Posted by Noa on January 24, 2001, at 12:49:49
In reply to Re: The worst of Both Worlds. » stjames, posted by shar on January 23, 2001, at 23:50:32
Yes, Vesper is male, but disclosed that he has gender identity issues.
When that post about the sutures appeared, I believe it was a few months after the episode when Janice had permission, and did, call Vesper's doctor to alert her of the emergency.
Vesper acknowledged both suicidal thoughts and actions as well as self-injury actions not intended as suicide. What I, personally, found difficult about Vesper's posts, and I was honest about this to Vesper, was that he would appear suddenly after an absence, announce having made serious, possibly life-threatening, cuts (or having taken large amounts of medication in a suicidal impluse), a flurry of supportive and frantic posts would follow, in which people would entreat him to go for help immediately, and then He would suddenly sort of drop the whole thing, as the crisis passed. I did not see Vesper as purposely manipulative or anything, just very troubled by rapidly changing feeling-storms, and there was a lot of approach-withdrawal. It was very difficult for me, emotionally, and my way of coping, after a few rounds of this, was to withhold from responding (I told Vesper this so he knew I was not ignoring him out of lack of caring, just out of self-preservation).
I am not sure if I fully understand Name's comments in this thread, but I don't believe that most people's responses to Vesper were uncaring. I am aware that a few were angry and perhaps harsh ( this is from recollection--I haven't read those archives recently) but I saw that as coming out of the frustration from the quickly shifting moods that Vesper presented--crisis on, crisis off--with what seemed like such high stakes (deep, self inflicted knife wounds, for example). It was scary stuff, and really stirred people up.
poster:Noa
thread:266
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20001124/msgs/299.html