries, was like five dollars.
I didn’t make any money from it making print in Data Entries. The only reason I allowed it to make print, is because I thought it was a shame that I worked so hard on it, and that nobody could read it.
She printed it in two installments. And I noticed she waited quite a while before it made print. Maybe Paramount studios contacted her, or she contacted them. I don’t know.
But, the funny thing is, that when it did make print, September 1993 was the first installment. The same issue in which my first installment made print, I read in the letters of comments section and I believe that’s the first time that I suspected that Brent might have another woman in his life. It was a letter in the letters of comments section, and I used to always love to read the letters of comments section ‘cause Brent would often go out to the Star Trek conventions and meet with the fans, and it was interesting to me to find out what he was doing ‘cause he never talked to me that much. He just gave me wrong numbers or had his friends call, or . . .He was very creative and witty, but he never really talked to me that much. Mostly I talked to him, like the way I’m doing right now, or I wrote him letters every day. But he never really talked to me that much, so I liked to read Data Entries, this was one of several fanzines out there about him, because his fans who’d met him at a convention, or whatever, would talk about what they thought Brent was up to. . . because he didn’t talk to me that much.
Anyways, I’d find out that he’d gone to a convention in Houston. I tried to keep up with everything about him. I wanted to know all about him. ‘Cause he didn’t really talk to me that much. I’d read in this letters of comments, one of his fans. . .he had gone to a convention in San Antonio. . .and in this letter of comment they mentioned that he was at this San Antonio convention, his mother was there, along with his family. . .I remember very distinctly the letter writer said, “And who’s that cute blonde that was with him?”
The way I reacted to that, was I was thinking, “He’s with some cute blonde woman who’s going with him to conventions? That’s strange. . .” I figured, well, he was still giving me lots of attention. This was in 1993. The only difference was after September 1992, when he gave me the three weeks of silence, he no longer called me on holidays. That had stopped. I remember that. I thought . . .that’s strange. . .when Christmas or Thanksgiving rolled around, he would never call me on a holiday. I’d usually get silence on a holiday. And I thought that was kind of strange. I didn’t know what to make of that, because before September 1992, he always, always called me on holidays. It was like he was saying, “Merry Christmas” or “Happy whatever”, “happy birthday”. In fact, if I remember correctly, on September 15, 1991, I believe he did call me on my birthday. Yeah, he did. So, one thing that changed after September 1992, is he never. . .whenever there was a major holiday, I always got the silent treatment. Because I’m not the kind of woman who makes a big deal about holidays, it didn’t affect me in the least. I noticed that there was a change in policy, though.
But he was so attentive to me in every other way, so I didn’t make a big deal over it.
Back to Data Entries, Melody Rondeau prided herself on publishing the works of beginning writers, and a lot of times when she published the works, the readers would criticize that she was publishing the work of amateurish works, that she shouldn’t let these people make print because their writing was way below professional level–which was the truth. ‘Cause I had read something like a teleplay, it wasn’t quite a teleplay, it was a short story with Data in it, and it was definitely not professional level, so for me to make print in this fanzine, really didn’t do too much to advance my writing career. And I mainly allowed my story to make print because I was proud of it and I didn’t think that anybody else would publish it, simply because of the strict copyright laws that Paramount had around their characters.
They had a deal with the fanzines. The fanzines were allowed to publish Star Trek stories, because that was not considered a violation of copyright laws because writers didn’t make any money in the fanzines. So, it didn’t really advance my writing career at all for my story to make print in that fanzine. The only reason I allowed it to make print in the fanzine was because I wanted the public to read it. ‘Cause I worked hard on it.
Data Entries was the only fanzine I subscribed to. There were several others out there, but I liked Data Entries because I liked Melody Rondeau. I got to know her through correspondence, and though she may have been a Star Trek fan, she was a very generous person and she had high moral standards. She was a Christian. We corresponded and she told me a little bit about herself, and she always conducted herself very professionally. And even though Data Entries may not have been a professional level fanzine, Melody herself, always conducted herself like a professional.
My teleplay made print in two installments. The first half made print in September 1993, and the second half in January 1994. She pretty much printed it the way it was, though there were always typos in the publication. She was very, very busy. I don’t think she made a profit from this fanzine. It was always a labor of love for this editor. And I just appreciated the fact that she printed it, but I thought it was very interesting that the first time I got a hint that Brent might have a girlfriend, was when the first half of my teleplay made print. I think the name of the letter writer was Mary Heaston. She claimed she was a college student or something. Brent was at a Star Trek convention in San Antonio, and I remember distinctly this letter writer was curious about this blonde. And every time the letter writers wrote about Brent with this blonde, I noticed they always described him as nervous, like he looked real nervous. One letter writer commented that he kept looking at the blonde woman who was with him, like for some sort of approval or something.
That concerned me.
When I read that this person seemed to make him nervous. . .the letter writers claimed they thought he was nervous because he was at the Star Trek convention. Brent has been a little bit shy with the public. The letter writers would insinuate that it was probably because he was not used to being with his fans.
But I knew him and I knew how comfortable he was with me. My impression was, I was worried about him. I remember back then I asked myself, “Whoever this blonde woman is, she’s not good for him, because she’s making him nervous”. I remember that every time they wrote about him being with this blonde, they would say he kept looking at her when he gave his speech or answered fan questions at these Star Trek conventions.
And I thought, “Why would Brent allow a good looking blonde woman to go with him. . .she was obviously good looking, ‘cause they all said she was cute and everything. . .to go with him to these conventions. . .why would he allow her to go with him, when he’s with his family?”
I was starting to wonder who she was. And I got a little curious. But I was concerned about him. I figured that maybe Paramount didn’t like me because they rejected my teleplay. And I thought that was kind of strange, because I knew I wrote a good one. I was also getting the Star Trek magazine, and they always gave advice to speculative script writers, that’s what you were called if you were an unknown teleplay writer trying to write for Star Trek. They always gave advice and they said they weren’t accepting any sequels to a story that had to do with Lore. I wrote something with Lore in it ‘cause I remember reading in the fanzine that Brent wanted a sequel written to a Lore episode because he thought it would be fun to act in, so I wrote him a sequel.
See, I was reading the fanzines to learn more about him and what I could do to make him happy. And that’s when I first found out about this blonde. I believe it was September of 1993, but I didn’t dwell on it. I wasn’t jealous of her, I was worried about Brent. ‘Cause I noticed immediately, looking at him through the eyes of love, that whoever this woman was she was making him nervous.
My first gut feeling about this blonde, was I didn’t know who she was, but–I don’t like her. And it had nothing to do with the fact that she was blonde. Though I noticed everybody described her as the cute blonde. It was the fact that she made him nervous. I said, “I don’t want him to be nervous.” And I never forgot that three weeks of silence. I somehow thought there’s some sort of a connection between the suffering, and then I remembered after he gave me three weeks of silence, he called me up about a week and a half after my birthday.
I remember very distinctly that I finally resigned myself to the fact that it was over between Brent and myself because he was giving me this silent treatment. So I wrote him a letter and I said, “Brent, it appears you don’t want to contact me anymore. I don’t know why. But I want you to know that I’m gonna pray for you every day for a half an hour from my window. I’ve made a covenant with God, and that’s how I will communicate with you. I’m not going to write you a whole bunch anymore, because for some odd reason you seem to want to end our communication. I don’t know why. But I want you to know I’m going to pray. I’ll keep writing, but I may not write as much, but I will pray for you every day.”
I finally had peace. I went to God in prayer, and asked Him what I should do. And the only way that I could go to bed at night. . .I cried my eyes out. I was so upset. I was crying all day. I was depressed. Because he was everything to me. I loved him so much, I ruined my gums to write that teleplay. I finally found peace with God. I thought well I know how I can love him now. I said, “I can love him by praying for him every day”. So I made a covenant with God and with Brent and I said, “I know you’re not going to contact me anymore, but I won’t forget you. I’m gonna love you by praying for you a half hour every day for the rest of my life.”
The next day he called. He didn’t talk to me. He rarely talked to me, usually in 1990 or 1991, he only talked to me five times a year. It was always brief and he never stayed on the phone long.
But after that, he called and it looked like things were back to normal, so I was happy, I said, “Oh good. He’s back!”
But–things weren’t back to normal. I started figuring it out. . .later.
About November 1992. . .I watched Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes religiously. I always wanted to see the new ones that came out because I could sort of gauge how Brent was doing. And I was concerned about Brent when there was a certain episode that came on called “A Fistful of Datas”. I could usually tell by looking at an episode how Brent was doing when he made the episode. I noticed that in “A Fistful of Datas”, I saw an expression on his face where he looked like he was going through hell, like he was going through emotional torment. “A Fistful of Datas” aired in November 1992.
