Despite our best efforts to dissuade you, many of you have still decided to write to us with your problems, complaints and crises of the moment. We don't have a trained therapist on staff, and this isn't "Dear F*ckin' Abbey", but we DO have Bonnie, who has graciously volunteered her time and heartless perspectives in order to minister to (or macerate) the misguided, with "Dear Fuckin' Bon..."

September 28, 2002

From: Female flame form

COMMENTS: Okay, I got this Email from my fiance, and I'm wondering what you guys think of it. Can you email me back at youneveremail@sowillyou.forme?
signed: Hedra

"Beck.

I don't even listen to Beck. I figured I could do without whiteboy rapping overlayed by accordians and orchestral arrangements, from a singer who owns a pimplike discoteque attitude. And I was told about his new album, SEA CHANGES. I was told by friends that it wasn't like his other albums. I was told I'd like it. I was told it was right up my alley. So I bought it.

This album is good.

This album is my mood.

I never would have guessed. I never would have imagined that, for a second time, an album would reflect my mind, my mood, my heart. The only other instance was when I purchased Nick Cave's NO MORE SHALL WE PART last year. So strange, that was, his lyrics reflecting so much that you and I had gone through in our short relationship. So very strange, words from another's mouth reflecting my own feelings, my own inner emotion and the cracking, ugly outer shell encasing them. Who would have guessed? I'd never listened to Beck. I would have never bought a Beck album. I never would have listened to a Beck album. Who needed "Odelay"? Who needed "Sex Laws"? Who needed "Loser"? Surely, not me. But... who needs "Guess I'm Doing Fine"? Who needs "It's All In Your Mind"? Who needs "Lonesome Tears"?

I do.

Hedra...

can I tell you something?

I have a very dark feeling...

You won't make it home to me.

If you stay there... then God will continue to shun my prayers.

And then you won't make it home to me.

You need someone more than me. You want me to hold you. You want me to keep you safe. But you're there. And I'm here. And you don't want to be here anymore. You want to leave this state. You want to move forward and forward until backwards is no longer an option of last resort. You are so strong. You are so determined. So determined, more often than not, it's frightening; it's... breathtaking.

You would continue to walk a road of hot coals long after your feet have burned to ash.

Are you ever you? Do you ever think that, if you make it out there alive, and we are to be married, that we could live without you resting your head on the shoulder of a pill or holding the hand of a medication? Or do you think you'd try to kill me, or lose me in the process of finding yourself? Do you ever think these things? Do you ever wonder what life would be like without me? Do you ever think that I actually had NO hand in any of your progression since last year?

Do you tire of my selfishness? Do you tire of the clash of personality? I would figure that my persistance alone of wanting you back home, and saying it over and over again, would give you the want, the NEED, to stay away from here just for the spite of it. Or perhaps, to test ME; to see if I would be willing to come there to you. There's no need to test me. I love this place, and you hate it. I have family and friends here that mean worlds to me. But in the large test of time, in the most dire of situations, I would leave it all behind.

You say you need me. Is it you saying that, or the prescription moving its way through your body? Do you really feel that without me, you wouldn't be alive? Do you really feel that I had such a majour aide in your life, that you would need me reinforcing myself when you felt you couldn't handle the world yourself?

Sometimes I sit and wonder if... if all i'm doing is setting myself up. I wonder if God is setting me up. A long time ago, I told you that I believed God doesn't want me to be happy. Now I know that isn't the case. God wants me to be happy... but I still can't have it. And when I do finally have it in my grasp, ... he makes me suffer for it. Worse yet, he makes YOU suffer for it.

My list of fear and worry is so long and detailed, it would make you cringe just as you read the first 2 or 3 chapters of the worrisome epic alone.

So sometimes, only sometimes, I wonder why. I wonder, why, why, why would I continue with all these fears in my head? Why would a human being tie himself down with fears of his significant other having to be on medications all the time, having fits, seizures, depression attacks, anxiety attacks, fears, worry, sideeffects, ... Why would any deep-thinking human being live with someone, constantly under a fear that they would never be themselves dude to a pill? Why would someone want to spend their life with someone, always fearing that any sideeffect can happen at any unpredictable moment?

And sometimes, only sometimes, I fear that your fear and pain will never fade away. Why would someone spend a life with someone who has had fear and painful memories control their life for so many years? Why would any man take a chance at sleeping in the same bed with someone who at any moment could scream out into the night, 10, 20, 30 years down the road?

But you know something?
I think these sometimes.
Only sometimes.
And then I remember that I Love You.
And love is forever.
I'd ask you to come home...
...but it seems to you, here is not home.
And I can't be selfish anymore.
So just smile, love.
Smile.
love,
your Nice in Shining Armour"

Dear Hedra,

Wow. Usually I would have commented throughout but this is an interesting situation, and I want to be very clear on this. You, Heddie, via the "HB female flame form", sent the entire above letter which is to you, from your fiance and *about* YOU, and which says that:

- You two have been together over a year(at least).
- that you ran away from your shared home without notice and want him to leave where the two of you were together.
- that where you used to live HE has friends and family.
- that you two didn't really get along that well
- that you're on medication, prescription and possibly otherwise, and this is at least partially due to an unpleasant past that affects you daily and which you have trouble breaking free of.
- that you have threatened or tried suicide and that you "credit" Nice-in-SA for your survival as well as telling him that you depend on him for your continued existance.
- you have "fits" and "seizures"? I am in no way disrespecting or demeaning you. I'd like to know. Without any kind of seizure, I would be concerned about your stability and what you were doing to yourself as well as Sir Nice. If you actually have seizures, I would hope that you are seeing a whole team of doctors. Get any help you need.

Since you gave us nothing about your feelings about it, I have no idea what you may have hoped to hear. It was, in fact, profoundly manipulative that you would send, for feedback, a letter from someone else written about yourself with no clarifying information of your own. Given said information, I think he asks very reasonable questions.

I think that you wrote to HBI hoping that we would trounce Sir N for his doubts and his obvious nice-guy-itis. I will say that I think he must be a pretty classic nice guy, needy and who gravitates towards women who need rescuing and who will do just about anything... etc. Co-dependent to the max, no question.

I'm just amazed that you sent us all this information about yourself via an email from a man who, while a little dramatic, does indeed sound "deep thinking" and ready to rescue you (to your benefit and not his, I must say). A man who has apparently stuck through some heavy stuff with you and who is (subsequently very depressed, based on the samples of Beck music I could find, but also) willing to try to make things work to the point of giving up his own stability. Give HIM this url, and have him write to me, please.

I don't think you really want to make things work with him. I think you ran away and you've moved on and you have probably more than a few new irons in the new fire in your new life, so I suspect that you are just REALLY yanking his chain because you can. And I think that sucks. And since you don't bother to dispute anything he says, I take it as the truth, in which case, you really need some help in getting yourself stable and into a place where you can take care of yourself, live where you want and how you want. He really has nothing to do with that, but you didn't mean him to. You just weren't quite brave enough to write about your problems yourself.

I would hope that you would get some help and work on some of your own stuff before you involve him any further, and certainly before you ask him to leave a place where he has family and friends.

One more note; based on this letter, he has little idea where you are (figuratively if not literally) or what is going on, and while he may be drama-queening the "God will not answer my prayers" crap, if you even remotely value his friendship, I advise that you stop calling him your fiance (and vice versa). It sounds absurd under the circumstances. It will also be a huge wrong to yourself if you elect to take only portions of this posting and send only a few lines or out of context to him. Again, if you see this, I recommend you give him the URL.

bon