because I found them neccessary to do in order to show that I would not bow down to the wishes of those who had little interest in whether I lived or died. It was an extreme time in my life–and I tried to kick down as many doors for women, working class people and gay people to walk through, as I possibly could. Oh, I was so on fire to burn down the Beast, before it had consumed all who work for a living.
I had the desire to show black and white people as good neighbors to each other too, as it had been in my childhood before gentrification and the white flight to the suburbs, which was just beginning in the year I first went on stage. Everything has happened just as i dreamed it would—women would be on the side of freedom for women, just once. I knew the chain reaction that would cause–for freedom tself, FREEDOM from fundamentalist religion. Education for the world’s girls, and an end to child marriage and child slavery. All of those impediments to freedom for women were my target. It is behind those ‘traditions’ that Satan himself lurks. There will be freedom for women in every corner of this earth someday, I saw it when I was young and i see it so much more clearly now. Freedom for old loud women like myself is a concept that matters more to me than any other.
Not all persons have the level of commitment that I have to my goal, but I do have it and hopefully will have it until the day that I am released from this hell that could easily have been heaven.
ps. of course i regret deeply any hurt that I have caused anyone, ever. I am sincere in saying this. I do not want to go to hell, nor to live my life as a first class asshole.
Desperate times do indeed sometimes call for desperate measures. I accomplished a lot, and do have so many to thank–from the women who cleaned the set–to those who contributed their energy and laughter and good thoughts and hearts and souls to a great tv show. You know who you are and consider yourselves thanked–I appreciate all of the good words from so many of you of late, and have decided not to publish them, because i do not want to give one more second of my life to remember bad times when I am obviously so fortunate to live the lovely and beautiful life of my dreams now in my old age in Hawai’i. To all who made the Roseanne show, including the talented Matt Williams, and the forceful Marcy Carsey who gave me my start, I say, let bygones be bygones and may G-d bless and protect yourselves and your loved ones from now until forever! I ask your forgiveness for my bad behavior and my faults, but mental illness is like that…we sometimes forget that others are involved in our dramas, and that they have feelings too. Hopefully someday, you will say these same things to me. i hope for forgiveness myself, but whether I get it or not will not affect the level of repentance that I find neccessary in order to move past the past.
My article was about the time in my life where I realized that my ego was completely out of the bounds of madness. It was misunderstood and mischaracterized and picked apart by a bitter writer whose own show was cancelled.
May you come to your senses someday, brother. I will pray that you are capable of a deep level of self introspection, and that this letter will hasten that. I thank you for bringing deep thoughts to my inner world. They were much needed and are greatly appreciated.
I have a lovely life now that I am no longer mentally ill. I really wish that people would stop calling me crazy, as i am no longer mentally ill. I am fully sane now, which to the insane and immoral means crazy indeed. But i am not crazy nor mentally ill in the least. Don’t call me a retard either. crazy is the same as nigger and retard. get over yourselves and know this: yes I am a monster to you, Satan. (ego). My own ego was Satan.
Also, in fairness to myself I must say that so many of the things that writers are angry about happened in the writer’s room and I was rarely in the writer’s room. I was married to a man who might have been seen as being abusive to people. I did instruct Tom Arnold to take control of the Roseanne show writer’s room for me and that he did do. How he did it is sometimes a shocking thing for me to find out about. I am not excusing myself for my own mistakes, but many things that happened were not done by me. I forgive everyone, but I feel that in the interest of truth, I can never let myself be accused again without defending myself.
I divorced Tom when he started to become best friends with the future Governor of California, Arnold the Sperminator. I heard from many of Hollywood’s top producers that at the Governor and Maria’s dinner parties, my sanity and my work was an integral subject of the bitter reparte providing the entertainment of derision at many official Hollywood dinners. I must say that i feel I do not deserve the terrible reputation that I have in Hollywood. Most people there have never met me at all, and those same people say they were there in the hospital the night that Richard Gere came in too. Most of the writers who claim to know me or to have worked on my show are lying, and were never fired at all. Most of them had contracts that were not renewed after two years, which is under the labor laws of California, a different subject than is a firing. It’s all tabloid talk or gossip, most of it. The few stories of my being unkind are all true though. I enjoyed being a bitch and a cunt to the highest extent, as any former waitress would also enjoy just for one day. I had years of putting piggish men in their place and telling them that their shit was not funny, because in fact, it did NOT make me laugh, but cringe. I am not a liar, unfortunately, although I have been easily confused about facts when in the death grip of a manic high, or a depressive state. It was not easy to fake that I was crazy, and pretend that all I cared about was fame and money. In reality, I cared only for pacifying my narcissistic messianic complex. I wanted to Lenny Bruce my way out of here, but instead i learned to meditate, and that changed me from bottom to top. I got some peace and quiet in my head, and the voices eased.
Not that I was blameless, but I was really busy acting on set and did not hang out with writers much at all. I hung out with my fellow actors, John Goodman and Laurie Metcalf, Sarah Gilbert Lecy Goransen,sarah Chalke, Michael Fishman and others still very near and dear to me. The story about having the writers wear numbers was to prove to them that they laughed hardest at the jokes that they wrote themselves. I did prove it that way too.
Anyway, creating something is painful and sometimes brings out the worst in people, and it did for me. I am a lot better now that I have become an almost fully integrated DID/PTSD patient.
The first people who were dumped out onto the streets of this country were the helplessly mentally ill. They set predators against the people into their quiet streets, so that they could save one dime on the dollar. judgement day is tikkuun olam.