Side Effects of Fame

This is the beginning of a wonderful time for one being a part of fame and overnight sensation along with recognition.

Yes, it was a longtime dream of mine to become more than a one hit wonder or a one song wonder or whatever being a one hit viral wonder would be considered as.

Anything that seems harmless may or may not be worth the time and effort needed to keep up the appearance. It can lead to more headaches and heartaches than one's mind or heart can absorb and handle.

It was more the idea of being known or becoming well known not only in my hometown of Loggers Ford Minnesota. A place of around 3,000 townsfolks, and many generations of hard-working folks that made it whatever it was supposed to be.

I was more modernized and up-to-date, or so I thought in my understanding of all that would happen after I became famous. The price of fame would be my undoing, to say the least.

I was working on some short video clips of all the many things I had learned of over the last several months, posting them and seeing what kind of responses I would receive.

I started a blog and learned that if you started rumors and used gossip as your foundation, whether true or not, this would make others want to hear or read more. It became like an addition.

The first few were harmless at best. The idea was to hook others and reel them in. The idea began in my room, then moved to the garage, since there was not a useable area like a basement or attic.

The effects of this harmless yet simple idea was becoming easier to make up stuff as I typed and added fiction along with the truth. The news that I shared was supposed to be well kept secrets and things that only those gullible enough shared with me in hopes that no one would ever find out.

It was heard about in bars and in the beauty salon. It was spoken about in city hall and at the local police station. It was breathed at confession and said to the local pastor or rabbi. Due to the boredom that town offered most were willing to mention their secrets in private or in confidence, not realizing I was close by taping their every word as it was spoken from their lips.

I was so wrapped up at the idea of being a overnight celebrity. It seemed harmless when it was only recorded on tape. I then got this wild idea to video tape them as they shared, putting face to voice. The ideas were ripe for the picking, and I had no idea I was being drawn into this web of deceit and deception.

As I learned more, I added to that more that was not true. I was becoming my own worst enemy and less my own best friend. "How could this be?" "How was I becoming more like a drug induced addict?"

The more I was given the more I was needing the more I wanted to have. Oh, and have I must.

I lingered in places that most were scared to go or be seen in. As the audience grew so did my habit of becoming a mainstream sensation, a hometown addict and drunk. Addicted to the idea of power and the desire to use and abuse those who had shared things within confidence.

Never seeing the truck that hit me like a deer caught in the headlights. I was first given a warning to stop this nonsense and nothing bad would happen.

I was too blinded by the idea of becoming one that was going downhill faster than a snowball at the top of a mountain. I would almost lose my identity and myself worth.

I was never going to fully recover. Never be the same innocent person that most had seen me as before, I was not sure where my online addictive personality started, and my real individual began. I was becoming more a false person than the actual one I was living in my hometown.

It was touch and go there for a while. I was trying to live out this dream of being someone who would no longer be trusted or looked at in the same way.

I know now that most who had spoken to me about all the many secrets and personal matters, were no longer trusting of me like they had been before. Especially with the line of work I was involved in, a clinical psychologist.

Yes, I was a trusted psychologist. I had abandoned my profession and my ethics only to betray the very people who had divulged or shared things that were meant to only be shared by me with another individual in the same profession.

Not like this, sharing them online as though the entire world needed to know, which they didn't. The damage had been done and the ones who became more cautious were the ones that trusted less and became more guarded.

"Whom was to blame?" "I was." "Who caused this to become more chaotic?" "I did." At last count, the number of people leaving has grown to an astounding 1,000 and they don't seem to be anyone choosing not to leave, all on an account of my opening my mouth just to for the price of fame and notoriety, at the expense of others lives, others secrets and the need to feed a beast that grew larger than my life itself.

As each person was loading up their belongings. As each person who saw me shook their heads in disbelief. As each person frowned at the idea of having to leave and not willing to share in a goodbye or even a hug. It was more than I could bear.

I thought, "Is this how one breaks trust and breaks hearts, when the very trust placed on you is destroyed?"

It could very well be a lesson learned but where would that lesson be found to be learned, and would I ever not want to begin again as I walked away with my head held high and innovative ideas festering with a renewed passion and a need to be spoken about.

This was the first stage of failure for most and the beginning of some phenomenon for me as I was already figuring out how I could make a worse mess of all that was happening right in front of me. Fame had its price, and I was willing to pay to play.