A few posts ago, I discussed blogging more openly. There are a lot of things that I find difficult to admit publicly, and even more things that I find difficult to discuss even privately … and all of those things fit into the same category: difficult events which are currently ongoing, and which don’t yet have an end. It’s easy to rub the wound once it’s healed over, but quite another thing to tamper with it when it’s still raw … while the trial is ongoing, and there’s no way to know when or how it will end.

Smiling face, strength in trials, unflappable peace … that’s the countenance I’ve always wanted to show publicly. It wasn’t always difficult to do – living in denial, running from reality, all those those things make it easier to smile in the face of adversity. I’ve only in the last few years learned how destructive that can be … how much more difficult it makes healing, and re-integrating …

In the same spirit that I shared my past difficulties with you, I’m going to share those that weigh on me at this time. It will help to explain why I’ve spent such long stretches without blogging …

After the events of last fall, I returned home from camp, and entered into one of the most difficult winters of my life. You now know a bit about the house, and my long time readers know the series of events that happened last fall. Those are not all of the factors which were in play, but some of those stories will be told at a later time.

Still in shock over the hammering blows of my son being missing, the burglaries, and so on, we moved back into the farmhouse, and spent our third winter without central heat. We were in serious financial difficulties, and the approaching holidays only served to accentuate our position. It was to be our first year without a reveillon, and I wasn’t even up to putting up a Christmas tree. We sent Dougie off to spend the holiday with his brother, and Doug and I turned down the lights so that we wouldn’t be surprised by unexpected well-wishers who didn’t realize that there were to be no parties that year. Doug and I sat the in cold kitchen, trying to stay warm in front of a wood stove Darian had found for us, and ate cheese and crackers until bedtime.

That set the scene for the rest of the winter. I disappeared into the bedroom, settled into the heated waterbed, and proceeded to try to get through the winter. It wasn’t easy. It got to the point that I wouldn’t leave the room without an urgent reason … calls of nature, doctors’ appointments … I let go of my Red Hat meetings, stopped keeping or making hair appointments … in short, I turned into a recluse. I was not able to blog about what was going on … and what was going on filled so much of my awareness that I couldn’t focus on anything else. I became incapable of maintaining any sort of public image.

I was afraid for my own state of mind. Grabbing my courage with both hands, I wrote my PCP a letter, trying to explain what was happening. He replied by reassuring me that he wouldn’t dismiss me, and that we would talk at my next appointment.

He kept his word, but his talk consisted mostly of trying to get me to “see someone else.” I wasn’t willing to do that – by a long shot – but just the idea that there was someone, a real live person, who knew what our situation was, made things far more bearable; it seemed to act like a psychological safety net. With some serious difficulties and very dark temptations, I made it through the winter. I expected things to improve once the warmth of spring made its appearance, but they really didn’t. The events of the last fall, and situations at home, had just simply been “too much.” I finally understood that I wasn’t going to get out of that one by myself. The knot at the end of my rope had come unraveled.

By early spring, still in bad shape, I wrote to my PCP for the second time, briefly, asking about the person he had wanted me to contact, and voicing a few concerns about seeing someone nose to nose … since I wasn’t at all sure that I would be able to really be upfront with some person I don’t know staring at me. When I saw him next, he told me: “I got your email, but I didn’t read the whole thing. I just glanced at it.” … And then, to make sure that I understood exactly what he was really saying, he repeated it. With the frame of mind I was in, it was like a punch in the gut. All winter, I had clung to the idea someone knew, someone understood … only to discover that it had all been a fantasy. Although things were warming up outside, I hit rock bottom on the inside.

Alone again … the deep dark thoughts that had haunted me all winter renewed their assault – with a vengeance.

After a few very scary months, I sent an email enquiry to the person my PCP wanted me to see. He was very kind, and seemed to be genuine in his concern. After several email exchanges, I tentatively allowed him to set an appointment … it ended up being on my husband’s late March birthday. As the date approached, I became more and more anxious, and less and less confident that I would be able to do more than just sit there silently …

… but I got lucky. Dr. K asked all of the right questions … with amazing acuity. A large part of my story came out without having to do much more than nod; it was traumatic, but it was also a relief beyond my capacity to express. With each successive visit, it became less and less difficult to communicate openly with this amazingly intuitive young man … until I finally found myself looking forward to the next appointment.