When I read Data Entries, I found out that usually, ‘cause Melody kept up with what was going on at Star Trek, she would contact some of the producers or. . .she had her connections, so she knew a lot of the inside goings-on at Star Trek. She mentioned in one of her commentaries about how it usually took about two months for a television show to air after it was in production. So I presumed because “A Fistful of Datas” aired in November that it was made during the time when Brent gave me three weeks of silence. I recall very distinctly that I saw a tremendous amount of emotional pain. . . on his face, in that episode. And I thought, “Oh my God, whatever the reason was. . .” I realized that something terrible had happened to Brent when he gave me that three weeks of silence. I was always curious what it was.
I didn’t know. He never told me. But I knew whatever it was, it was very difficult for him to give me three weeks of silence in September 1992. I could tell by looking at him in the episode “A Fistful of Datas”. I knew that whatever the reason was, it wasn’t because he didn’t love me. It was something else. And whatever he went through in September of 1992, so that he didn’t call me on my birthday or anything, it must have been catastrophic to him. ‘Cause he looked catastrophic in “A Fistful of Datas”.
I could tell he went through something terrible. So I got a little concerned about him. I began to suspect there was something fishy going on at Paramount studios. The reason for that is because I watched the Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes religiously, because that was about the only way I could gauge how he was doing emotionally. And I remember that there was an episode that aired that involved a Moriarty character and the love of his life, who was a woman that had black hair. And they hired a woman to play the role of Moriarty’s wife. . . his name was professor Moriarty. The episode was called “Ship in a Bottle”. The story line was about a man who loved a woman tremendously and wanted to marry her and be with her, but there were difficulties. She was portrayed as being brilliant and beautiful, and obviously these Paramount people considered me brilliant because they looked at my teleplay. . .I remember they put some lines in there where she was described as being a bit stuck on herself.
I felt like the Star Trek writers were putting in “digs” on me. Because I did complain to Brent that I felt there was something fishy going on at Paramount, and that they shouldn’t have rejected my teleplay. I said to Brent, “I smell a fish. I know I did a good job on that and I know that the quality of the writing was higher than most of what I see aired on this show.” So, I figured something fishy was going on. I didn’t have any ill feelings toward Paramount, but I started noticing some strange things with some of the episodes that aired.
And there was one writer, whose name was xxxxxx xxxxxxx and it seemed that with the episodes he wrote, it was like he poked fun at me. There was one episode several years later that he wrote and. . .he always wrote episodes that seemed to make fun of my Christian standards and that glorified sex as some sort of. . . I don’t know.
I sensed that I had enemies at Paramount. And I suspected that they were behind the trouble that Brent and I were having in our personal relationship. That somebody was trying to undermine us, and I think it was maybe some jealous writers at Paramount. I sensed that some of the writers at Paramount were jealous of me, because I could write so well.
Some of the episodes that aired appeared to be poking fun at me, saying I was stuck on myself. . .and insinuated I was a sore sport because my script got rejected. . . And there were other episodes that appeared to make fun of my Christian beliefs. See, there were a lot of New Agers at this studio. I figured they didn’t like me because of my Christianity.
But I knew Brent never held it against me.
But I knew I had enemies at Paramount. I smelled something going on there. I could tell by some of the episodes that aired on the show. They were playing mental games with me.
But I was very generous with Star Trek though. Right after I watched any Star Trek episode, I made sure to catch up with the new releases immediately, the next day I would immediately make a comment about it, I would critique it and say where it could improve, and say since I’m a writer I’ll help you out with your show, because I want your show to be the best it can be, ‘cause you act in it, Brent, and I wanted to help the writers there.
So I said, “You don’t have to share this with the writers, but I’m gonna critique the episodes and let your producers know what I think the show’s doing right, what I think they’re doing wrong, and how they can improve.”
And what was really strange is it seemed like the show was acting on my critiques. So I spent time critiquing their episodes in the letters that I wrote to Brent, pointing out what I thought were writing weaknesses and how they could improve and how they could make the show more interesting. And I noticed it appeared they were acting on some of my comments. I could tell from watching the show. So I kind of had fun with that.
I thought, isn’t it strange they respect my writing enough to take heed to my critiques about their episodes, but yet they reject my teleplay. I felt there was somebody petty working there, that they didn’t want to help me advance my writing career at all, and yet they were willing to take my free critiques and act on them to improve the writing at Star Trek.
My personal opinion about the writers at Star Trek was that they weren’t very good. I didn’t say this to Brent. But when I watched the episodes, I told Brent, “It seems the most serious problem your writers have is in the area of characterization. They seem weak in that area.” And I didn’t tell this to Brent, because I didn’t want to insult him, because he worked on that show, but I did not have a very high opinion about the Star Trek writers. I thought I was a better writer than they were.
Apparently, they sensed my attitude and they were a little resentful of that. One writer in particular seemed to have some problem with me. I remember him. I said, “That writer’s got a problem with me.” I used to watch some episodes that he penned and I could tell he was poking digs at me. So I figured maybe he’s the reason Brent gave me three weeks of silence in September.
I could tell there were some people at Paramount that didn’t like me. And I figured they were trying to break up my relationship with Brent. I figured that maybe they were behind that blonde that Brent was going with. I figured they were trying to break us up. That was my impression.
I said, “I wouldn’t dare break Brent’s heart by allowing these people to win.” That was my attitude. I was fiercely loyal to him.
I was concerned to bring him happiness anyway I could, to make it up to him that I couldn’t give him my body. And he was still being very attentive.
But I do remember that he went on the Joan Rivers show, and I would always tape it if he ever made a television guest appearance. And I taped it. And he seemed real happy. This was around November 1992. He went on the Joan Rivers show. I ended up losing that tape because a family member discovered it and destroyed that videotape a couple of years later.
But Brent was on the Joan Rivers show, and I remember very distinctly he was joking with Joan Rivers at the end of the episode. . .and somehow the topic, he was very witty. . .and I thought that was great because I have a sense of humor. At the end of the show, they somehow got onto the subject of sex. I happen to know what Brent was like with sex. But Brent cracked a joke and I think Joan Rivers asked something about how he felt about sex and then Brent answered, “Oh, you mean on the episode?” It was a joke. It was funny. And she laughed. Brent somehow said that he enjoyed sex. But whenever he made any public appearances, he didn’t want to talk about his private life. I thought that showed the man had some class. I knew I was important to him. I figured that I had something to do with it. He never wanted to talk about his private life. And if anybody ever asked him about his private life, in order to evade the subject, he’d usually crack some joke and go onto another topic. But he looked really happy in that episode and I figured that I had something to do with it. So I was pleased to see that it looked like everything was okay
He never told me why he gave me three weeks of silence in September. I never got an explanation.
Regarding the South Carolina summer 1998 incident where juveniles attacked my mobile home, right after I fell and injured my knee. . .Any ways, I think it was two or three weeks before they quit thumping and dumping my garbage all over my yard and setting it on fire. Every morning I’d wake up to a new surprise. More work for me to do. I was in crutches and I had to go out there and clean the mess.
And what did the police do? They just showed up and did nothing. They only patrolled the area. They said, “Maybe you should stay up all night and see if you can catch them.” This was about the best help I got from the county Sheriff’s Department in South Carolina.
Finally, I figured out that they were working for Loree McBride. That they weren’t on my side. She got the police. I thought, “Boy, this woman’s good. I mean, she’s good. What kind of connections does she have?” I told Brent, “You need to do something about that girlfriend of yours. Man, she’s really getting out of hand.”
I could tell that Brent was not happy about this. He was getting very upset with his girlfriend. I think he agreed with me that she had something to do with this.
That was very stressful. I was in crutches. My son and I were getting very severe symptoms from the mobile home and in the hot summer months we were dizzy. And then on top of all that, my church was against me. The police department was against me. And they were hiring juvenile delinquents to dump my garbage all over my yard and set it on fire, and I had to go out there and clean it up.
And then I noticed when the preacher from my church came over, and I was in crutches, when he came over to mow our lawn, he was very snooty towards me. He treated me like I was some mental case, and he was far above me. So I concluded, “Wow, that girlfriend’s got some connections. She put this preacher on my phone, brainwashed his whole church against me.” That church had a clique mentality any ways. I thought, “Loree got the sheriff’s department against me.”
And then I remember I called up an engineer, “I want to order some formaldehyde test kits.”
He said, “They cost six hundred dollars.”
“Six hundred dollars? To get a formaldehyde testing kit? I think I’ve got extra formaldehyde in my kitchen. It can’t cost six hundred dollars!”
He said, “Oh yeah, it costs six hundred dollars.”
“Forget it. Isn’t there someplace where I can get it cheaper than that?”
He said, “I don’t know. . .”
