Why I Stopped Writing | On Becoming Me On Becoming Me My personal journey to discover who I really am. Home About Me Favorite Recipes Friday Night Chili Hearty Vegetable Soup Pulled Pork Sliders Sweet and Sour Bean Salad Texas Brownies The Book Why I Stopped Writing 18 May 2018 2 Comments by Shannon McDonough in Lyme Disease Tags: changes, life, Lyme Disease, writing Photo credit thecrazyfilmgirl on Flickr. I have simultaneously looked forward to and dreaded this moment for quite some time, having been seriously thinking about it for more than a year. What would I say about a four and a half year unplanned and totally unintentional hiatus from this blog? How could I explain all that went into that happening and everything that’s happened since? The answer to both is I can’t. At least not in one post. So I’m just going to tell you why I stopped posting here (hence the title of this piece) and share additional details in due time. Full disclosure: I’m almost as afraid of publishing this post as I was when I published my first post more than seven years ago. There’s something sort of terrifying about putting myself out there to be judged. Oh, well. Here we go. I don’t actually remember making a conscious decision to stop writing. After I wrote my last post, Here’s to the Dark Bits I just remember not knowing where to go or what to do next. And being tired. So damn tired. I had been diagnosed with adrenal fatigue in May 2012 after suffering from severe fatigue, pain, and some other random symptoms for more than a year. My friend Donna recalls that I told her (although I don’t remember this) I wasn’t going to write anymore because with my adrenal fatigue I was just too worn out to write. I went to several doctors over the years to try to get help; sometimes having to borrow money from my parents to pay for it because I didn’t always have health insurance (support single-payer, yo!). But it wasn’t until February 2017 that I was finally correctly diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease (along with Lyme’s friends Mycoplasma, Babesia, and Bartonella, and Epstein-Barr virus just for kicks). It took a while to get my immune system to a point where I could even attempt Lyme treatment since the treatment itself can be hard on your body. In September 2017 I started treatment and recently added a new protocol to what I was already taking (my entire day focuses around taking pills and drops and sprays at specific times of the day, with and without food — it’s a job in itself). For years, I’ve told myself I’ll write again when I feel better. I try to remain hopeful, but so far, not much has improved and I’ve finally come to the realization that this may be my life now. That as much as I want to be healthy again, it could be a long haul if it happens at all. So I decided there was no good time to start writing again and as hard as it is to add something extra to my life right now, I have to do it. There are so many things I want to talk about — and by ‘talk’ I mean write because I am far better at expressing myself in writing than speaking — so it’s hard to predict what direction this blog will take going forward. I keep an ongoing list of topics in a Note on my iPhone and they run the gamut from what it’s like to live with Lyme disease to how I fell in love with David Duchovny. I just know I want to focus on something more than my job and my treatment and just getting through each day. My posts may be shorter than they used to be and there may be typos and incorrect grammar since one of Lyme’s many fun symptoms is cognitive difficulties, also known as brain fog, (thank god for the Grammarly app) but I’m going to write anyway. I’d love it if you’d cut me some slack for now. Here’s what I can say: I will write what I can when I can and hopefully it won’t be four years in between posts. Seems like a reasonable goal, right? …………… I’d love to hear your comments below. If you liked this post, then please ‘Like’ it and share with your friends. And don’t forget to click ‘Follow’ to get email notifications whenever I post something new. But most of all…thank you for reading and being a part of my journey. Share this: Email Print Facebook Twitter Like this: Like Loading... Related Previous Here’s to the Dark Bits Next I Can’t Remember the Last Time I Brushed My Hair 2 Comments (+add yours?) Marta May 18, 2018 @ 14:38:10 I totally get it. My own journey with autoimmune diseases and mold disease parallels your journey with Lyme. Write when you can. We’ll be here. Reply Darcy May 18, 2018 @ 21:35:03 Kudos to you for expressing yourself. You have many blessing in your life and I pray that your journey finds you a healthy strong place where you can enjoy them for many many years to come! Reply Leave a Reply Cancel reply Enter your comment here... Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: Email (required) (Address never made public) Name (required) Website You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out / Change ) You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out / Change ) You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out / Change ) Cancel Connecting to %s Notify me of new comments via email. Notify me of new posts via email. Δ Recent Posts I Can’t Remember the Last Time I Brushed My Hair Why I Stopped Writing Here’s to the Dark Bits How Many Cameras Are On Me? 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