Wanna hear something crazy?

Thanks for all your notes and comments about Stalker Girl. But you wanna hear something crazy? I'm not crazy!

Well, let me rephrase that. I had a completely normal, not-at-all extreme reaction to her latest missive. I didn't act crazy. I didn't respond by spiraling into a greater-than-my-usual degree of craziness in this particular situation.

I'm not going to spend too much time clapping myself on the back over this, of course. After all, it's not that hard to stay sane when your husband's stalker starts stalking other people, when she turns her attention more or less away from your immediate family and onto other people. My fears have always been centered on her coming after my kids...I've worried about Baroy, and I've worried about myself, and hell, I worry about my BIL, but what I've always been SCARED of--what I get out-of-control TERRIFIED of--is something happening to my children. It's that primal thing that I haven't been able to tame. And this? Well, even I couldn't turn this into a potential attack on my children. Or at least not to any significant extent.

And so I've been slightly jumpy these past few days. That's normal in this situation: Baroy's jumpy, BIL is jumpy, BIL's wife is jumpy. But it's not a 24-7 thought. I'm not panicked. It hasn't taken over my life. I'm even able to talk about it--to discuss with BIL the ways he can handle it, and what I have and/or would do in his place.

In the not-so-distant past, that would have been impossible. Just TALKING about her--just hearing her name, just having her referred to obliquely, even jokingly--would send me into an immediate, full-out, no-returning-from-without-pharmaceutical-help panic attack. But some combination of therapy, time, and meds have helped. I have absolutely no expectation that I would hold up this well if she once again were to come at us--at Baroy and myself--full on. Still, baby steps. Going in the right direction, and all that. I can't help but being a little bit pleased.