So, I thought, my gosh, this woman’s really good, she even got the engineer. I looked all around to try to find a formaldehyde testing kit, I think I finally located a source on the Internet, but it wasn’t easy. And I did use it, and I found out my kitchen had formaldehyde– a pretty high exposure. But then I concluded, “Who’s going to believe me?” They’d probably think I made it all up or that I’m not a scientist, so, therefore, I’m not suffering from formaldehyde exposure in my kitchen. I could tell that somebody was out to get me.
And whoever they were, they were good. I figured it was Loree McBride and her friends. I thought, “Those Hollywood connections she has, she’s got some powerful friends, that they can do this. Boy, things can’t get much worse than this.
My son almost flunked fourth grade, because of illnesses, though we made it.
Finally, the stitches came off, and after a month, I was able to walk. My family doctor took the stitches out for me. He was very upset that this happened to me. He’s a nice guy.
In the month of August 1998, I started thinking about studying law. I said, “You know what? With all the problems that I’ve had, dealing with police and corruption–I think I want to be a lawyer. I don’t think these people, whoever they are, are going to leave me alone.” I started thinking about law.
Around November 1998, we found out our next duty station would be Seattle. So I wrote to the University of Washington Law School and asked for their bulletin. I thought maybe I could study law in Seattle. I decided with all the trouble I got, I might as well become an attorney.
I told Brent and Franco Nero, “I think I want to become a lawyer.” That was November 1998. And this school year I was also home schooling my son. In 1998/1999 he was in fifth grade. Again I got the most lovely Christmas present for December 25, 1998, only my son and I were home at the time.
My son was with me. This was a month after I decided I wanted to become an attorney. Apparently, somebody didn’t like that decision. My son said, “Mother, there’s a fire outside our kitchen door.”
It was about a waist high fire, maybe about three feet away, like a little bonfire. “Oh, put it out.”
So, my son got a bucket of water and he put it out. And then there was another fire by the front door. And, did you know, somebody was setting fires, and so we put out the one by the front door.
Then there was another fire by the kitchen door. As soon as we put out a fire by the kitchen door, then there was another fire by the front door. So we were going from one end of the house to the other, putting out fires. I was filling up buckets with water, handing them to my son and we were. . .I think he must have put out about twenty fires.
And in between breaks, I said, “I’m going to call the police. We gotta find who’s doing this.” So I called the police.
Man, it took them forever to show up. They didn’t show up right away. For three hours, my son and I were running from door to door, putting out fires. I said to myself in my head, “Good grief, this Loree McBride, she’s going too far. They need to put her in jail.”
Three hours, it was a blitzkrieg of fires. One by the front door, one by the kitchen door. They were all by the doors. And we put them all out. Finally, the police showed up and there were these black heaps where the fires had been. . .
I was exhausted when the police officer showed up. That was stressful. We lived in a mobile home. You know how quick a mobile home can burn down? And the fires were close to our home. And my son was good.
So the police showed up. And I got asked the same question, “You must have made someone awful mad, that they’d set all these fires around your house. Do you know who they are?”
I said, “I have no idea.” No way was I going to give away that Brent and Franco were on my phone. And I knew Brent and Franco didn’t do it. I figured it was Loree McBride and I wasn’t going to help her one bit. I could tell she was trying to kick Brent and Franco off my phone, and my family doctor, because he was on, too. So I said, “I don’t know. . .”
He said,”Those fires were only about waist high. We’ve had a lot worse cases than that in our police department. This really isn’t that big of a deal.”
I looked at that man square in the face and said, “Who’s paying you to do this?”
He got real huffed up and he said, “Nobody.”
I said, “You’re telling me that waist high fires, we just had a blitzkrieg of fires. And you’re telling me that this is not a big deal? Our house could have burned down.”
He said, “We get fire reports like this all the time.”
I said, “Who’s paying you to do this?”
He said, “Nobody, ma’am.”
I said, “I want to study to become an attorney and I can tell by the way you’re behaving there’s something fishy about you. And if I was a lawyer, I’d probably drag you into court. Who’s paying you, officer, to try to frame me with these questions? You shouldn’t treat these fires so flippantly. This could be very serious, officer.”
He left after this and in an irritated voice said, “Nobody’s paying me to do this.”
I told Brent about that incident. My son got blamed for those fires and he didn’t do them, because he was with me and he was helping me put them out.
And we got ready to move to Seattle.
As a result of the medical problems we had in the summer of 1998 with allergies, I started seeing a specialist in Allergy and Environmental Medicine in North Charleston. When I went to see him, he did very extensive allergy testing on me, but we had an interesting incident in his office. I requested that he test me for formaldehyde sensitivity, and I got a really strange reaction from him about that. They did an intradermal injection to see how you’d react to different substances, and when it came time for the formaldehyde testing. . .I can’t remember which method they used, but they always asked you to rate your symptoms, like on a scale from one to ten. They told me that one of the tests was formaldehyde. Oh now, I remember, I was sitting next to this physician and asked him, “Would you please test me for formaldehyde, because I wanted to know if I had a sensitivity to it.”
And for some odd reason, he seemed reluctant to do it. And I thought that was kind of strange because it was part of their normal testing procedure. They had done it with other patients. He was a specialist in environmental medicine. So, I talked him into it, because I wanted to be tested for it, because I thought I had formaldehyde sensitivity. During the testing procedure they played a dirty trick on me.
Looking back, I think the Jesuits got this physician temporarily. And maybe that’s where they got my allergy records from.
During the testing procedure for formaldehyde, the nurse, I think, claimed she tested me for formaldehyde and she asked me what my symptoms were. And I rated it like seven or eight or something like that. And then when it was over she said, “That really wasn’t formaldehyde that you got tested for. It was a placebo. We just wanted to eliminate the possibility that maybe you’re imagining symptoms with formaldehyde.”
I said, “Why would you do that?”
Yeah, that was it. Before they gave me the official formaldehyde test, they gave me the trick one. It was just plain salt water, and I think I rated it as a six or seven, and they lied to me and told me it was formaldehyde. And she said, “What numbers do you give that?” The higher the number, meant you were having symptoms. . .I think I gave it like a six or a seven. I said, “I’m not really sure. I think it’s about a six or a seven.”
After I said that, she said, “That wasn’t formaldehyde. That was just plain old salt water.”
I looked at her and said, “Is this your normal procedure for formaldehyde testing?”
She said, “Oh yes, we do this all the time.”
I said, “That’s a little strange. . .I still want formaldehyde testing. I don’t care. Maybe I did imagine these symptoms. I don’t know. It’s hard to tell sometimes. It gets confusing. I still want formaldehyde testing.”
“Is this your normal procedure for formaldehyde testing. I think it’s a bizarre practice.”
I think they tested me for formaldehyde and they found a sensitivity, but they were kind of reluctant to divulge it. Apparently, it wasn’t severe.
I do know that in the mobile home in the kitchen, I was getting some pretty severe symptoms. And I think it was formaldehyde. And I think the Jesuits were trying to cover it up and they got some cooperation from this physician.
But it was getting kind of scary to me at this point. I thought, “This Loree McBride girl. . .she’s just too good.”
And then another strange thing happened to me. Right after the fires, my psychiatrist called me. His name was Dr.———-. He said, ‘I got an E-mail from a family member. I’d like to see you. He’s concerned about you.”
See, what had happened was after the fires, I tried to spare my son from blame, so I mentioned that I believed Loree McBride did those fires.
So I got a call a couple of days later from my psychiatrist, Dr.———–. “I got an E-mail from a family member who’s concerned about you. I’d like you to come in and see me.”
I said, “What did you get an E-mail from them about?”
“We can discuss that when you come into my office.” I thought, “Oh, no, what has that Loree McBride done?”
So I went to Dr. ——-’s office and this psychiatrist who I’d had a pretty good relationship with before, I had told him all about my Italian cooking and he was telling me about his cooking, he was a cook, too. All of a sudden, it seemed like he changed. He said, “Here’s the E-mail that your family member sent me. I’m concerned that you believe that Brent Spiner’s girlfriend. . .set fires. . .around your mobile home. . .”
I said, “Why would that concern you?”
“You really believe that Brent Spiner’s girlfriend set fires around your mobile home?”
“I really don’t care to discuss this. I don’t want to talk about my private life. This is not something I want to talk about.”
“We have to talk about your private life. That’s how I do my job.”
“I don’t want to talk about this. This is not something I want to discuss with you.”
“I’m afraid you are exhibiting psychotic symptoms and we need to put you on stronger medications.”
I said, “I refuse. I will not go on those medications. I’m not psychotic. And, furthermore, I think I was misdiagnosed with manic depression and that I never had it in the first place. I believe my problems have been nutritional deficiencies and allergies, and that’s why I’ve had trouble sleeping. I don’t think I ever was a manic depressive, and I’m not gonna be put on anti-psychotic medications. I refuse.”
He said, “I can’t make you. I’m very concerned about you. And I think you should be put on stronger medications.”
