The Grief of Peter Chaffee

1:27 PM 5/31/10

The Grief of Peter Chaffee

It hasn't actually happened yet, but I am thinking of ending my exile in Pennsylvania and going back to West Virginia before I have my children. I want my children to be close to their grandparents, my mother and father.  And I want to live in a place that I like, a place that feels healthy.

I never wanted to be here, and I always felt that I was staying here temporarily, trying to become financially strong.

The only thing I like about Pennsylvania which is uniquely Pennsylvania is the Amish culture. I will regret leaving that particular part of Pennsylvania. I would have wanted to learn a lot about them and about intentional communities and alternative subcultures and minority religions.

I moved here to stay in my brother's apartment, back when he had recently been going to Penn State. I just needed a place to stay, because I was dropping out of college, and my parents didn't want me to move back in with them. And I didn't know anything about how to find jobs and find apartments and how to take care of myself financially. It should have been taught to me at a much younger age, in school and in my family, but it wasn't.

I know now, though, how to find jobs, how to sign a lease for an apartment, how to open up a bank account, and all those other things.

I'm thinking of a lot of things. I'm thinking about Weston Price and what he wrote about the Southeast. In the southeastern United States, there is a certain type of soil which doesn't have a lot of minerals, and there is also a lot of heavy rainfall, which causes the soil to lose even more minerals. They studied the skulls of ancient people living in the southeastern United States, and they found that the skull deformities (weak chins, small jaws, etc) existed a very, very long time ago in the past, in the southeast. The mineral-deficient soil has existed in the southeast all this time. It isn't just a modern problem.

Communities in that area will have to trade with faraway places to buy food, because if they eat nothing but local food, they will have mineral deficiencies. And if you trade with faraway places, you have to sell them something they need. So in the southeast, they grow cash crops like sugar and tobacco to trade for nonlocal products. In West Virginia and in some of the other southeastern states they also trade coal and other mining products.

I would want to buy seafood if I lived in West Virginia. That means I would have to agree that coal mining, and other activities, are an okay thing to do. It wouldn't necessarily have to be coal mining, it would just have to be something that could be traded with people far away. I am pro-capitalism, if you define capitalism the way that Ayn Rand and the Austrian economic school defines it. (Some anti-capitalism people are actually opposing something that isn't capitalism. They oppose, for instance, borrowing lots of fiat money from the government and creating huge corporations that have special privileges from the government. That's not the way capitalism is defined by the libertarians, objectivists, Austrian school economists, and others.)

I'm thinking of this because my religion, my personal belief system, has to decide which types of jobs and businesses are 'okay' and which ones are not. For instance, government jobs are 'not okay' unless the government controls so much of the economy that it's impossible to work in anything but a government job, in which case it's not your fault that you work for the government. The Amish also regulate which types of jobs are okay, which types of businesses are appropriate for their religion. I look at the Amish when I think of a new religion because the Amish have been successful. They have continued all these years - their society hasn't fallen apart or disappeared. A lot of intentional communities fall apart and vanish. So I want to know about groups that are doing things right.

So I am thinking of those things, about the economy that I would live in if I moved back to West Virginia. That's one big thing that I'm thinking about. But I am also thinking about what will happen to Peter if I leave.

It's nice when, for whatever reason, the voices tell the truth. The voices have tried to force me to create artificial relationships, several times. They have tried to force me to bond with people who were difficult to bond with. I don't know if they really forced me to meet Peter, though. That was something that happened which may have happened on its own. As I've said before, 'they' don't control every detail of every event that occurs on earth. But anyway, they usually don't let me tell the truth about my relationships. I get zapped if I try to think about the truth. I get zapped if I try to look at the truth and understand what it is. I get zapped if I ask how I really feel or what I really want. So it always surprises me whenever suddenly the voices are asking me to tell the truth. Today they were asking me to look at the truth about Peter.

Do I really want to marry him? No, I don't, and I never said I did, either. The crazy ideas that they've forced me to think of in the past few years - they wanted me to have some big group of people as my family, they wanted me to be a prostitute, they wanted me to have lots of different men and many husbands. They wanted me to have children from Peter while being financially supported by some other man, because Peter can't work. (If I weren't supported by a man while I raised my children, I would have to be self-reliant, hunting, foraging for food, and farming.) I include those things in the religion because I want them to be allowed in the society, but it doesn't mean that a particular person is required to do those things. Anyway, I didn't want to marry Peter, and so I would always want to have some other man in my life besides him.

