My response to those who think I'm supposed to behave a certain way because I'm psychic.

"Those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind." - Bernard Baruch

First off, exactly how should I behave for you, dear reader? Should I dress and act like this?

 Or maybe this: 

(Actually I love Walter Mercado. They broke the mold for the Liberace of psychics. Someone please admit that the designer Caroline Herrera and Walter are the same person.) 

Or maybe you want me to be like Gary Spivey, my favorite (looking) psychic of them all?

Critics, y'all need to get a grip. You want me to be this:

because you believe this completely random idea that you probably got from watching hours and hours of stereotypes in film and television over the years of "How A Psychic Should Act". 

How I want to act is any way that I feel is appropriate. And sometimes, if I really need to get the message across, I can be wildly inappropriate. I'm a "whatever works" kinda gal.

You don't like the way I act? Don't pay attention, then. Apparently, you're kind of obsessed with me!

Smoochies, You Hippiepants Peace Bears, You! 

A-

Listen up:

But I'm your biggest fan!


Sometimes by accident, my feelers are off (maybe my Mom died the night before, I got yet another visit from Naval Intel in the form of a MILAB, someone is trying to discredit me online paid for by your tax dollars at the NSA, I wake up with unbelievably bizarre marks on my body that would drive most people insane and yet it's happened to me for the thirtieth day in a row, people start stalking me, whatever!) and I let people hire me who have absolutely no intention of wanting to change themselves. It happens! I'm human. Or a cybernetic hybrid Annunaki blood prime as the case may be.

Sometimes mentally ill people do in fact get through the cracks and expect the world of me. They think I am their bestie, or a servant to them who is available at the drop of a hat whenever and wherever it suits their whims.

Those types of clients usually start emailing me long, circuitous emails that require enormous amounts of time and energy on my part to respond to. (I don't engage in this practice anymore, live and learn) they usually engaged in long, unwanted phone calls with me as well after hours and act like we are suddenly related, long lost cousins who want me to start mailing them family photos and keeping in touch on a regular basis.

When I don't respond, or, shame on me!, indulge them a little bit (some would call that "over-delivering", it can be an occupational hazard in the adviser community. Bad, Anya. Raps knuckles with a ruler)  then they say that I see them as just a dollar sign, that they just were an electric bill payment for that month, that I'm "mean", that I've "changed" if I don't drop everything and respond to their ten page rambler about how they always liked cheese and does it mean something about a past life on Venus if that's the case.

(If you think I'm exaggerating or taking creative license about that last part, you would be wrong. I literally got an email from a crazed stalker type once asking about the cheese/Venus connection. They were writing it in complete seriousness.)

These people are users. They were bad clients from the getgo and need to be jettisoned immediately. If you knew how many incredibly misplaced in their neediness people I get contacting me: the stalkers, the sychophants, the star fuckers, the creepy perverts, the users, the drug addicts, the mentally ill, the married men who think I am a "Freek" in the bedroom and wouldn't it be fun to break off a piece of that sideshow crazy, the flaky artist twentysomethings who need a free "mentor" whom they can access at all hours  (and who call at all hours) with absolutely zilch other than "you're the greatest" in return, the wannabes, witches, and weirdo black magicians who wanna "crack my code" who all come to me in the guise of "client" (or not even-- parasitic freeloaders is usually more like it), you'd be amazed. Or impressed. Or exhausted. Or revolted.
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I'm not even talking about the people online who stalk me and follow me and say how great I am for years but never actually hire me --ever-- or support my efforts tangibly in any way shape or form other than a constant "You're great!"-- To everything-- as I am actually worrying about the lights being turned off, you'd be amazed. And appalled.

Lots of you want something for nothing. You want me at your beck and call. You want to siphon energy off of me like a vampire (because you are one.) You want me seated at your dinner table to show off to your friends and colleagues and then at the end of the meal shove me back in the attic like the crazy aunt you really think I am. You want a piece of me, and then when I give it, you want more. But you don't want me to say Hi to you if I run into you on the street.

More, more, always more. Accompanied by a heaping topping of "but I'm also ashamed of what I want, but IT FEELS SO GOOD/she's a dirty little/best kept secret."

What does the oracle have in store for me now? No, I'm not being a worthless piece of shit user who wants a free reading for nothing (or, who hires me once, but then after peppers me with endless emails about what they should do with their lives but has no intention whatsoever of hiring me again and now we are best friends and Anya is a BAD PERSON if she imposes limits on the email flotsam) But I'm a good person, Anya. Really. Who just talked your ear off for six hours by phone about myself asking for more and more and MORE answers to the questions I seek for free and I FEEL SO CLOSE TO YOU, ANYA, I FEEL SUCH A DEEP CONNECTION, and then want me to be your psychic feel good security blanket/tit/crutch/training wheels to help you make sense of that dream you had last night at the drop of a hat and become one with the Universe at the drop of a hat while she hasn't had a client in weeks and is trying to build a company up and run it like a business person. You say we are friends but the one time I need to talk to someone, anyone, because I needed help just this once because I am being attacked by demons and psychotronic weaponry, you can't be reached because you're blissfully camping in the mountains with your girlfriend.

People want me until they don't but then get angry when they don't get their "fix" so they call me a "friend".  And you think this job is fun and wouldn't it be neat to be able to do what I do?

Please, people. I provide a service. It doesn't mean I am your servant.

Don't make it like we are best friends because I know what you did in that past lifetime in Somalia in 23,000 BC. We are friends of the Universe, we share a soul contract, yes we are connected and All Is One. But when you start sending me labyrinthian emails that I don't respond to because you are cray-cray and you don't try to heal yourself one iota, nor do you want to, nor did you ever have any intention of doing so,  you just want more of the same and keep needling me about your personal life and why does nothing I do ever turn out right, and further more, if you don't answer this email that I fully expect to not pay you for your time and immense energy that I am taking from you,
YOU ARE MEAN AND BAD.

When you do that, I exit you immediately. I am not required to reply. I am not required to do anything, you silly child.  You are scaring me and further more, I don't need this shit.

I get threats and interruptions and attention enough from the Powers That Think They Be, I don't need your dime-store, homeless-person-standing-on-the-corner-having-a-psychotic-break version of it because you didn't get your unbelieveably selfish, child-like supply today.
And people say I'M the crazy one who manipulates vulnerable people.

That is all, we're done here. Thanks.