“What medications?”
“Would you at least please consider this?”
“What medications do you want to put me on?”
So he gave me the names of the medications and I said, “I’ll go home and think about this, but I’m pretty sure I won’t change my mind.”
So I went home and looked up the medications and found out they have some pretty nasty side effects, and they would have really messed me up. At this point, I was starting to explore natural medicine. And I was no longer convinced that I was a manic depressive. I was determined to get off those psychiatric meds because I concluded that was a way for my enemies to manipulate and control me. However, I knew that in order to get off of what I was on. . .I was on Tegretol, which was very bad for me. I was also in lithium. Tegretol was the bad one. I made up my mind. I’m getting off of this stuff, as soon as possible. I don’t want to be at the mercy of these psychiatrists who want to get me all doped up and admit me to a mental ward, when I know I’m not crazy.
Just because I wanted to protect Brent Spiner and Franco Nero, I didn’t want to discuss my private life with this psychiatrist. I was in a bad situation. I decided I would wean myself off the psychiatric medicines by myself. I had been weaned off before by a psychiatrist (Dr. H—— S—— of Miami), so I pretty much knew the procedure. I knew you had to gradually decrease your dose, or you could suffer bad withdrawal symptoms.
After this, I tried to find another psychiatrist. So I called around to try to find another psychiatrist. All the psychiatrists that were covered by my insurance were not available. The only ones that could see me were the ones I couldn’t afford. So I thought, “She’s really good. She got all the psychiatrists in Charleston. All the ones that I can afford with my insurance are not available. Boy, does she got a conspiracy against me. Well, I’m going to get off this medicine. I’ll just do it by myself.”
But I needed some refills. I came up with a game plan. I knew I could decrease the dose so much every couple weeks and by about May 1999, I’d be off everything. I had enough lithium, but I needed a little bit more. I needed a refill.
I called up the pharmacy and asked them to give me a refill of tegretol or lithium. I knew I needed to gradually wean off, because if I did it cold turkey, I’d get those horrible withdrawal reactions and I’d been through that before. My plan was to get enough refills so I could stock up on the medicines and wean myself off. But I was a little short on one of them, so I needed some more. I called up the pharmacy and they were having a problem filling my prescription.
Apparently, my psychiatrist had contacted that pharmacy and told them not to give me any refills. I said, “Why can’t you give me a refill. It says I have refills on my prescription.”
They said, “Well, your doctor just contacted us and said you can’t have any refills unless you come back and see him.”
I thought, “What? This is ridiculous.” I said, “Alright.” So I went back to see Dr. ——–.
He said, “Have you thought about getting on those medications?”
I said, “I thought about it. I looked them up and they have terrible side effects. I’m not gonna take them. I don’t think I’m psychotic, and I don’t think I’m manic depressive.”
And he said, “Well, I’m very concerned about you.”
I said, “I need a refill on some of my medicines. Will you give me one?”
He reluctantly gave me a refill. It was barely enough. He gave me a refill to last me about a month and a half. I didn’t tell him this, but in my mind, I was planning on decreasing. He gave me just enough of a refill. So I put my game plan into action. In January 1999, I started gradually decreasing my psychiatric meds. And I never went back to see him or any psychiatrist again.
I did suffer some withdrawal symptoms because I didn’t get enough refills to space it out as much as I wanted. I figured if I decreased the psychiatric meds and increased my vitamins and calcium and magnesium, that I’d be alright. ‘Cause I figured out the reason I wasn’t sleeping was because I wasn’t getting enough nutrition, which was correct.
So I started taking enzymes. I increased my calcium, magnesium and my vitamins. And it worked. My sleep actually improved. I did suffer some withdrawal symptoms from getting off the psychiatric meds, which I expected, because I had to get off them faster than I liked, I didn’t have enough refills. I told myself, “Just go through it, because once you get off, it’s gonna be better.”
By the time we got to Seattle in May 1999, I was off of all my psychiatric meds. And I’ve never been on them since. I did it by myself, because I couldn’t find any psychiatrist to assist me, that I could afford.
I was really happy. I was sleeping well, even better than when I was on the psychiatric meds, and I had no mental symptoms. I knew I wasn’t manic depressive.
In all my history with psychiatrists, even though they diagnosed me with manic depression, none of the psychiatrists ever said I was psychotic. They just said, I had a tendency to be a little hyper. But I was never diagnosed with psychosis. Never.
I always thought I was a little weird psychiatric patient, because when I was in a psychiatric hospital on a voluntary basis, I thought I was the most sane one in there. I didn’t act like I had a mental problem. And when they put me on the psychiatric medications, I walked around like a zombie. It appears I did not need to be on it. It slowed me down. What I was diagnosed with manic depression, manic type meant you were all hyped up. The medication made me look lethargic. I saw myself on video. Those doctors goofed. I’m not manic depressive. They misdiagnosed me. I figured it out on my own. Those psychiatric medicines have messed up my voice. I have suffered permanent damage because of that. I have tardive dyskinesia, spasmodic dysphonia. Now I’m not saying the Jesuits were behind that, but I was misdiagnosed and they took full advantage of that.
Anyways, we got to Seattle. I was off of my psychiatric medicines and very excited about natural medicine, because I was getting some phenomenal results. I was changing my whole philosophy about medicine, becoming much more natural in my approach.
I decided to visit a naturopathic doctor. I was excited about being in Seattle, because Seattle was like the headquarters of natural medicine in the United States. In July 1999, I started seeing a ———-, a naturopathic physician in Seattle. And it was pretty interesting. She gave me some good advice.
Around March 1999, I started using a credit card to buy my natural supplements because my family refused to help me with these. He said all this natural medicine was junk, that if it wasn’t traditional medicine, he wasn’t going to pay for it, because it wasn’t covered by insurance and he didn’t believe in that kind of medicine, and that I was imagining my symptoms, and that he wasn’t going to help me out one bit, with organic food or natural medicine. The only thing he would pay for would be traditional medical treatment.
So I could tell if I wanted to get my health back, I’d have to pay for it myself.
So I took out a credit card, so I could get back to health and not have to be dependent on psychiatrists, and those kind of doctors for the rest of my life. I didn’t want to be at their mercy.
So I started seeing a naturopathic physician and, of course, I paid for this with my credit card and my charges started going up. I was buying calcium and all sorts of supplements. They were working. I was getting results. So I saw this doctor,———–. I went to her, not to see her, but to get colon cleansing treatment because I read in one of my naturopath books that if you cleaned out your colon, it’d be good for your health. And when I was getting colon irrigation, the irrigator suggested that I see the doctor there. She said she might be able to help me with some of my stomach problems. I told her I suffered from a little bit of heartburn and nausea.
I went to the naturopath doctor. “I heard you’re able to help me with my stomach problems.”
She said, “Yes. I want you to consider another form of treatment that it appears you haven’t considered. It’s called spinal extremity correction, where I manipulate your spine and this can also help you with your stomach problems and probably with your sleep and other things.”
I said, “My sleep is fine. I’m not worried about my sleep. Right now I’m having stomach problems.”
“Okay,” then she dropped a suggestion to me. “I see that you just got off of your psychiatric meds, and that you’re not under the supervision of a psychiatrist.”
All of a sudden my suspicious antennas went up. “Yes. . .”
“Don’t you think that’s a little dangerous?”
“I’m doing fine. I’m not exhibiting any symptoms mentally. I’m sleeping well. I don’t need to see a psychiatrist.”
With a compassionate tilt to her voice, she said, “Don’t you think maybe you ought to get back on a low dose of your psychiatric medicines and be under the supervision of a psychiatrist, just to make sure everything’s okay?”
“Why, would I want to do that, when I’m not suffering any mental symptoms?”
“Okay, well, never mind. . .So you want to come next week and have me work on your stomach?”
“I think I’ll go ahead and try this.” I was a little suspicious of her, but not quite suspicious yet.
I figured maybe she wouldn’t be bold enough to try anything else, because she could tell I was already suspicious of her.
So I showed up for the spinal extremity correction. I told her, “I’m doing this mainly to help with my stomach.”
“Well, this will help you with your stomach. . .and it probably will help with other things, too.”
So she started manipulating my spine, and then she grabbed my head and kind of jerked it back. I noticed I was feeling a little stiff in my neck, but I thought, “Oh well. . .that was kind of a weird treatment that she grabbed my head and jerked it back like that.”
And I started losing a little bit of sleep and I didn’t worry about it too much. I went back for about one or two more treatments. After the second or third treatment, when I went home, the muscles in the back of my neck were having spasms. I was in so much pain, I was up all night. Oh my God, LoreeMcBride got the doctor to try and induce psychosis in me using that spinal extremity correction. I was up all night. I had a headache. I was nauseated. I was actually getting mental symptoms because of the manipulations done to my neck.
