1. ABC Wants to Know ABC WANTS TO KNOW November-December 2013 First the light sinks to shadows; then the light is eaten. Have you felt this? Have you been in this room? What does one do with nights when there is no fleshy velvet of sleep? It happened to me, quick as a shot and out of nowhere. I don''t know how many days it''s been since I''ve slept. Two? Four? IT''S WINTER, AND SNOW IS hunched like odd animals on the trees, when I receive the email from ABC World News with Diane Sawyer . One of the producers found my mama turned benzo withdrawal blogs. I''m amazed I''ve been able to write because of the sickness--the shivering of my eyes in their sockets, the muscles flickering like butterfly wings. Reading becomes impossible until I do the needed thing to beat the symptoms back.

But still I write. I must. I don''t need eyes to tap , tap , tap the black squares on the computer keyboard. Sometimes I think if I can tell the story, I''ll survive. Also, I''m pissed. For me--for others like me slipping into the dark. I try to write with technical and scientific accuracy to modulate my fury. I want people to understand this isn''t anomalous.

I cite the medical literature. It''s all there, I say. Just look. There''s a mountain of us who have been buried with this sickness; a continent. I don''t know if this works. All I know is I''ve been writing about this thing that''s happened and now ABC wants to talk to me. The producer is from New York. Her name is Naria or Narnia and I imagine her with red hair, fiery and ready to dig in.

"I found your blogs," she says. "We want to come to Salt Lake City to interview you." She asks if I''m willing to tell my story on national television. I pause. Jesus. Diane Sawyer. She''s a legend, a high-ranking news journalist once suspected of being Deep Throat, the informant who leaked information to Bob Woodward in the Watergate scandal. When Diane became the first female correspondent on 60 Minutes , I was in high school.

I watched the show every Sunday on the floor of my mother''s bedroom. The TV was stuffed at the end of my mom''s bed and my brother and I had a six-foot swath of carpet on which to deposit ourselves for what we called "tube time." Watching Diane, I felt a doe-eyed feminist ardor I feel to this day. My children are asleep downstairs. My girl is three and my boy is four and I''ve had the sickness since before my girl was born. I don''t know where my husband is, but I know he won''t like it when I tell him they want me to be on national television. My sickness has taken him to the brink. I have no tumor to point to, no lab results over which we can cry together and show friends and family, no known story of what is happening to me.

There is only the fire I tell him is in my head. There is the pain and my ribs poking out like railroad ties. He''s tired and the fear has eclipsed him, turning everything between us to shadows. I don''t blame him for this, but the wall between us aches. And now ABC. Now Diane Sawyer. How can I say no? When I was young, Diane interviewed Saddam Hussein and the Clintons. She got into North Korea when no one was allowed into North Korea.

This woman has heft. She has moxie. Yes, yes, Diane. My God! How can I even hold the fact they want to talk to me without melting into a wild but teary euphoria? This story''s tricky, and so much news has become a social narcotic. News as candy; news as sensational distraction. And it''s this machine of sensationalism that has me nervous and uncertain in the face of Diane and her producers. I want to tell this Naria or Narnia that I''ll consider being interviewed, but I won''t prostitute my sickness to the media''s love of McNugget news bites. I''m cynical right now.

It''s part of the sickness. Forgive me. My son makes his "hoo hoo" sound from his crib downstairs. His Down syndrome has made us all more tender than we could imagine. How will being on national television affect my family? How can I protect them? I must ask Narnia why they want to interview me. I will not agree to an interview if I''m to be their prime-time pity sandwich. Because this is so much more than my story. This is the story of millions of people just like me.

I just happen to have survived. I just happen to be upright. I write the producer, terrified. Yes, I say. I''ll do what I can.