What do I do when I visit Peter? I visit him maybe once or twice a week, during the nighttime, on my days off work (Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday). I sometimes see him in the afternoons, too, when I take him to the grocery store. If I visit him at night, we sit and watch TV and cuddle.

They have two cars, but one of them is broken down, and they're not using the other one because of paperwork problems. Their registration and insurance expired and his wife lost her driver's license. She has severe health problems, but she is still able to work. She has symptoms of a hypothyroid problem, but when she tried thyroid medication, it only helped a little. Thyroid medications don't replace ALL of the types of thyroid hormones that your body produces, and thyroid problems are part of a large system in the body, where all the parts work together, and so if something goes wrong, you don't always know what's causing it, and it might not help if you just give them a pill that contains one small part of all the different thyroid hormones. And I know nobody will believe me, but there is something on the floor at Peter's house, which gets onto the bottom of my socks after I visit, and it causes me to have symptoms of low thyroid until I get rid of the socks that I wore over there. Peter himself uses synthroid, a thyroid substitute, and maybe synthroid contamination causes other people to have symptoms of low thyroid. And again, nobody in the mainstream world believes in the existence of invisible transdermal drug residues, but I think that they are contributing to his wife's thyroid problem. It's not the ONLY cause of the problem, but I think it makes it worse.

Because of her thyroid problem, she has no energy and no motivation and no hope. She isn't able to motivate herself to do the simplest things, like pay bills or do paperwork. I know how that feels, because I have chronic fatigue myself along with other health problems, and I can't do simple cleaning or other chores.

This makes me angry to talk about, though, because it's not just my health problems, it's also the attackers. I get zapped if I prepare to motivate myself to do some activity, and I get zapped constantly while I'm working. They zap me with two major types of attack: 'reward' and 'punishment.' They 'reward' me with a pleasurable zinging sensation in my head, and they 'punish' me with a painful burning in my skin and muscles if I try to do something they don't want me to do. This is constant and low-level, and a lot of the time, I am barely conscious that it's happening. It becomes much more noticeable if I am using drugs, like St. John's Wort, or if I have been exposed to low levels of the drugs and am in withdrawal from them.

But anyway, because of all those things, I understand how it feels when you want to do some kind of chore or task, and you can't do it. So she hasn't been able to motivate herself to do the paperwork to get the car back and get her license back. And Peter can't do it, because he has tried to fill out the insurance forms, and there is some kind of obstacle - they say that he isn't allowed to do it, and it has to be done by HER. This isn't a permanent obstacle - there is some way around it - but finding ways around paperwork obstacles requires energy and hope. I used to have lots of energy and hope when I was on drugs - I was actually manic - everything and anything seemed like it was possible to do. I had a million, infinity, projects that I was going to do, and helping Peter with everything was one of my projects. I had specific things I wanted to help him do, and I wanted to help him solve his car paperwork problem.

When Peter met me, I was using St. John's Wort. I tried to tell him right away that a lot of my behavior and my moods were drug-induced. I tried to tell him that this wasn't really me. That was one of the first things that I told him when we were getting to know each other. I'd warn him that I was in a different mood and acting differently because I had used my herbal drugs that day.

Peter doesn't understand that back then, I had a much higher sex drive because the drug I was using was an aphrodisiac. (Some parts of the drug are anti-sexual, and some parts of it are pro-sexual. Herbal drugs are complex and they have lots of different chemicals in them.) He thinks that I lost my sex drive because something changed in our relationship. That is somewhat true, but not really. It's true that 'they' distracted me in 2008 whenever they tried to force me to have a relationship with Martin. (Yes, I was attracted to him, but in reality, I wouldn't have tried to start up a relationship. There are lots of people that I'm attracted to but I wouldn't actually try to go after them.) Whenever they distracted me from Peter and made me start noticing younger men in their late teens and early twenties, it made me feel less connected to Peter. So in a way, there was a change for real. But a lot of the change was also because I stopped directly using SJW. Nowadays, I only use it at very low levels whenever I am accidentally exposed to residue contamination on my belongings and clothing.

Also, Peter wasn't using drugs when we first met. He had used drugs in the past, prescription drugs, and then he quit using them. If I understand correctly, he was on some kind of blood pressure drugs in the past, and some other related drugs for his heart. He quit those, and when I first met him, his blood pressure was high.