I thought, “I bet I know who can fix this–a chiropractor.”
So I called up a chiropractor and made an emergency appointment. “I need to see you right away. I’m really in distress. I feel lousy.”
This is the first time I’d been to a chiropractor in my life. I showed up at the chiropractor and he said, “I need to take x-rays.” He was real friendly. His name was Dr. ———- in Lynnwood, Washington. He took X-rays and said, “Awww. . . yeah. . .we need to manipulate your C2.” He did a jerk with my head, and I felt better, but it didn’t last.
So I had to go back to see him again. Now my bills were really piling up. I got ripped off by this naturopath, and here I am at this chiropractor. The second time he gave me an adjustment, I felt worse than I did when I went to Dr.————. I thought, “Oh no! They got the chiropractor!”
I was so tired. I called him up and said, “I don’t know what you did to my neck. But I want you to fix this. I’m going to show up, and whatever you did. You did something bad to my neck, and I know you didn’t do it right. Now, you fix it.” I went in there and I said, “I want to be able to function and I don’t know what you did to my neck, but I want you to fix it.”
I went in there and he did something, but he didn’t fix it too good. I thought, “Forget that doctor, man.” What am I gonna do? I realized my insurance covers physical therapy. I gave up on him. I thought, “He’s no good.”
So, I thought let’s quit paying out of my credit card, and go with something that my insurance covers, and so I went to a physical therapist. She happened to be a Catholic and she was really nice. Her name was Donna (she was heavy, but not obese and I believe she had brown hair), I can’t remember the last name. She was right down the road from me, and she was able to use some muscle manipulation that helped the muscles in the back of my neck to relax. She said, “Your C2 is in a bad position. It’s lying flat up against your skull, and that’s why you’re having trouble. I’m going to work and see if I can get it to go down a little bit more.”
I went to her for two months of physical therapy and she was able to give me enough relief that I could sleep for about six hours a night. But I certainly wasn’t getting beauty rest. And finally after about two months and she did a great job on me. She was very kind and there was another lady there that helped as well. Finally, she said, “I’ve done everything I can with physical therapy to get your C2 to go down, but it is just so stubborn, I think you’re going to need to go to a chiropractor.”
I told her, “Oh boy, my insurance doesn’t cover that.”
She said, “I talked with a chiropractor that’s down the road from here. And I hear he’s really good. You may want to try him. It may only take one or two visits and you’ll be fine. You may want to try him and see if he can help you, ‘cause I’ve done everything I can with physical therapy to get that C2 to go down, and it won’t.”
So I went to visit the good chiropractor. He was a blonde, and I was very impressed with him. He said, “I’m gonna make a special arrangement with you where you can visit me as many times as you want in a month, and you just pay a monthly fee”. He used like a ping machine and I got really good help from him. I ended up going to him for a year. He was a good chiropractor. He said, “Your C1 is way up there, but I’ll keep working on it and we’ll get it to go down where it needs to go.”
Eventually, I ended up seeing him, not just for the neck but he worked on the lower spine as well. I ended up taking my son to him. And got a lot of help from him. So, eventually my neck problem got fixed. I had never had neck problems before in my life.
Then another problem came up. I decided to dispute the charges from that naturopath and the chiropractor that ruined my neck. I refused to pay for their charges. You wouldn’t believe what happened.
I wrote a letter to the credit card company, First USA Visa. I sent it certified, return receipt and made copies of it. I took three weeks for their office to get my letter. I didn’t get my return receipt card till about three weeks later. And then when I got the return receipt card, the credit card company said there was nothing they could do to help me.
I wrote them another letter certified, return receipt. And they said, somehow the letter got lost, and that they didn’t know where it was.
On the third try (certified, return receipt), finally the letter made it to the right department.
I sent it certified, return receipt every time and it always took two or three weeks for it to get to the office. Finally, after making all sorts of copies and making about 11 or 12 letters, I finally got a response. They said, “There’s nothing we can do for you about this because the chiropractor and naturopath deny that they gave you bad services and blah, blah, blah.”
I thought, “Alright, just forget it.” I wanted to dispute the charges because I was mad at that chiropractor and that naturopath, and I wanted to make it plain that they gave me bad services. But, boy did I get the run-around on that one.
About this time (fall 1999 in Washington) my son was having trouble in school. He was coming home with viruses–about two a week. And I was catching every other one. One week it would be a stomach bug. The next week it would be, maybe one that hit the nervous system. I was putting him on echinacea, all sorts of good stuff. He’d get over it, then he’d come home with something else. Always sick. He said, “Mommy, the kids are making fun of me at school.”
And he looked like he was getting really stressed out. He was missing a lot of classes. His grades weren’t doing well, which was unusual for him because he was normally on honor roll. And I thought, “Oh no, now they’re hitting me at the school!” He was out half of the fall school year–out sick.
Then he told me that all the kids in the neighborhood and all the kids at his school were teasing him. He told me, “You have no idea how much stress I’m under.”
I told him, “I could imagine.” And I thought, “Boy, that Loree McBride is good.”
Here I was, I was getting it from my doctors, getting it from my son’s school, getting it from the neighbors, getting it from the credit card company. I felt like I was dealing with a mountain of stress. The church in Lynnwood was alright.
But when I went to church, I had to be careful when I backed out of the parking lot, because there were always people trying to trick me and hit my car from the rear. Like one time I backed out of the parking lot at Open Door Baptist Church, and a car just sped out of nowhere and just missed hitting me, maybe by five inches.
They were trying to get me in wrecks. I would go out on the road and drive, and there would be ten police cars, hidden, waiting around the corner, hoping that I’d be speeding so they could give me a speeding ticket. I thought, “Boy, this Loree McBride is good.”
I made sure I never went over the speed limit anywhere I went. Half the time I was driving I had a fever from one of the twenty viruses I caught in the fall of 1999 that my son brought home from school. It seemed like the pressure was racheting up and getting worse and worse. I told God, “I don’t know how much more I can take.”
There were strange illnesses going around the church. Everybody was getting these weird stomach bugs and getting sick, and catching stuff from the church bathroom. I remember my family went out on a camping trip and came home and didn’t tell me that . . .You know what happened on this church camping trip in the summer of 1999? In that July when I saw Dr.——— (the naturopathic physician), my family had gone to a church camping trip and when they were at this church camping trip, the strangest thing happened on that trip. . .some sort of bug was being passed around. Everybody was throwing up all over the place. It was so bad, that for most of that church camping trip, that everybody lived in the bathroom puking. They told me about this later. And on this church bus, on the way home. . .people were throwing up so much on the bus, that there was a river of puke floating down the middle aisle in the bus. I thought, “Boy, this Loree McBride is good!”
My family didn’t tell me what had happened to them on this trip. The next morning, we went to church and I found out about what happened at this camping trip. Well, I caught it the next day. But I treated it with my echinacea and goldenseal, and after a couple days of bed rest and liquids I got over it and I didn’t throw up. ‘Cause I knew how to treat myself. I’m kind of smart with medicine. But I heard about that camping trip, and I thought, “Oh, my God!”
And, after that, there were other weird illnesses going around that church. I mean it was really strange. I thought, “Boy, this Loree McBride is good.”
So many things happened to me, I’m sure I’ll leave something out. Let’s just say at this point I was feeling very overwhelmed, very overwhelmed. I felt like I was in war. And I probably was.
I told myself, “I am not gonna let that woman win. I don’t care if she kills me. I’m not going to let her win. This is disgusting. She’s evil. I just made up my mind that I would do what’s right, even if I went down in my own blood. And I was gonna stand by my friends.”
But boy were they putting the pressure on me. Probably the greatest stress for me in the 1999/2000 year was to see what they were doing to my son. He wasn’t handling it as well as I was. And I tried to explain to him that it was the Jesuits. I thought maybe if I let him know what was going on in my life, it might help. It didn’t work. I think it just made it worse. He thought I was crazy. I went in there and I’d hold him and I’d say, “You know, I know this is rough. And I don’t think you’re imagining any of what you’re going through at your school, and I believe that you’re being harassed. And I don’t think you’re faking your illnesses. And I wish I could do something to make life better for you.”
You know what my son told me? He said, “My life is so bad, I wish I was dead.”
I said, “Let’s pray. I want you to pray with me. We’re gonna talk to Jesus. Let’s tell Him about your problems. Let’s ask for His help.” And I prayed with him many times and he would feel better after that. But it never seemed to work all the way.
Starting about January 2000, he’d come home sick and miss school all the time because he wasn’t well. I’d wake him up and say, “You gotta go to school, son.”
He whined and cried as if he was in a concentration camp. “I have a heeeeadache.” He cried and whined and sounded so forlorn, you’d think he just met the firing squad. “I have a stoooomachache.” His eyes paled with fear and depression. “I caaaan’t go to school.”
