November 4, 2010 – A few years ago, as is somewhat well known, I had a high-functioning crack-up. I could work and write and take photos but a horrifying amount of fear came up in me. I didn’t sleep much for more than years and I believed I would lost the farm, my work,  and my life. I almost did. A lifetime of serious and neglected issues and anxiety came roaring up. I saw a lot of doctors, MD’s, therapists, analysts – for sleep, anxiety, obsession. For the kind of terror I could hardly imagine. I wrote about it, somewhat, partly because I wanted to help others, partly because it seemed to keep me from toppling over the edge.

Lots of things stick out in my mind looking back. How I counted the minutes and hours until Maria would come through the door, to help with the farm. To work in her Studio. To talk to me. She always seemed to think I would survive. So I began to believe it, too, because I always trusted her. I had already had a brush with health care when I was diagnosed with Type 2/Diabetes. Doctors gave me testing devices, sugar pills, books. People started asking me every day what my numbers were, asking me how my health was in concerned voices that annoyed me. It began to define me.

I found a wonderful doctor in Vermont, a nationally known diabetes specialist. He shocked me. I was healthy, he said. It was up to me. If I was active, changed my diet, I didn’t need to take those pills and equipments. I could lead a healthy and normal life. Take your numbers once in awhile he said. Don’t live with that label in your head. So I did. I changed my life, everything I ate, walked and walked. I do test myself once in awhile. I am fine. It’s my choice. He was right. He told me later that I was his first patient in 25 years who didn’t choose medication over lifestyle change.What an awful statistic. I don’t want to join that system. I won’t.

I saw other doctor for sleep. They gave me pills to take. In the morning. At night. There were a lot of side affects. I got fuzzy sometimes, light-headed, awful things for a writer, had digestive troubles, felt lousy. Another told me anxiety was genetic in my family, and I would probably need medication my whole life. A therapist said everyone with that level of anxiety takes pills, and I should consider, it I wanted to sleep and function normally. I went off all of the medications, one by one. It was very rough, and the nights were awful for a long time. They are not awful now.

I feel little anxiety in my life now. I am sleeping well. The farmers that I photograph and I joke about getting up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. Part of getting older, part of life. There was another doctor who told me I should take special medication that was believed to prevent prostate cancer. You don’t want to die that way. Only thing, he said, was that it turned you into a girl. You grew breasts. Another told me I needed surgery on my ankle. I didn’t get it. My ankle is fine.

I changed my life. I changed the thing that were making me unhappy. I found a spiritual counselor. I found love, someone to share my life with. I freed the artist choking death inside of me. And got more creative. I started going to doctors when I was sick, not when I was afraid of being sick. I found a doctor who tells me that he was not trained to look for health, that most tests are to avoid lawsuits, not to ensure the health of patients, and I should listen to myself. He checks me out, tells me I am healthy, tells me to go home. If you feel health, he says, chances are that you are. One day I will be sick, I will die. Not now.

People scold me all the time. Jon, get your blood checked. Jon, vote. Jon, take your numbers. Jon, go to doctors. Jon, check  your liver, your blood pressure, your kidneys all the time. I won’t. I am finding myself, learning who I am. I made other decisions. I was told to stash my money away, get ready to retire, that I needed a million dollars to age safely. Not possible, I said. No writer lives his life and has a million dollars, and gets divorced and keeps a farm.

I am living a healthy life. I am glad I got off those pills, avoided those tests, took responsibility for my life. I have work to do. But I am  connected to people, to animals, to my work, to my photography. We are all going to the same place, and I am working hard to be healthy, and I am clear about this: I am not going to live a life dominated by fear and prevention, no matter what anybody says. And I am healthier than I have ever been. And without illusions about life and risks.

I am avoiding this awful and mind-killing notion of health, as I will avoid our awful and mind-killing ideas about ageing and death. In a way, much of my life has been about that, ant it’s time I owned it.

As if we can stop the cycle of life and death. As if living forever by any means at all costs is a meaningful and productive way to live. I don’t want to live forever. It is up to me how I live, and up to me how I will grow old and die. And that is not something I will ever again turn over to somebody else.

I do not tell other people how to live, not for awhile at least, and I don’t like it when they tell me how to live. I am learning who I am. And giving voice to it. And I will live my life as long as I can, and not in the Web of Fear that seems encircle us, often at the cost of our spiritual center, and for the great and mindless profit of other people.