This is a test, this is only a test

I have spent these last couple of days away from the blogosphere. Some of you may not know why I posted that I was no longer writing. In an earlier post I explained that several people had been harassing me, leading me to stop writing. In response to that post I received an email that was so scathing and ugly it completely spun me out for the next 48 hours and so I took down that post.

That what I write can trigger (unfortunately incredibly intelligent) disturbed people so badly as to make them write horribly hateful and painful shit directed only at taking me down is a shame. It’s a tragedy that some people are so hurt that they would want to use their obviously wonderfully creative minds in poisonous ways. It’s actually heartbreaking if I can step away for a moment and imagine the pain that they are in. Unfortunately it’s hard to do that for long as they’ve accomplished what they’ve wanted and gotten under my skin.

In any case I’ve had many many more of you come to my defense. I’ve had a beautiful outpouring of support from my blogging community from people who clearly love me, value my work and see what a healing process it has been for me. Lots of you have asked me to rethink my quitting.

I have spent the last couple of days completely disengaged from the mental health blogosphere. It all feels painful. Given that I’m virtually housebound due to the chronic fatigue caused by the withdrawals, the blog and my life online was basically my full-time occupation. Not my whole life, but my meaningful occupation. I have lots of friends and family and a loving husband who are all part of my life off-line, but they all have jobs and like them I have a job and it is my online work, of which only a part is this blog. I am a member of many email mental health groups, online activist groups of different types and I participate in a blogosphere beyond our insular mental health world. I care about issues other than mental health, in other words.

So I have still been taking part in the other parts of the blogosphere and other areas of activism but have been studiously avoiding the mental health blogosphere. A couple of the people who cause me pain are active there.

In any case I have created a shield around me. I have changed my email address. Only those who wish me well have access to my new address. If I start this blog again it will be set on moderation and an outside party has kindly agreed to do the moderating. Thank you to all of you who volunteered for this task—that was truly moving.

Those of you who are my friends and have left comments before will not be subject to moderation. Only new people and a couple of people who have been banned or purposely placed on permanent moderation will be subject to moderation and I won’t see any of those comments until my volunteer has weeded out anything with ill-intent. All of them will go to an email address I will not be looking at. I will put up that email address as a contact on the blog as well and my volunteer will therefore screen all incoming email as well. Email will then be forwarded to me.

So, I am protected if I choose to write again. In the meantime people can leave comments and converse once again and I will take part in at least that for now. It will also allow new people to communicate with me if they are just now finding this blog as a resource.

The bottom line right now is that I’m in the midst of a Risperdal taper. I’m at the tail end of it and I’m raw. I am extra hypersensitive. But this is of course what I took on when I chose to go off meds and heal naturally. I have actually been doing better physically for the last month or so. I sleep 8 hours, and sometimes more, most nights now—even throughout this upset. Before I started work with my new doctor I was sleeping 2 to 3 hours a night and occasionally not at all. I have more promise of recovery now than ever. But I’m also at one of the hardest parts of withdrawal being the end of a neuroleptic taper and so my emotional pain quotient is taxed. Nasty hateful crap directed at me has made me run for cover. And I’m not coming out completely for now.

So, comments are open. I don’t know when or if I will continue to write on a regular basis. I’ll take it “one day at a time” as they say in some recovery groups. And that means I may not be checking comments regularly either, even though they will be allowed and posted.