I said, “Son, you keep missing school. You made D’s and F’s your first quarter, you’ve got to get up and go to school, honey. Pleeeease, get up and go to school.”
As if he whined for his last breath, his voice whined with pain.. .. “I can’t go to schooool. . .I feel teeeerrible. . .”
I said, “Oh come on, son, you can’t be sick this much.”
“But I aaaaam. . .” And he’d roll around in his bed and whine and cry like a helpless and depressed worm. “I have a stomachache. . .I can’t go to schooool.”
I tried everything. He was almost a teenage boy. The only way I could get him to go to school, was I’d have to pick him up. So, I couldn’t make him go. Most of the time, he didn’t want to take the bus, ‘cause he said the kids on the bus made fun of him. So I drove him to school half the school year, to protect him from the kids that were harassing him.
That was probably the worst part about the 1999/2000 year, to see what they did to my son.
As if that wasn’t enough, that he was flunking sixth grade.
In January, I got a letter from the school. They said, “Your son is charged with truancy, because he’s missed so many days of school. And we’re concerned about this and we want to meet with you.”
So I met with the principal, and they were playing all these dirty tricks on me, where they’d send me these letters in the mail and I was given one or two days to respond, and I thought if I didn’t respond, then I would be considered to be in default and would need to go to court, and have my son with me for truancy. I always met the deadlines. It’s a good thing I checked my mail every day.
I think the only mistake I made from a legal standpoint was that I should have got it in writing from that principal. They played dirty tricks on me. The principal of that school was very friendly toward me, which was kind of deceptive. I met with her a couple times and she said, “I’m very concerned about your son because he’s missing a lot of school.”
It eventually got to a point where they tried to get my son to appear before a judge on truancy charges. I figured out why they were doing this. It was because of the fires in South Carolina. They had to blame my son for the fires. That really made me so mad.
In December 1999, I was told that I had calcium deposits in my right breast. I was seeing my family doctor–a German lady, she’s a woman physician. So, in December 1999, I was told there were calcium deposits . . .You can see there were all sorts of things going on. You can see why I’ve had to be a good multi-tasker.
When they attack it’s like a blitzkrieg and they hit you from twenty different angles. So, in December 1999, I was told that I had calcium deposits and that I needed to go into general anesthesia, and have a biopsy done. They said, “It’s not an emergency, but you shouldn’t sit on it too much. It could possibly be breast cancer.”
I didn’t like the way they were trying to rush me into general anesthesia. So, I said, “I don’t think this is such a big hurry. I don’t want general anesthesia.”
Boy, did they try to rush me into that one. I remember going into the radiologist’s office, after they’d done the mammograms. And he came in with the X-ray report. I remember I was very flippant about the matter. I wasn’t worried about it at all, because I’d always gotten negative reports on my mammograms and I figured this would be the same.
It was a dimly lit room and the radiologist came in looking really somber and serious, along with his nurse. He said, “Can you sit down, we need to talk with you about something. . .”
I sat down.
“We found some calcium deposits on your right breast. We don’t want you to worry about this. In ninety-five percent of the cases, it turns out to be nothing to worry about. But, however, this is something we don’t want to totally ignore. We want you to get this checked, because there’s a slight chance this could be breast cancer or a precursor to breast cancer. The good news is it looks like we caught it early, and if it is cancer, you’re probably fine. We want to do a biopsy, a needle guided biopsy on your right breast.”
I said, “What’s involved in a needle guided biopsy?”
“We’d have to put you under general anesthesia and you’d have to go in the operating room.”
I said, “Why does it have to be so complicated? Why do I have to be under general anesthesia?”
“Because that’s the way it’s done.”
“Can’t it be done any other way?”
“No,” he said. “That’s the way we do biopsies.”
“I don’t know. I have to think about this.” There was something about him. I felt he was spooky and creepy. I was at the point in my life, where I sized up people and tried to determine if they were my friend, or working for Loree McBride. I went home and thought about that thing. I just got the spooks thinking about it. I thought, “What are they going to try to do to me in general anesthesia?” And they’d already messed with my neck, so I didn’t trust them.
I thought. . .well. . .This was around December 10, 1999. I went to bed and woke up around 2 a.m. And it was as if a thought came into my head, and I thought about that radiologist and how spooky he looked. I thought, “Boy, this Loree McBride is good. . .” And it was like there was a thought going through my head. . .it said, “You’re enemy is the Vatican. Loree McBride is a Vatican agent.”
And I thought, “Oh, my GOD. No wonder she’s so good.”
And I got Jack Chick’s book out, Smokescreens, and I read it. I realized that the way they handled me, the way they manipulated me, the way they were able to get doctors and police departments and get police cars to wait for me and give me tickets. I thought, “This is not the work of a crazy woman. . .This is a major conspiracy! It’s the Roman Catholic Church.” And then I remembered reading on the Internet, when I did my searched on Loree back in 1996 and 1997, somebody mentioned that she was a Roman Catholic.
I thought, “Oh, my God.”
I got on the phone. I said, “Brent Spiner. . .that girlfriend of yours, Loree McBride, is a Vatican agent. She works for the Roman Catholic Church. That’s why we haven’t been able to stop her! Keeping her in your house hasn’t done any good, because she’s not running the show. The Vatican’s running the show.”
After that, I made up my mind I would divorce my husband. I figured out he was on their side. I organized a letter writing campaign. I decided I needed an attorney to help me fight this conspiracy. I made about two hundred or three hundred copies of a letter where I outlined the history of harassment that I had gone through up to that point, and I mailed it off up to about two hundred lawyers throughout my area. I found them in the phone book and I spent almost a hundred dollars on postage and on making copies and I did a mass mailout. It took me two weeks to get all the correspondence organized.
And there was a big scare about the year 2000 coming up–the Y2K thing. So, I figured the perfect day to do it, would be the day when everybody was worried about Y2K.
On New Year’s Eve, the eve before Y2K, I drove down to North and South Seattle and dropped off about two hundred letters in twenty different post office boxes and mailed them to two hundred lawyers, and asked for representation against this conspiracy. I didn’t mention it was the Catholic Church. I mentioned Brent Spiner and that I felt that Loree McBride was behind the harassment. I think I heard back from about five lawyers. Most of them didn’t answer.
Most of them said they couldn’t help me. I didn’t get any help, but I guess I got the beginnings of my story out.
At that time I had that breast cancer scare and I went to God in prayer. “Lord, what do I do about this breast cancer?” He said I want you to start writing, in a thought that came to my brain. “Work on your writing”.
So in January, February and March 2000, I started writing again. I’d put it off since 1996. I worked on Emerald Towers. If you want a really good victim impact statement, read Emerald Towers, cause that person in that story is me. The only thing about this story that isn’t true is that I was not diagnosed positive for breast cancer. But everything else about that story is true about the emotions and what I went through as a result of the Jesuits.
So I worked on Emerald Towers and in the month of April 2000 I mailed it to the Writer’s Digest Writing Contest. I remember when I went to the Post Office to mail it, there was a very long line.
Also, in January they started contaminating my supplements. When I figured out the Vatican was my enemy, the pressure just got stronger. My son was still missing a lot of school.
After a lot of harassment and mess with my son’s school and after threatening to call KIRO news and expose this conspiracy against my son on television, and then making personal visits to the courthouse and complaining to the principal and basically making a big stink, I prevented my son from having to appear before a judge, by the skin of my teeth.
I also got the help of his psychologist, who did not recommend this. He said it would be bad for my son’s mental health.
That was very stressful for me. My son ended up failing the sixth grade, when he was normally an honor roll student because of the harassment he got at his school. And he was sick all the time. Part of it was stress induced. Part of it was germ warfare launched against him and myself. We were catching all sorts of things.
And then they decided to put germs in my car vents. And then they put itchy powder out on the walkway, so that when I walked my feet would itch to death (around 2000). It just was like a blitzkrieg.
The pressure never ended. I felt like I was being hit from thirty different points at once. That’s why I’m such a good multi-tasker. I had to learn those skills to survive.
When I found out that Brent was a victim of the Vatican, I offered him my hand in marriage. I had really underestimated the stress and pressure he was under, and I felt really terrible, that I had accused him of being a coward.
That just made things worse for us. The pressure increased threefold. My supplements got contaminated. All of a sudden the Seattle air, which was normally pristine and beautiful, looked muggy and gray. We had a drought in the fall of 2000 and the winter of 2001.
I was so hectic that from the time I woke up in the morning till the time I went to bed at night, I was frantically busy. I found the best way to handle it was to pray non-stop throughout the day, ask for God’s guidance throughout the day and to just take it one second, one hour at a time.
If I tried to think too much about tomorrow, too much about what would happen next month, it would be overwhelming. One day at a time.
Every day was an act of faith. Every day I never knew what they were going to throw at me next. I got used to losing sleep. I got used to being nauseated. I got used to having an upset stomach.
