Berks County

When i was living in a small, rented house in Perris, California, after a second abortion of a baby with my husband, I longed to be churched. I did not feel called to the churches of Southern California. I longed for the people and places of Berks County, Pennsylvania, where i lived for 4 years as an MH case before I met my husband and after my parents moved here in 1985.

Here, in the late 80’s, when i was not in the hospital, i drove the Dodge Colt my father had bought me all over the roads in this semi-rural and wooded area just to gst out of the house and to get together with friends from the Partial hospital programs et cetera.

i was very ill. And suicidal because of how I was feeling.

When i was just about gone I met Alex at a country singles dance at a hotel (he called it a bar).

He moved south a ways to a new job but he called me up and we saw each other for a while.

With one thing and another we wound up in Texas, where we got married by a judge.

Next thing I knew I was in the most incredibly beautiful place in the world, driving up the mountainside over Lake Elsinore, California, to the National Forest at the top. I kept trying to stay awake.

I was ALREADY suffering from “toxic brain syndrome” from so many mismanaged meds and self-medication; AND a condition best described as a “disorder of my reflexes” that got into me so deep that I couldnt really function. So, the 2nd abortion. So, i stopped the meds, excessive smoking, and coffee. And all of a sudden I was pregnant.

so, that is the story that brings me here today.

Afyer having stayed in California for about 2 years, when I was 7 1/2 months pregnant we travelled back east to have the baby.

but we had to go where Alex had work.

My parents were still here in Berks County. Alex and I and baby Ian were in Buffalo, NY. That was a paradigm shift for me from Boston and Manhattan. I was a different person. My parants did not respect the change and treated me like a state hospital animal as before.

Then, things got catastrophic because I needed help and there was no one to offer it and I wound up on the Johns Hopkins psych ward, where i got some, but not enough. It was tragic.

the rest you have been hearing from me in one way or another for the last 271/2 years. We ended up in Florida for 16 years; then, the divorce. I moved Ian up here and tgen I followed.

Meanwhile, Berks County has CHANGED! And so have I, finally. I go more to Lehigh County, mostly because its a long drive through the woods or along the highway to go to Reading, the Berks County seat. And I have some difficult memories there. From way long ago. As I have said so often.

But i have in my heart the kindness and the solid core of those people and that place, who led me back from death TWICE. AND THE GOD-FEARING FAITH.

So, here, i am a stone’s throw away from Lehigh County, and I will be seeking servives there and may even relocate there because it has more of a New York flavor and is more closely associated with my life of old.

But, i went to Reading to visit family friends even as a child and it will always have a separate hold on me.

Also, it was there, at the RCC Church in Kutztown that i was accepted for baptismal counseling in 2018 and was finally baptized in late 2018. It was a thrilling wentexperience. There was a brilliant white light as Monsignor Schneider poured the water over my head from the baptismal font.

Then, it went sour, for reasons that I do not understand. I do now know that my mother interfered. And i see that the benefit of it (Honor your mother and father!) was that I had the most thrilling, Medieval style purging of all the evil in me which was grave; as I had asked the nun to ask the Monsignor to exorcise me and she told me that he prayed over me as i needed for this as part of the baptism. As I had had a terrible problem with being pursued by Satan after I left town with my husband in 1990 due being at WSH, where there was a Satanic presence. After that, i was aware of such a presence other places I went but didnt have the counsel or instruction to know what to know what to do about it. Finally, 4 1/2 years, after baptism and prayer I am CLEAN.