Weirder Than You, So There

Furthering my long-held belief that fiction writers are all psychotic, here's the saga of one really batty lady. The snake-oil shrinks who encourage their sociopathic tendencies by telling 'em to "write it out" outta be prosecuted.

From today's NYT:

Ms. Albert’s (the writer being sued) lawyer, Eric Weinstein, began his own remarks with the memorably understated line, “Laura (Albert) is a complicated person.” He said she was physically and sexually abused as a child. He said she was institutionalized in psychiatric wards and in a group home as a ward of the state. He said she was in therapy for 13 years with a psychiatrist whom she spoke to by telephone while posing as a teenage boy named Jeremy, an embryonic version of JT Leroy.

By the time the psychiatrist advised her to write, the persona of the teenage boy had become engrained as Ms. Albert’s alter ego, what Mr. Weinstein called her “bridge to the world.” Ms. Albert herself, in conversations before the trial, called JT “her respirator,” an unreal, though entirely necessary, entity that allowed her to breathe.