What was really hard for me to get used to, was my son being sick. I began to identify with war generals. I took a sudden interest in the news. I began to realize that this fight was taking on national and international repercussions.
Since about 2000 and onward, when I figured out who my enemy was, I felt like a soldier in the frontlines of the battle. And I’ve had to adopt a soldier’s attitude and a lawyer’s attitude and a doctor’s attitude, to survive. I’ve had to be a very good multitasker, and I’ve had to learn to keep my cool under tremendous pressure.
I’ve had to learn to put up with all sorts of psychological tactics. They have used psychological manipulation very well on me. I’ve learned to expect the unexpected, to prepare for blitzkrieg attacks. Usually they always try to outsmart me and out trick me and maneuver me into a position where I will say or do something that they can use to strengthen their case.
I’ve always been a strong person, but as a result of my experiences with the Jesuits, I’ve almost developed the mentality of a general. It used to be that I never liked to watch war movies. I always liked to watch love stories. But as a result of my experiences over the past several years, some of my favorite movies now are Patton, and I like to watch portrayals of the great war heroes of the past, the generals. You know why that is? It’s because I feel like I’ve been in a war.
So the year 2000 went by. I was sick half the year, with probably fifty different things. Everything under the sun. Sometimes I was very uncomfortable. When I got the biopsy done, they tricked me into taking the supplement, so that I had excessive bleeding during the biopsy. I was anemic for about two to three weeks after the biopsy, in spite of taking liver extracts. The first week I couldn’t get out of bed hardly. I had a splitting headache–very anemic. They tricked me. Before the biopsy, I took something that thinned my blood, so that during the procedure I lost too much blood. That really kept me bedridden for a while.
I had a good chiropractor that helped, and I did find some stores where I could shop that tended to have less contaminated products than other stores. But eventually they got all the stores. Some of them more than others.
I learned to figure out which stores I could trust and which routes I could travel on where I’d get less harassment, and which routes where I might be in trouble. I learned which doctors I could trust, which doctors I couldn’t trust. I got really good at sizing up people. I had to.
I learned which lawyers I could trust and which ones I couldn’t trust. Every time I went shopping I played Russian roulette. “Is that okay? I don’t know. You can’t tell by the cover, ‘cause they got the company down at the originating end.” They got me quite often.
One time I bought some carrots at the military base. They put something really nasty in those carrots. When I ate them I felt so sick I almost threw up. Then I took colloidal bentonite, and I felt better. But I felt lousy then. I think that was about the twentieth carrot contamination.
When I worked on Emerald Towers, they put so much air pollution in the air, that I was so dizzy, I had to work on it in bed. Writing in bed. I couldn’t get up and walk around.
When I started divorce proceedings, it seemed the payments never made it on time to the bank account. The checks would bounce, and I would catch things at the last minute and spare our family from major financial disasters. And things were always set up to make it look like it was my financial incompetency that was behind it. I would call the bank and find out some check didn’t clear. Or something else went wrong. Or they were having computer problems. And sometimes the bills didn’t get paid on time.
This is what I was dealing with. They didn’t miss a thing.
Financial havoc. Medical havoc. Educational havoc. Lawyer havoc.
My divorce ended up costing $20,000 to $30,000 dollars in 2000 and 2001. Kind of an expensive divorce, you know?
During the divorce, anything and everything was brought up against me. Every part of my private life went under the microscope, especially my long distance friendship with Brent Spiner, which I wanted to keep out of the divorce entirely. I just wanted to be free to marry Brent, I didn’t want him to enter the divorce proceedings in any way, but I was forced into it. They were disputing about everything. I was forced to go to an guardian ad litem because they were worried about my mental health. So I had to visit this guy and he was asking me all sorts of nosy questions about my personal life. I ended up opening a little bit about Brent Spiner and Loree McBride and I got written off as crazy.
I had a very busy schedule to say the least. They created so many problems for me, I felt like in the year 2000/2001 that I was doing the work of twenty people in one day. That’s why I’m a good multitasker. I had to be. Half the time I was tired. Half the time I was sick.
I kept my spirits up by focusing on my love for Brent, and the fact that he was strong, and that he wasn’t quitting. And that he never gave up on me, even when I lost interest in him as a lover. When I told him he was a coward. I was determined to marry that guy, if I went down in my own blood.
And then September 11, 2001 happened. I thought. . .my God, as if they hadn’t done enough to me already. . .What more could they do? I could tell that Brent was trying to find a way to use the airlines to meet me. I was making friends with my step-dad’s niece, who’s a stewardess. And I think Brent was planning on using her somehow to find a way to meet me. And also I was just about to get a job at Sears.
So that morning on September 11th I had to show up for a medical appointment for Sears to determine I wasn’t a drug user and as I drove to the doctor’s office, I saw this water main, with water just going up like fifty feet up into the air like a geyser. And I said, “Boy, something major’s happened today. This is really strange. . .with litter all over the road”. I learned to feel the mood of the Vatican. I could tell something big had happened. The streets seemed eerily quiet. And when I got to the doctor’s office, everybody was glued to the news.
I said, “Oh dear. . .something terrible’s happened.” They all looked pale. I said, “What happened?”
They said, “You didn’t hear?”
I said, “No.”
They said, “Two airplanes hit the World Trade Center in New York City and one hit the Pentagon, and all the firefighters and the police died.”
I thought, “Oh my God. . . this is World War III. Those Jesuits. . .they never give up.”
I was in shock September 11th. I hadn’t accepted that they would go this far. . . to keep Brent and I apart. See, he was planning on using the airlines. . .to try to meet me.
They found a way to eliminate that possibility. Besides my dad’s a retired airline captain. In rebellion, I just refused to watch the news for most of 9-11-01. I said, “I’m not gonna give them the satisfaction of making me miserable today.”
So what I did, I thought to myself. . “I know they’re trying to intimidate me. And I know they’re trying to intimidate Brent. I’m gonna watch Gladiator all day.”
I liked the spirit of Gladiator. So I watched the beginning scene of Gladiator over and over from about 9 a.m. till about 3 p.m. I said, “Okay, now that I’ve let them know they haven’t intimidated me, after they killed about three thousand people! Now let’s watch the news! I know this is going to be really interesting.”
So I turned it on. . .oh yeah. . .ah ha. . .oh yeah. . .
The next day I drove out on the road, and I screamed at the top of my voice, and said, “I know you want to kill me. . “ They had tried to use tricky vehicular homicide methods, using these big mack trucks. They tried to kill me. . . about ten times. . . on the road. . .I decided that when it’s my time to go, it’s my time to go. It’s by God’s grace they didn’t get me.
There was one time in Seattle (around 2000), I heard a gunshot. I heard the bullet ricochet off the tin roof next to my apartment. You know what I did? I was really getting fed up with this business. I said, “I know they’re trying to intimidate me.”
I went outside and walked my dog right after they shot the gun in front of my apartment. But I said in my bugged apartment before I went outside, “Alright, I dare you to shoot me. I know you’re trying to kill me. Alright go out there and KILL ME!”
I told them in my apartment (that had bugs) that I heard their bullet and that I would go outside and walk the dog, and that I’d take extra time. I said, “Alright, you can shoot me now. . .whoever you are, go ahead and shoot me!” And then I went out the door with the dog.
They didn’t shoot me. They didn’t shoot me. I came back after a prolonged walk with Henry, our collie.
When they tried to intimidate me, I’d just go out and dare them. I said, “Go ahead and kill me.”
September 12th, 2001, I screamed from the bottom of my lungs, I said, “I know you want to kill me! Why don’t you do it, so you’ll quit killing everybody else. Maybe if you kill me, you’ll quit killing everybody.” I was so mad, I said, “I just want to go out and move into an apartment, because I know that when I’m by myself, that you’re going to try to kill me. Why don’t you just get it over with, so you’ll quit KILLING EVERYBODY!”
When I figured out that the Jesuits were my enemies, they crashed the Alaska Airlines plane in January 2000. That was right after I told Brent that maybe he ought to expose this case on the Los Angeles news media. The next day, the Alaska Airlines plane crashed.
They started setting wildfires all over the country, probably to make it appear that the fires I put out at the mobile home in South Carolina were just random incidents. All of a sudden, everything was being contaminated all over the country.
I knew it was them. And I knew they were trying to blame their crimes on somebody else.
Any ways, September 11th happened. And–I was numb. I still wanted to marry Brent. But I was really angry about September 11th.
There was a very interesting world response that we got to it. I was very encouraged to see that the world was rallying around the United States. And I remembered I said, “We gotta win this war. I’ve been dealing with these creeps for a long time, so I knew they were bad. We have got to win this war.” That’s what I told myself. And I realized that they had bugs in my room, so I could talk in my room. I knew the world was listening to me. I started telling the leaders of our country what they needed to do. I used my genius ability to read people to help them out.
