I gave the address to my blog to a relative stranger. It is not a exercise I do often simply because on one hand it seems like the ultimate form of bragging and on the other, based solely on the topics I write, seems dangerous. What if what I write is misconstrued? It will be, there is no way for a person to actually get in my brain and read exactly what I am feeling; but this truth makes nothing easier.

I work hard to try and use full descriptions of what I am trying to say. Not because I like to hear myself talk, but because I want the reader to know that who and what I am, despite the fact we have the same disease, are very different. Our doctors may have diagnosed us with the same disease, they may have even given us the same medications, but there is no possibility that my disease in anyway matches yours.

I can see where this would be frustrating; it is why, to be honest, I rarely read much about mental illness. I like the poems and the cute sayings, but delving into the ups and downs of a specific person can be dangerous to me. I will start emulate those emotions; I will start believing those emotions are mine.

Yet I write a blog for the masses. The conundrum there might be confusing if I didn’t point out one single motive: the blogs that I write are not for the masses. They are a daily message, a daily fight for myself, a daily question that I have to answer in order to once again sleep. They are my journey through some of the toughest parts of this disease; the desire to make sense of a brain that long ago most gave up on.

I don’t tell people about my blog. I would rather some divine force send you to my blog at the exact moment that you need it. The words that I write that day will not only help me but will be able to give you that, “ah ha” moment life rarely affords us. My blog isn’t to teach you how to travel through this disease, I wrote a book for that, but rather takes a general premise and asks itself if it is the silence or the confusion that is leading the answers.

My blog should be taken at face value only. It should only be used in as much as you need it. If for one moment I say something that gets deep into your disease and shakes things up – I will simply smile. If I say something that angers you – I will simply smile. Because the point of writing about a disease so complex as a mentally ill one isn’t about the answers, those are easy, it is about admitting to oneself that the answers were there all along. It is about admitting that the weakness you feel is as real as the darkness you crave.  And it means that despite the fear of the one portion of your life you can not walk away from (your brain) you must live and survive with it.

The other problem with writing a blog and then giving out the address is there are times when I sincerely have no desire to write a new blog. For instance, these days I am writing a new book. Not auspicious in the course of things, it is still a journey that requires every bit of my focus.

Literally, my children get 10% of my focus and the rest is on this book. There is no time or desire to “fix” my marriage. There is no desire to play the game of families and be the little girl that is needed. When I eat, I am thinking about my characters eating. When I am falling asleep I am wondering about their nightmares. And when they come to the pivotal moment in the road where the book could go in any way, it is my concentration on the possibilities that neglect all those around me.

I can’t write a book and live. I can’t write a book and be the perfect person that you might want me to be. It is too all-consuming. It is too scary in its overwhelming thoughts. My characters have to be able to eventually say what it is I need them to say, but until the character and I work out how that’s going to happen – the war in my mind is what I live.

I recognize this going into most books, its why I don’t complete the majority of them. I can’t get so mired in the questions, because the questions don’t mean anything. I can’t find my strength to write about that which is so lifelike that I simply give it up. To date, there have been four books that have taken my life for long periods of time. And here I am in one again.

This means of course, that I won’t be writing on this blog as much as I do. I will be concentrating on another kind of writing. This means that I will not catch the news or see the latest movie or have any intention of fixing the relationships that others think are important. When I get in this world, the only world is the one I have made in my head. And it is the only world I will allow myself to reign in.

The only outside energy I give is to my children; they are the ones that deserve it. There are the ones that sacrifice the most when I am writing. And while to them it is an everyday, normal thing for their mother to be lost, they also know it isn’t their job to find me. The relationship that I have with my children was given to me by a much higher power than I will ever know. And I recognize this because there are very few children who can not only grow but survive in a world with a mentally ill mother. But they do. My children thrive. They allow me to be sick.

So I am sorry to all of you who just decided they liked this blog. I will be back, and as this story seems to be writing itself much faster than normal, I will be back soon; it probably won’t be today.  I take periods of rest with my blog, sometimes out of being so weak and sometimes because there is another story, other than my own, that needs to be written.

Right now, there is a girl who has it all, except the one thing she wants most. And she must determine the cost of happiness. She must figure out the price we each pay to hope for a new dream. She must determine in a world that does not allow us much happiness to began with, how she will ever live without it. She must determine why love wasn’t enough, when the world seemed to desire her to have everything else.

I will be back. I won’t forget my friends on this blog, and I won’t ever forget that there is special steps that we must take to together. Until then, try to keep yourself if not sane at least having a little bit of fun.

Love.