New filter for my writing about my neuropsychiatric adventures. Entry is by poll with one answer. Enter only if you’re interested and you feel you can handle it. If you see this after more than a week or so you should probably contact me directly because I won’t necessarily check it after that.

Note to local friends: Some of you have expressed frustration because I talk about this stuff on the Internet but not in person. I generally feel uncomfortable bringing up my issues in conversation, both because it feels egotistical and because I don’t think it will be acceptable, and there isn’t anyone in my life right now that I can call up on the phone and say “My brain hurts, can we talk”. I’m comfortable with other people bringing their stuff to me, no problem, but I can’t do that easily myself.

I’m doing this because 1) I need to write about this 2) I don’t feel comfortable talking about it in person with hardly anyone 3) I need a relatively safe place to write and 4) I’m attempting to stop freaking out people who don’t need or want to deal with someone else’s crazy.

I will do my best to keep my serious problems out of this space other than on this filter.

Comments disabled, poll results hidden. Contact me privately if there’s some technical or personal problem with this.

I offer a general apology for my behavior, which has been erratic and damaging to others lately.

Physical changes in my brain and associated emotional distress have at least temporarily warped my personality. My current view of the world is so obviously distorted that I can’t say definitively what is going on. Some of you have had similar experiences and may understand what I mean, but you don’t have to; you can just say I’m nuts, and that’ll do.

I’ve been an egotist, a professional patient, and needy to the point of requiring unavailable levels of reassurance. I’ve been quick to anger and easily triggered into huge floods of emotion by things that other people have found trivial. Much of my behavior only made sense in a context I can’t expect anyone else to share.

No one is required to accept my public or private apologies, or to put up with me at all for that matter. I’ve been angry, demanding, suspicious, deeply depressed, irrational, and completely terrified for a long time now, beyond the capacity of most reasonable people to accept. For a shorter time I’ve been open about those things here, which in retrospect was a terrible mistake on many levels. I would not fault anyone for writing me off, as painful as that might be.

Some of you have been privately critical of me, in the best sense, without damning but without finessing the point. It wasn’t easy to hear some of those things, but harsh truth was better than easy. That’s seriously the most valuable thing any friend has given me, ever.

It’s not assured that I’ll survive this experience at all, much less that I’ll emerge as someone you’ll want to know. Wish me luck even if you’re wishing me goodbye.