The mainstream world has a backwards belief about blood pressure. They believe that stress and anger and bad moods CAUSE your blood pressure to go up. I believe the opposite, because I've seen it, and I've felt it myself while being exposed to the residues of drugs that raised my blood pressure: High blood pressure CAUSES anger and bad moods. The high blood pressure comes FIRST, and the anger and bad moods come AS A RESULT. The mainstream world doesn't distinguish between short-term moods and long-lasting moods that won't go away. If it's a short-term bad mood, like an instant of anger that you feel because something happened, then yes, that instant of anger will briefly raise your blood pressure, but it should go back down, and the bad feeling should go away quickly. But there are bad moods that last forever - you're NEVER in a good mood. That is something that RESULTS from high blood pressure (or drugs, or some other long-term problem). The mainstream world MISTAKENLY says that if you are in a bad mood all the time, that will cause you to develop high blood pressure. The opposite is true: an unknown something causes you to get high blood pressure, which causes you to be in a bad mood all the time.

I've seen it happen to Peter, too. When he isn't on the blood pressure drugs, he gets angry and in bad moods all the time. His behavior is totally different. I know this sounds silly, but he talks about 'blowing stuff up.' He talks about how he hates the medical system and how he hates McDonald's corporation (he and his wife both work for McD, which is how I met them) and how he hates everything that is causing the problems in his life. He doesn't really hate all those things, but he is frustrated by them because he wants them to do things (like give him back his driver's license), and they won't. No, he doesn't build bombs, and he isn't a terrorist, but when he is in those moods, thinking about the doctors and how he can't have a driver's license anymore and that kind of thing, he'll say he's mad enough to blow stuff up. Now that I've gotten to know him, I don't believe he ever would do anything like that in reality, but I am saying that high blood pressure causes people to talk about burning and destroying and blowing things up. High blood pressure CAUSES that. It doesn't RESULT from that. I've experienced elevated blood pressure (only a little bit) from drugs, and when I feel that way, I get angry all the time. It causes an uncomfortable sensation and it makes you want to destroy things. It makes you constantly irritable so that you are always complaining. It changes your tone of voice, and you have no control over it when this happens.

Note, something about his driver's license: Supposedly, the doctor wants him to get a particular kind of blood glucose monitor, and if he got it, the doctor would let him have his license back. I am hearing this secondhand from Peter, so I don't know what the doctor is really saying. But Peter says he doesn't want to get that particular kind of blood glucose monitor, for a variety of reasons, and so he won't do it. I don't think I'm hearing the whole story, though. Anyway I get the impression that he MIGHT be able to get his license back, but that might not be true.

Anyway, when I met him he wasn't on drugs (except insulin). He got back on the drugs during the time we've known each other. I actually believe that his nosebleed was caused by my drug residues. He had an incident where his nose started bleeding and wouldn't stop, and this happened right around the time when I bought ephedra and tobacco seeds and I contaminated all of my belongings with drug residues. Right around that time, Peter's blood pressure went up so high that his nose started bleeding and wouldn't stop, and he went to the hospital and they gave him blood pressure drugs, and he's been on them ever since then. He always had somewhat elevated blood pressure, but then, all of a sudden for no particular reason, it got much much much worse.

So he got back on those drugs. And those drugs cause a lot of numbing effects. He already had some difficulty with erectile dysfunction, but it got much worse because of the drugs. Not only that, but I now have reactions whenever I touch him or kiss him - I get secondhand drugs from his mouth and his skin and clothing, and I become numb and slow and sick. I get so many drugs on me when I visit him that I actually have a separate box to put my clothing into after I go to his house, a specific box where Peter-contaminated clothing goes. So the drugs are one of the reasons why I don't really do anything sexual with him anymore, except very rarely. It is something that happens every once in a great while. I still kiss him, but I don't even really like to do that.

Why did I get with Peter in the first place? I used to work at McD in the evenings, and he would show up to work overnight, so we'd work together for about two hours. He'd come in at 9:00, and I'd go home at 11:00. This was at a different store, not the one where I work now.

I saw him the moment he walked in. He came to my store because the private owners sold the McD stores back to the big McD corporation, and after that, he wasn't allowed to work in the same store where his wife worked, so they separated them and sent him to my store. He walked in, and I saw this guy with a ponytail talking to some other people, and I always notice long hair. He was intelligent and he and I were able to have conversations with each other.

I used to look up to him, literally - he would teach me things about the job and about working overnights. He's older than I am. He's taller and bigger than I am and so I'm in the role of 'small female being protected.' I'm aware of being short - I'm five foot two - and I notice how I'm usually in the 'inferior' role in any relationship. That was true with me and Peter too.

