Blog Paralysis

I've realized it was probably kind of inconsiderate to post a scary, "I am in a downward spiral" post and then disappear for a month. Partly I didn't think about that because I forget that not all of my readers know me on Facebook (because if you know me there, you know I've been okay.) Partly I've just been out of the blogging "flow" because I'm in a weird transition period, where I'm staying at a friend's house temporarily and I'm not totally sure what's happening next. But I am safe, and I am fed, and I am much more emotionally stable than I was.

That's the good news. The bad news is that my non-blogging also has a darker cause. Because even though my last blog prompted mainly sweet, loving, wonderful responses that made me feel like I have about 20 moms and dozens of siblings (and to those who made me feel that way, THANK YOU so so much), there were also people who apparently thought little of me all along and tried to take advantage of my vulnerability. I am not writing this to point fingers or throw shade*. That's not the point here.

The point is that in blogging, and especially in the kind of earnest blogging that I need to do just as urgently as I need to breathe, that is always a danger. But the fact that this happened at a time when I was so fragile, and because it happened as a result of a post that I was terrified to write for exactly that reason, it shook me. I was in worse shape in the days following that post than I was when I wrote it, but this time I kept my mouth shut.

I have been writing all month. I have several things I'd like to post, most of them having little if anything to do with my personal life. Yet I've been experiencing a strange sort of blog paralysis. Every time I think of posting something, I can't go through with it. I am afraid things I say, things I may feel are totally innocent, will be used as further evidence of my failures and shortcomings by those who seek to harm or control me. So for a month now, I've let that fear paralyze me.

But I must write, and I must publish my writing in order for it to be useful and not remain a dead thing that cannot entertain or help anyone. So I'm trying to push forward anyway. Am I scared of what may happen? Of course. But I also know that the worst has happened - someone has read my blog and used it against me - and I have survived. I have written 170 posts on this blog and so far only one has resulted in anything bad happening, and even that post resulted in much, much more good than bad. I need to remember that. I can't let fear stop me from doing what I love.

*I realize I am probably far too white and unhip to use this phrase and be taken seriously, but I heard it on RuPaul's Drag Race and loved it. So nyeh.**

**This footnote is only here for the purpose of making you giggle*** at the end of a serious post.

***Two new nuns walk into a bar. One nun says to the other, "Hey, why are we still coming to bars, we're nuns now!" Second nun shrugs and says, "I dunno, force of habit?"****

****Badoom tish.

*****I probably should learn to use real footnotes because asterisks become really cumbersome after about two.