Now, that, my friends, was a real shocker for me! :o)

(A little aside here … after the first few visits, Dr. K got in touch with my PCP, who was suddenly very concerned and solicitous. Why did it take another person to tell him what was happening in my life before he would actually hear what was being said? Although I like this doctor, and am still with him, I now know that it’s pointless to trust him with anything but purely medical concerns. For those of you who are in practice, let me tell you that it’s a very scary place to be … when all you have is a PCP, and your world is caving in around you, and you can’t even count on him to at least hear what you’re saying. Getting the story from another professional, and only then reacting with concern, will not fool your patient — it will only add another brick in the wall of the doctor/patient relationship.)

The next real shock came when I realized that it was becoming less difficult to drop my happy mask, and with that came the willingness to spend more time outside of my room. Over the summer, and into this fall, things have slowly improved, and although I’m facing another difficult winter in this house, we haven’t had a course of ugly events to weigh us down in advance … and now, there really is someone who knows what’s going on, and who is intuitive – and supportive.

Other things that helped get me through the winter … were my online friends, Ramona, Joanie, PK Eagler, the Merry Laundress, and GC George, who all played Facebook Scrabble with me through the entire winter. It was a warm, wonderful distraction from my icy cold room. Joanie also helped in a very real way by coming back down to the area from Bangor, and spending some time with me. We spent several wonderful evenings since this past spring, visiting in the lobby of the hotel she stays in … even if we did both spend them online, side by side. Can’t wait to see one another … and then still communicating over the internet while sitting at the same table! Not really, but close …

I also want to give a very special thank you … to a very special friend. SmallTownDoc and I chatted virtually every morning, and every night, and his friendship unknowingly (at the time) got me through the winter. He became a “place of refuge” … and a very close friend. Who would have guessed that two such unlikely individuals would ever become such close friends. His beautiful little girl thinks that her daddy has a lady trapped in his computer … ;o)

Now that I’ve broached the subject, I won’t ever have to avoid mentioning it again … so with this post, I’ve kicked another brick out of the blog wall. There are a number of subjects that I would like to share with you along these lines, but this post had to come first.

I believe that the stigma of needing a therapeutic intervention, and medication, when looked at from the second person, is really an innate fear of “going there” ourselves … and perhaps not wanting to be reminded of our own “black, dark places.” From the first person, it’s a struggle to overcome the stereotypes we’ve associated with needing therapy and meds … of beginning to be comfortable enough with ourselves to be able to admit our needs openly. All the way around, it’s a venture into an unknown, and often terrifying, place … a place where you have to begin to trust another person enough to be able to bare the most disabling, humiliating, and frightening illnesses of all … those that deal with the center of who you are: your mind.

… more forthcoming.

As I try to regain a bit of momentum in blogging, I have to admit that I’m not the same person who hesitantly gravitated from journalizing to blogging back in 2005. There’s been way too much water under the bridge, and much of it has been pretty intense. I’ve written about some of those changes in my private blog, but included very little of it in my public blog. Although it’s relatively easy to write about awful things which happened more than 3 decades ago, it’s quite another to write about whatever “awful things” might be happening now. There’s always a certain desire to show our best side – the smiling side, the side that is able to overcome obstacles, the side that has been through some bad experiences, survived them, and learned enough from them to want to pass on the knowledge. But that’s not the full picture … reality seldom presents itself in such an uncomplicated package.

Up until now, I’ve maintained several personal blogs. This one, which is my public blog, Emanon’s Journey, which is a bit more of a private blog, The Unwilling Agnostic, an even more private blog, and one other one, which is anonymous, and floating around loose in the blogosphere; that one is very, very private. A couple of my friends have accidentally run into it in the past, much to my deep humiliation.

As different as each of those blogs are, they’re all part of the same story – individual pieces of a single puzzle. I think it’s time for all of the threads to be gathered together, and for all of the personae to be integrated.

At this time, I’m going through some really amazing changes, both inside – and out. There are certain things that I’ve always tried to keep hidden, which I’m now going to uncover for the sake of being able to tell my story. I can fill in the details of the past, but the story itself is ongoing, multifaceted, complex, and very unusual – and I have no idea where it’s going to end. I will try, as best as I can, to set the scene with as much background as seems necessary, and then I’ll just share it with you as it unfolds …

… to what end? Only the passage of time will tell …