He touched me - inappropriately. If I hadn't liked him, it would have been sexual harassment. The author Warren Farrell said EXACTLY that same thing: If you like it, it's flirting; if you don't like it, it's sexual harassment. Peter would sneak up behind me and tickle my ribs on the sides. Things like that. I liked him, so I responded whenever he did it. He gently patted and rubbed my back one time whenever I said that I wasn't feeling well. He was good with his hands and he knew how to touch in a way that felt good.

I told him about my hearing voices. That worked out well, because he came from a religious background, and he was able to interpret it in a mystical, supernatural way, instead of just saying that I was crazy. He believes that the voices come from spirits or demons, sometimes helpful, sometimes harmful. He's interested in lots of different religions, not just Christianity, and he's studied and read about Native American religions also, and Celtic, and other cultures. He isn't really Christian - he might call himself Pagan. He's more into the witchcraft-type religions, with earth spirits and that kind of thing. He was able to tolerate my hearing voices and being attacked. Sometimes I complain about it to him, but I usually don't talk about it. He can't do anything to help. He used to try to tell me to do things like burn candles of a certain color to purify the spiritual environment and chase away the evil spirits, but I don't believe they are spirits. (I did burn the candles he gave me, but I still hear voices and get attacked.)

But even though we disagree about our interpretations, he was able to listen without calling me crazy, and he believes that it's actually happening. What I mean is, he doesn't say that the voices come from 'inside' me as a result of mental illness. He can tolerate the idea that the voices might come from something outside me. He can tolerate the idea that I am being attacked by SOMETHING, even if we disagree about WHO is attacking me and HOW they are doing it. Maybe he partly believes that it's mental illness, but he doesn't fight with me about it, and he doesn't say it out loud in our conversations, and he doesn't confront me about it.

Eric, on the other hand, would start screaming and shouting and arguing whenever I mentioned anything about computer hackers or electronic harassment. He would explode into this screaming rage. He would call me names and call me crazy and say all of the worst possible things that you could say to somebody. There was no way to talk about it calmly and quietly. With Peter, we can talk about it CALMLY AND QUIETLY, even if we have some slight disagreements. With Eric, it was ***THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT!!!*** It was totally impossible to talk about it without screaming. So I appreciated Peter's calmness right away. I want people to agree with me, it's true, but if they can't, I just want them to be able to talk about it QUIETLY.

So that's how Peter and I got together. He was already having problems in his marriage, for a long time, and he wanted to find someone else to be with. So we started meeting each other privately, during the night, or during the day when nobody was home.

But do I want to marry him? No. I don't want to take him away from his wife, either.

That would mean that if I went to West Virginia, I would leave him here.

He has a problem with his eyes and his tear ducts, and it makes him unable to cry normally. He might be able to cry a little bit, but I've never seen him do it. He is able to show sadness through his behavior and tone of voice, but I've never seen him cry. I asked him what he does whenever something terrible happens, like a death, and he told me that he will just go someplace and be alone for a while and be quiet.

If I left him here, he would have less help with getting around, like to the grocery store or other errands that I help with. But it's not just helping him with errands. I give him hope. I make him feel like something can be done, somehow. I give him physical contact, hugging and touching and kissing, even though we hardly ever have sex. I am a friend and we love each other. If I left, he would miss me as a human being, as a presence, not just a car driver. And he would be helpless. That's what bothers me the most. He would be helpless: he couldn't jump in a car and follow me to West Virginia if he felt like it. He would just have to sit there and endure the fact that I left him and he had no control over it. He would just have to stay here in Pennsylvania, in his house, and never be able to drive down and visit me if he missed me. If he missed me, he wouldn't be able to do anything about it at all. I don't like that helplessness. It's like leaving a baby, or a dog or cat, or some other pet. You leave the dog locked in the house all day, while you go off in a car driving somewhere, and the dog is helpless to follow you, and helpless to open the doors and go outside. It just has to endure the wait until you come home. I hate that. I used to go visit Eric at his trailer, where all the stray cats were, including Alexander. But I wasn't there all the time, I wasn't there every day. What if the cats missed me on the days when I was gone? What if they wished I would come back? The cats didn't know my address and couldn't write me letters asking me to come visit them. They couldn't get in a car and drive over to my house. They couldn't even call me on the phone. They just had to sit there and hope I would come back, and be glad to see me when I did.

Grieving for myself and for Peter is what I would have to do before leaving and going back to West Virginia. Right now I can't even imagine making him helpless like that, but that's what would happen if I left. He would have to find some other way to survive, find some other love.

That's all I'm writing for now.