Update

Okay, here we go. I'm going to post here, see if I can put my head together.

Chat last night. That went... well, better and worse than I anticipated. It's really kind of hard to keep your shit together when you've been hallucinating all night, but kudos for the guys who showed up to stay with me. I would not blame anyone for bailing on me, at a time like that.

Emma. My God, Em, if you're reading this, I'm so sorry. About everything. I had no idea you were checking this blog, let alone actively mounting an unofficial search party for me. But still, thanks for not actually calling the police for a welfare check, and I do mean that. I do not want to deal with authorities, least of all when I've been of dubiously stable mental health.

I say mental health, but it's really physical. Neurological, to be precise. I get these periods where I have these... episodes. And I lose time, I don't know where I am. Even if I've been to this place a million times, it'll feel like I'm on an alien planet. And everything is hostile. See this, all this tidy black type preceding me? Emotional and mental lability. I'm not in a good place, but my mind is currently having no problem producing words and being relatable and sympathetic.

Enough about my problems, let's talk about actual progress, because I am not equipped to deal with my problems.

Directions to look into:

1.) Smith's Mills. The town that the researchers from the special archives box were conducting their research. Good lord, but the last thing I would have expected is that Smiths Mills is actually a familiar place. Or, at least I think it is, there's a lot of little mill places up north that are very similar. But if I'm not wrong, Smith's Mills is a little village in a township next to the one I grew up in. I'm tamping down a creeping sense of panic. Why,why, why would it be so close to me? I don't understand.

2.) The researchers. As someone in chat pointed out last night, that archive website actually has some record of the researcher's names on there. Frederick Braunmuller, John Dooley, and Marcia Rabinowicz. Considering I found their archive box in a library nearby my university, there's a good chance these researchers were at least from the Capital area. But maybe not; maybe the primary investigator (probably Braunmuller) just had colleagues in the Capital District, and left his work here. I don't know. At any rate, I'll be going on an academic resources hunt to see if I can find anything about them.

2a.) Specifically, a good direction to look into is see if these people personally had been having any problems like I've been encountering, and professionally if their work dealt at all with symbology, things like that. Maybe they can shed some light onto.... whatever this is.

3.) My phone and camera. As someone helpfully pointed out last night, maybe I actually took pictures or something when I kind of... lost contact with myself. Which, at first I thought was absurd, but then I realized they have a very good point, because I do have a habit of recording myself when I feel an episode coming on. Why you ask? Posterity. In case whatever is going on with me can be extrapolated by a professional with video evidence. Plus, I lack insight during these events. They catalogue my stupidity. At any rate, once I get some energy and... desire, I guess, I'll look through and see what I can find. Maybe I'll find something out about what I was doing, where I went. Anything. I'll put them up for others to see, as well.

4.) The man in the woods. The millpond man. They're connected, I feel it. If not through direct cultural links, then at least by similar patterns of cultural evolution, or a shared semantical history. The same way you can find almost exact replicas of old folktales scattered all throughout European countries, I have this sensation that the man in the woods I've been hearing about in my interviews here, is somehow linked to the millpond man from Smith's Mills. I'll need to do more digging, come across the right combination of search parameters.

5.) Keep better track of myself. I do have a doctor's appointment scheduled for this week, so... there's that. But how exactly do you bring up to a professional that you've been more or less out of it for two weeks? Someone on chat mentioned that I might start recording where I go anyway, just so that I have a record. It's definitely a thought, something I might consider doing. Emma suggested a GoPro, probably jokingly, which I had to look up, but at least the idea isn't a bad one. For now I can keep my phone in a breast pocket or whatever.

Conclusion: for my next definite step, I think I'm going to be doing a search for the researchers. It's getting to be that time of year where families want to get together and do family things, regardless of how messed up and dysfunctional they are the rest of the year. At some point, I'm probably going to be doing my pilgrimage up north to visit kinfolk. So I'll probably check out Smith's Mills while I'm at it.

.... As a final note, anybody out there, please keep in touch. Any kind of contact is better than nothing. I'm not sure if I can trust myself entirely.