I said, “You don’t have to worry about China. I can tell from the way the Chinese are operating that they had nothing to do with September 11th. . .You don’t have to worry about Russia. Russia had nothing to do with it. Make friends with China and Russia. We need all the friends we can get.”
I don’t know if they listened to me or not. I wanted to help them. I said, “We gotta win this war. I’d been dealing with these creeps for three years and I knew they were bad.”
I was a little worried about Vladimir Putin. I didn’t know what he looked like or anything. “Tell that Russian President. Tell him that he needs to be careful for his life. Because I’m encouraging the United States to make friends with Russia, I’m afraid they’ll hire some crazy American to go over there and assassinate him. That way they can cause a war between the U.S. and Russia. They’re going to try to break up our alliance. We must not allow this to happen.”
Two days after that, a picture of Vladimir Putin. . .I never knew what he looked like, showed up in my paper. And I thought, “My. . .he is gorgeous.” I was very impressed with the way he responded to September 11th. He was one of the first world leaders to say this was horrifying. That this was an abomination. I thought, he feels about this just like I do.
And when I saw his picture he looked so manly and brave and heroic, that I felt my heart drawn to him. And I was really surprised, because I didn’t think I could feel that way about anyone besides Brent Spiner. In fact, he reminded me of Brent Spiner. I didn’t know why he did.
And a new man came into my life. I liked him. I liked him a lot. Within a week I was imagining him making love to me. I didn’t even know if he was married or single. And the rest is history.
They tried to destroy me with their blitzkrieg attack. They have bankrupted me. They’ve taken much of my health from me. And they’ve greatly handicapped me, but they haven’t killed my spirit. They haven’t killed my faith in God and they haven’t turned me into a mean, vindictive person. And despite all of the hatred which they’ve leashed against me, I still have forgiveness in my heart for them. I still long for peace, and still think the greatest thing in this world is love. They tried to make me as small as they are, but they’ve failed. Despite everything, despite the times that there were days that I didn’t think I’d be alive the next day, the one thing I wouldn’t let them take from me was my courage and my faith in the power of love, and the power of the God I serve.
I said, “If they kill me, I’m going to go down in a blaze of glory. If that’s the last thing I can do.”
And right now (August 2002) I don’t even know how my bills will be paid. I just know that the God who has protected me thus far, can protect me tomorrow, next week, month, and next year.
I prayed down an earthquake, there was an earthquake in Seattle, that just happened to occur on an Ash Wednesday. There was major damage, but nobody died. It was a weird earthquake. It came from a fault deep down in the earth. I think that was another earthquake God sent down. And God has done many other things for me. My life is that of a soldier on the front lines. . . in a war. . .I’ve had to be a good multi-tasker. I’ve had to be cool under pressure. I’ve had to be quick on my feet, even when I’m dizzy and nauseated. I’ve had to learn to get used to being tired and to get used to being stared at when I go out in public and having people follow me around like leeches and try to bump into me in the stores and malls and on the road. I’ve had to learn to get used to feeling crowded and shoved and pushed. I’ve had to learn to have no privacy whatsoever in my life, to be totally transparent–and to get used to it. Because maybe by doing so, I can save this world from a disaster. I’ve had to learn to look at the big picture and not focus on my problems. By being obsessed with the needs of those around me, with the greater good, and caring and loving people that need my help, people that depend on me, like Vladimir and Brent and my family, and being more concerned about their needs than my own, I’ve found the strength and courage to be strong. It’s the power of love. It gives me the courage to not break down. You see, when you’re in a war, you can’t afford to have a nervous breakdown, or you’ll lose. And we must not lose this war. That’s why I’ve watched films like Das Boot. I think the Germans are so brave. I’ve loved war movies, because I’ve been a soldier. I’ve been on the frontlines, wounded in battle–mentally, emotionally and physically.
It’s a miracle I’m still alive. No matter what they do to me, God helping me, I will not betray the God I serve and I will not betray those who side with righteousness, honor and justice. That’s the mentality I’ve had to develop to survive.
Just because I’m strong and can still laugh and keep my sense of humor. Just because I don’t allow them to depress me, and I don’t wallow in self-pity when I’m hit with twenty different things in one day, that doesn’t mean they haven’t done something to me. . .it just means that I refuse to be a victim, or to have a victim’s mentality. Instead of letting these obstacles destroy me, I’m gonna let them make me. Instead of being drowned by a mountain, I’m going to climb to the top and shout to God for help. I’m too busy for pity. Too much needs to be done. Too much suffering in this world.
God has a reason for all this. If I don’t do my part, and Jesus is counting on me. I imagine that He’s pleased. It hasn’t been easy. They’ve attacked my nervous system to try to induce mental breakdowns. They’ve discovered that I am strong, so they have to induce weakness. They’ve tried everything to get me to break down. Everything to get me to lose my sanity. Everything to get me to lose my health. They’ve tried several times to take my life.
But I have too much love in my heart to allow them. . .to win. . .And when it gets really rough I go down flat on my face, and I ask God for strength and wisdom and He’s given it to me. But just because I’m a strong person, don’t think they haven’t done something to me, or to the people I care about.
God has shown me I’m descended from four royal families. He’s done many miracles for me. I have strength in my genes. And I have a strong and great Savior. And I’ve had the power of prayer.
Many times I’ve felt like a Christian burning at the stake. . .but singing a hymn on the way out. For the past year I’ve felt like those Christians who were burned at the stake by the Roman Catholic Church, but who sang hymns while they were tortured. Those. . .are the people I identify with.
I have been tortured. . . emotionally, physically, mentally. They’ve tried to totally control me. But like those Christian on the stake, burned in the fire, I’m singing hymns while I burn. And I have victory in my heart, even though they’ve gotten my body. And God’s helping me. And I leave the outcome with Him.
But just because I’m a strong person, don’t you think they haven’t done something to me. And just because the God I serve has protected me. I have determined that they are very evil. They’re cold blooded killers. And they have no respect for justice, no respect for honor, no respect for forgiveness, or tolerance or anything that’s beautiful or worthwhile in this life.
And I despise them for that.
If they choose to get right and admit that they’re guilty, I could forgive them. But as long as they stand for evil, I AM AGAINST THEM, even if I have to go down in my own blood.
It’s a righteous anger that makes me strong, along with a great love for those who have the courage to stand with me. People like Brent Spiner, Vladimir Putin, Franco Nero. I have great respect for those men
They tried to devastate me. They tried to make me a mental case. And they put monumental pressure upon me. And there were days I didn’t know if I’d be alive the next day. So what’s my secret? I had days where I prayed from morning to evening, and God answered my prayers every five minutes. I said, “God, where’s my pencil.” He’d show it to me. “God, I need to find that pill.” There. There. Answered–Bing. Answered–Bing. Answered–Bing. All through the day. With encouragement like that, how could my spirits go down?
I’ve survived by being a prayer warrior, by reading the Bible and getting promises from God, by looking back at history and thinking about the courageous Christian martyrs who stood against the Jesuits or Catholic inquisitors, some of them giving their lives. . .thinking about people like Martin Luther (the great German reformer).
There have been days that I knew my behavior and attitudes have been in the great and heroic category. And I didn’t care if people thought I was great. I had to do this. ‘Cause I can’t let them win.
What people think about me is irrelevant. I’m only obsessed with one thing–what does God think about me? So if you want to know my secret–that’s it. That’s my secret.
When a vessel goes into the fire, one of several things can happen. . .it can be destroyed or it can be made stronger. . .I’m coming out stronger.
1 Peter 1:7–”That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.”
There are other verses in the Bible that talk about going into the fire and coming out stronger. That’s what’s happened to me.
I’m still in the fire. But I had to make a choice. Am I going to trust God that He will make something good out of this, or am I going to despair? I’ve chosen to trust Him. I’ve learned you take it one day at a time. One hour at a time. That you don’t have a rigid mind set about what you should do for a whole month. That you ask for God’s guidance every day. I’m bankrupt. I don’t even know if I’ll have money to eat next month.
But I’ve been here before. . .and I leave it in His hands
Sometimes I wonder if I’ll have the health to work. I only have one reason for living, and that’s to bring honor and glory to His Name. I tell God, “If I do anything to help out those evil Jesuits, I want you to kill me.”
I only live to honor and glorify His Name. It’s more important for me to die with honor than to be alive. I’m not suicidal. I’m not depressed. But the only thing I care about is that I’m on the side of righteousness. I determine what is righteousness by reading the Bible, to know which side is right and which side is wrong. And as long as I know I’m on Jesus Christ’s side, if God be for us, who can be against us?
I ended my Victim Impact Statement with Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 (fourth movement) and his 1812 Overture by the Berlin Philharmonic (with Seiji Ozawa conducting).