Diversity Rules Magazine

3 Diversity Rules Magazine September 2016 David-Elijah Nahmod is a film critic and re- porter in San Francis- co. His articles appear regularly in The Bay Area Reporter and SF Weekly. You can also find him on Facebook and Twitter. David developed Post Traumatic Syndrome Disor- der (PTSD) after surviving gay conversion therapy as a child and has found that many in the LGBT community suffer from severe, often untreated emotional disorders due to the extreme anti-gay traumas they endured. This column chronicles his journey. Dark storm clouds gathered over the great house of Collinwood. Darker still were the spirits of those who stood on the outside looking in....... On August 15 2016 I received an irate, accusatory email from a woman I've never met nor spoken to. She and I had been Facebook friends, but I ended our online friendship in 2010. I walked away from her, expecting to never look back. Six years later she has yet to let me go--to date more than three dozen people have told me that they were contacted by her regard- ing me. "I noticed you were Facebook friends with David," was the gist of her messages to others. "It wouldn't be in your best interests if it became know that you associ- ated with him." And how does she "know" who I'm Facebook friends with since I blocked her six years ago? Obviously she's "monitoring" me under a false identity. e woman in question claims to have been a "close friend" of Jonathan Frid (1924-2012), a classically trained Shakespearean actor best known for playing the vampire Barnabas Collins on the 1960s TV series Dark Shadows. She now spends her whole life "pro- tecting" Mr. Frid's legacy from evildoers like me who dare to speak the truth: Jonathan Frid was a gay man. In her lengthy, rambling tirade of August 15, Mr. Frid's "close friend" claimed that I hacked into her Facebook ac- count and posted a fake obituary announcing her death in a car accident. She also gloated about all the "backlash" I was going to endure from within the sphere of Dark Shadows fandom, a world I walked away from some years ago due to the extreme levels of bullying and vicious personal attacks against not only LGBT people, but against people with physi- cal and mental disabilities. e promoters of the Dark Shadows Festivals, the annual fan gatherings, have gone out of their way to support the perpetrators, sev- eral of whom are on the Festivals staff. In their world, the behavior of Mr. Frid's "best friend" is considered acceptable, but if I ask that she stop, as I did in 2014, then I'm said to be "unstable". ese are not children. Mr. Frid's "friend" is nearly sixty years old. In today's society, the worst bullies are middle aged adults. I shudder to think of the example they set for our kids. e day after sending me that email, Mr. Frid's "friend" contacted a personal, offline friend of mine specifically to discuss me. at friend, who still goes to the Dark Shadows Festivals and was physically assaulted at the most recent event, has given me a signed statement to give to the police. Yes, the police. After enduring hundreds of incidents of stalking and bullying, as well as receiving several written threats which stated that my employers would be contacted, I've decided to escalate this into a police matter. Her PTSD - Con't on page 15 If You Could Read My Mind Help Needed for Michael By David-Elijah Nahmod

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