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In a comment left here, Solanaceae said

You think mental illness is what is stopping your blog? I don’t get that. Speaking as someone who grew up around more than a few family members who share the same I have to tell you at least I would find it “worth reading” if not valuable to try to understand it all from your perspective. People in my shoes, many of them anyway, are interested in understanding and more often than not never given the opportunity to learn it from the person directly in their lives. You have an immense platform here to tell your story, to share with the world IF you want to & that’s really what it comes down to … personal choice. If you decide not to share it that is fine too but don’t think it is your illness standing in your way … you don’t get off that easy, I’ve read a ton of what you have written!

She was talking about my comment about how I don’t have a whole lot of traffic on my blog.  I meant to imply that yes I have a mental illness but I’m not crazy enough to believe I could ever be one of those bloggers.

But she raises a good point.  I have a story to tell.  I tell parts of it often.  I am grew up the daughter of a preacher.  That is not always easy, living your life ‘on stage’ in the public eye, even if it is only the small town you live in.  I have been abused by several men in my past.  I have survived.  I am a recovering anorexic.  I am a twice divorced mother of three.  I am a sister, a daughter, a cousin, a friend, an aunt, a girlfriend.  I have a story, and I will tell it to you if you want to listen.  Sometimes even if you don’t.

I am bipolar.  I got the official diagnosis just over a year ago.  I am medicated and am in therapy (no matter what The Asshat Brigade wants to believe) and it’s making a huge difference.  I do have an amazing platform here to allow people in to explore mental illness.  I truly believe that information is power.  The more you know the more you understand the more you can do to help.  I will gladly tell my story to anyone who wants to listen and probably to a whole lot who don’t.  I would share the ugly, the scary, the dark, the insanity, all of it here.  Except that the Forces of Evil would use it all against me.

They wouldn’t take anything I offered up and use it as a way to understand my life, they would see it as a weapon to use against me to hurt me to overpower me, to once again bring me to my knees.  They have so little power of their own to destroy me, that they would take this information and pounce.

I have written several posts in the past about bipolar and my struggle with it.  (One of them is password protected, email me for the password.. sorry Forces of Evil and such). I could right so much more, and open doors to people who want to learn and know and understand.

My mental illness isn’t preventing me from blogging.  Well, recently it has, because right now my thoughts are scattered everywhere.  I also know that in censoring what I write here because of the Forces of Evil gives them power in my life.  It means they still have the ability to control my actions or my lack of actions.  But another reason I haven’t blogged every day this week is… I really can’t come up with anything meaningful to write about.

I would love to have the attention adoration worshippers stalkers fans blog traffic people like Britt, Adam, Karl, Hilly, Dave, Dawg all have.  But as Dawg pointed out, blog traffic does not measure success.  I know that I have readers who have followed me through two previous blogs to this one.  I know I have readers who are here daily but don’t comment.

I wasn’t really complaining about the blog traffic or lack thereof.. or the comments or lack thereof either.  I guess I was just voicing my desire to actually write something that isn’t so diary-ish sounding.  And in that desire was the whining of I just don’t know how to come up with a topic and write about it well.

I’m searching for my voice.  I’m searching for me.  I’m 40, and I’d like to think I was a little more than work, kids, and Batman. I would like to think I could write something funny, witty, brilliant or poignant, meaningful, or thought provoking.  I’m searching.  Not just on my blog though, behind my camera too.  I need to get out and shoot and find my voice there too.