I am posting here something I wrote on my blog yesterday. I very rarely cross-post stuff, but this seemed important to me to share here.

It's December again. I haven't written about this here--and I am not going to write a lot about it now; it's not the time for that--but December is a difficult month for me. It's an anniversary time of some fairly significant trauma I suffered as a child, done by people outside my family.

I get quiet at this time of the year. People sometimes laugh at the contrast. Although I'm a guy who has published a three-volume text about Internet law (which I update quarterly), and publishes a few blogs on diverse topics, much of the time, I'm a man of very few words. Maybe that's because, as a boy, I was told "not to tell," and when I did tell--even nonverbally, by some facial expressions, body language, and things I couldn't hide--there were painful consequences.

Occasionally, the irony makes me laugh. The laughter is cynical, but it's still laughter. I run a Web site to help others with bipolar disorder and depression. Even as I see my own world reeling on the brink of primordial chaos, I am enthusiastically and sincerely encouraging others to keep going, to be optimistic, to cultivate a positive attitude. Who am I to be so brazen in the face of adversity? I have inherited this stubbornness, this tenacity. Yeah, they may eventually stop me, but they will have to kill me first. And they won't do that without one hell of a fight.

zen-boy (aka Steve)

Steve,

Glad you posted hope Jan happens to be better after the holidays,

Dec is hard for me too, and this year I am flying to CO to see someone I have waited 7 years to see.

Steve,

Thanks for posting this.

Since I have met you at MS I was really astonished at thigs you are good at and have time and energy to do.

As of December, I hope you will enjoy some things that only December brings (like first snow, if your climate zone applies here).

Take care,
Alexey

Steve,

Actually, what you are doing makes a lot of sense to me and I think that in one way or another we all engage in this curious activity of encouraging others to soldier on and be positive while we ourselves feel like we are falling apart. I know I was an expert at that for a long time.

In looking at my own case I can now see that what I was doing was acknowledging and upholding the innocence, goodness and strength in others that for various reasons I still refused to see in myself. That is, because I didn't have any personal stake in other guys I could easily see the truth; my vision wasn't clouded by their issues. But when it came to Larry all the false lessons and bad feelings I had been carrying in my head for years kicked in and prevented me from seeing things as they really are.

But you know what? As you keep rehearsing these things that you know to be true where other guys are concerned, you begin to get infected by these same ideas when you think about yourself. I think what finally did it for me was looking at the world and realizing that it can't possibly be true that of all the brutalized and terrified boys in the world, only Little Larry was genuinely guilty.

I guess the point is that if you read a lot of maps and keep advising others on how to find their way, eventually you believe that you too are not really lost - and never were.

Keep fighting.

Much love,
Larry

Thanks, guys. Your support and encouragement mean a lot to me. This is still a strange time for me, but I feel less alone knowing that the men here lift me up in support.

All the best to you,

Steve

Thank you Larry, Awesome. Sometimes I feel like I do have some things that I could parlay into something called a life, It feels like it's an elusive thing, that I can like some things, but just don't know how to get them all together and actually make them work. I've got parts of that jigsaw puzzle put together and some of it looks pretty good, but I'm really frustrated because I've spent so long trying to get them to connect and I just can't find those stupid missing pieces. It's just not a pretty picture when so many pieces are missing. I know what happened, someone came up while I was working on it and scattered them all across the room. I've spent so long trying to figure out why they would do that instead of just looking for those pieces and getting back to putting the puzzle together.

I haven't yet figured out or forgiven that person for f***ing up my puzzle, but there is alot of relief for knowing that I've gotten back to working on it. Feel like I will finish it one day.

Stay strong
Mike