03/17/08  A Different Perspective on the Shaw Tragedy

Although I have never talked openly about this, it's relevant, as I can offer a different take on the Shaw's troubles.

Some of you know, I had a real hard time a few years ago when I was fired from the Vickery Meadow PID, and then when the City Council memo and subsequent news story ran.

I got a 12-pack of beer and sat on my patio and started drinking.  I'm not depressed, don't suffer from any kind of dependency issues, never did drugs or really set out to get drunk.  But, the one thought that took total, paralyzing control over me was that my life was over.  Could not get past that one thought.

How would I pay my bills?  How would friends and family react? How would I find work?  Oh, my God, I'm going to lose my house and end up on the streets.  What would I do with my cat?  How would this effect my image in the community?  What would happen to my commission posts, non-profits, the neighborhood association, etc?

At that time, my life was all about an active public life.  I never really cared about having a private life, like most people do.  So, my life was indeed over.

When the newspaper article came out four months after I was fired, all those thoughts came rushing back.  With the publicity (newspaper, radio, even a friend in Houston read it in their newspaper!), it felt like 100 times worse.  

My s/o at the time tried as hard as she could to keep me from drowning in a bottle, because all I wanted to do was be so drunk that I couldn't feel anything.  It was either that or find a way to kill myself.  Those thoughts did cross my mind.  I remember dreaming up ways to try to off myself where loved ones wouldn't find me.  I thought about driving to some remote area out in the country, taking a bunch of pills, putting a plastic bag over my head, and going to sleep.  I never had thoughts of suicide before then.

Fortunately, I had great support from a wonderful network of friends.  The day the news article came out, I learned who my REAL friends are.  I gotta tell ya, it's a feeling I will never forget.  Like someone was throwing me a life preserver, literally.  They all called and emailed to offer support.  They came through, too, because times did get tough.

I was out of work for most of that year and felt blacklisted from the non-profit community.  Times were lean.  I had to hire an attorney.  Most of my friends helped my with my bills. Talk about a giant dose of humility!  I started thinking that if I did go through with killing myself, what message would it send to all the people who showed that they cared about me?  That would be a slapping them in the face.  Somehow, that felt like a worse thing to do than going through with the public humiliation, the possibility of a long, protracted trial, even a possibility of a guilty sentence or worse, a plea deal (which I ultimately took).  My friends were my faith, and to a larger degree, my salvation.

I also learned people have short memories.  Unless it's someone who has made you a target of their hate and constant harassment.  

I could probably be committing professional suicide here by posting this.  Last year, my health took a turn for the worse, and I started taking medications that will shorten my life span.  My s/o had asked me to think about walking away from a life of stress and focus on myself and a personal life for once.  So, I skipped a trial and took a crappy plea deal.  Sometimes, I wonder if it was the right decision.  

Taking it in perspective, I still have many wonderful and caring friends.  I have gained valuable insight in the last 3 years.  I'm a stronger person now.  I have learned to pick my battles. I think more before reacting.  I've learned to keep my mouth shut a little more, and to listen a lot more.

Maybe, the plea deal wasn't the best deal out there.  Maybe, I didn't have the best attorney.  Maybe, I should have gone to trial.  It was my decision, and I chose to live a different life from how I had been living.  

Politics in Dallas is hard.  People are mean.  People have agendas and propagandas. People won't think twice about stepping on you if it can advance them two inches.  You can't be so trusting with everyone you meet.  Not everyone cares about what you're doing to better your community.  Most involved in anything political in Dallas care more about how to advance their own careers and line their own pockets.  

For the first time in my life, I can finally see clearly.  

Maybe, for the Shaw's, their only life was their political life.  I read someone said they were very private people, but that just cannot be so.  When you are a public official, you have traded your privacy.  When they were home around the dinner table, I bet they weren't talking about what color the living room needed to be painted.  They talked about their daily lives, which happened to be very political and very high-profile.  Their friends were all public people with high-profiles.  You can't have a public life and have a "normal" one at the same time.  Maybe, they couldn't see past not having a public life, that if their public lives were over, that their real lives were also over.  That's who they were at their very cores, it was the only thing that they knew how to be...

These comments are from someone who fell off a proverbial high ladder, someone who was down that dark tunnel that most will never, ever experience.  Had I not had the solid and steadfast support of my friends, I probably would have seen the same fate as the Shaw's.  

It is absolutely about choices, and I chose to completely change my lifestyle.  

For many public people who live and breathe public life, the thought of the public shame and the sense that you've let your friends and family down, and seeing no light at the end of your public life's tunnel is just too much to bear.

It may be just as simple as that.

Casie Pierce