I remember a crisp fall day not long ago, Rose and I had taken the sheep up the steep hill behind the first Bedlam Farm, when Rose, who missed nothing and watched everything, turned towards the farmhouse and started barking furiously. I won’t forget it.

I knew better than to ignore Rose’s warnings, and I was surprised to see a woman running out of the farmhouse pulling one of my dogs on a leash and holding a camera.

I started to run down he hill but Rose was far ahead of me, she tore down the hill ahead of me  barking furiously and moving quickly. The woman, startled by the ferocity of Rose’s barking, dropped the leash and ran across the road, jumped into her car and sped off.

I called the police and later, they intercepted the woman about 20 miles away and arrested her. Inside the car, they found  a score of notebooks with photographs of me, my dogs, my bedroom, the inside of my homes in New Jersey and also on the farm.

She had been following me for more than  year, taking photos of me and of the interior of the places that I lived. And also of the dogs. She had hundreds of photos of me. She was a school teacher from New Jersey, I was startled to learn.

She was being sought for charges the that  had nothing to do with me, and took precedence over the infusions into my life and home.

She went to jail, and called me periodically from there to see how I was doing. She knew, she said, she shouldn’t be calling me, but she missed me.

She died several years ago.

This encounter was to change my life in unexpected ways. My publisher insisted I take a course offered to “celebrities” by the FBI in how to deal with stalking and obsession. I had to look at friendship in a completely different way, and it took a long time to do that.

I was surprised. I ought to say that I have never once, then or now, ever seen myself either as a celebrity or as someone worthy of stalking or obsession. I am bound to be a disappointment.

The agent in charge of the workshop laughed, and assured me over my protests. He said  “you don’t have to be Brad Pitt to be the object of someone’s obsession.” Writing a book, publishing a blog, writing a column in a newspaper could do it quite easily.

People think they know you, they think you are their friend.

This includes having a movie made about you, he said pointedly.

I have had a movie made more or less about me, it was called “A Dog Year,” and it starred Jeff Bridges.

By my lights, it had very little to do with me or my story, but I can testify that having a movie made out of my book of the same title did bring out a number of people who were obsessive and worse towards me, and who changed the way I view openness.

They drove by my farm, stopped me on the street, sent me threatening e-mails, and letters and unwanted gifts, many quite personal. They often got angry with me when I ignored them or asked them to leave me alone. Several websites popped up devoting to trashing me.

I have had trouble with friendships in recent years (and before)  and I have always blamed myself for that, I think there must be something wrong with me because I have so much recurring trouble with some people I think are my friends, who I trust.

But who turn out not to be my friends, and cannot be trusted.

I have realized over time, that while I sometimes contribute unconsciously to this – sometimes I give too much, people sometimes take too much –  I am not really a bad friend.

I have learned that I can be quite a good friend to people who are healthy and who do not know me only through my dogs, or as a book writer, or the author of a blog, or the subject of a movie starring Jeff Bridges. I am learning to be honest and bounded and to listen.

Unfortunately, I have had a difficult time distinguishing one kind of friend from the other, and I have learned a great deal the hard way about obsession and how it works. Some people have gotten very close to me, and I  allowed it.

The FBI warned me to avoid personal discussions – however well-meaning – with strangers.

If you are too nice, the agent said, people will presume a real friendship, and then when you back away, as you inevitably will, they will be angry with you, confused and convinced you have betrayed them.

If you are public, he said, you are a canvas and there are people who will paint what they need to paint on it.

Do not ever engage in personal discussions with strangers he said, do not empathize out of politeness, do not answer long and personal messages, or personal questions about you and your life or anybody else’s problems, especially if they are strangers.

Do not try to save people or give them things, or enable their obsessions.

One of these people told me “you have no idea how powerful an impact you have on people.” It’s true. I don’t.

When I met Jeff Bridges, I was startled to learn he had a paid “Best Friend,” and that almost all movie stars have someone on the payroll who is paid to be their closest friend, to travel with them, eat with them, protect them, keep them company. Someone they can trust.

Bridges told  me he simply couldn’t trust strangers, too many of them  had agendas that had nothing to do with him, and who could not see past the Big Lebowski.

I had read about this phenomena but never once associated it with me, I am no Brad Pitt or Jeff Bridges. I am a frumpy balding late middle-aged man people often mistake for an aging professor.

The way it kept popping up in my life was that I met people, liked them, became friends, but over time, became increasingly uncomfortable with the realization that they didn’t know me at all, they only knew the book writer, or blogger or movie subject. They didn’t care to know the real person.

They believed they knew me well, they were sure of my feelings, they knew about my life from the books I wrote or the Farm Journal, they never needed to ask me a thing about myself because they knew it all.

I had no news to bring them because they knew it all before I could tell it. They knew the man in the blog. They didn’t know me.

I try to be honest on my blog, and share my life, but I am not the same thing as the subject of those blogs, neither is Maria. We are real people, leading real lives. People think they are getting one thing, are often surprised to get another.

I have learned so much about this sad situation. First, a number of people do get obsessed with me, I have learned to admit. They do enter my life in one way or another (I let them in), and when they see the actual person, or I get uneasy,  they are bewildered and uncomfortable.

Somehow, I let them down, I sometimes make them angry by withdrawing, just like the FBI said – I know the signs too well – but I often see them too late.

Saving people, doing too much for them is not friendship. It is poison.

It has taken me a long time to stop blaming myself for problem friendships and learn how to choose friends wisely and well. Maria has gone through the same process.

I want to say I have good friends now.

You cannot have a healthy relationship with an unhealthy person. The friends I have may or may not read my books or blog, I don’t really know. They never relate to me in that way. They usually have full and busy lives, a balance against obsession. I am  not the most interesting thing in their lives.

Obsessions are fixations on an object of person or activity. They are unhealthy, the impede love and work and a balanced life. I know the signs by now.  I can sense them, I can feel them. When you get that uncomfortable feeling, a therapist told me, just run, and get as far away as you can.

Most obsessives are benign, some can be quite troubled and angry.

I decided some time ago to not let these episodes keep me away from people.

I won’t  hide.

I have honed my radar on obsession, there are clear and tell-tale symptoms and signs, I am sorry to say I recognize them all too easily. Mostly, I have learned to avoid this situation, but sometimes I miss. It is a very painful thing for me, and I am sure, for others.

Obsessions are a part of human nature, they occur in all kinds of people all over the world. Humans are often cruel and uncaring to one another.

Many people suffer much more than I do, the lives of the truly famous are almost unliveable. To be a major celebrity or politician is to involuntary imprison oneself behind guards, walls, security systems.

I am not in that league, fortunately, I am  grateful that TV crews don’t ask to come and interview me any more, I stick to my town, my farm, my wife and animals, my blog and my photos. There is definitely something to be said for a quiet and introspective life.

Dealing with obsession can also be lonely. My stalker did make me wary.  I do not want to mistrust people or be wary of them.

People rarely stop by uninvited now, (although some people still try), they don’t send me giant paintings and carvings that are not wanted, or insist on taking their vacations up here so that they can see me or Maria and the animals.

A couple of months ago, a trucker driving cross-country from Seattle to Albany messaged me that she was an hour from the house, and would just love to have lunch with me, she wrote in a chatty message. She wanted to meet Simon the donkey. She was not happy that I said we couldn’t accommodate her, her response was not friendly or chatty.

But, she insisted, I came a long way.

But this is rare.

It may be that I’m fading in importance, or, says a friend, it may be that I have learned something as I get older. I have come to believe in energy. The broken stuff inside me draws other broken stuff, the more I heal, the less I have to learn about obsession or deal with it.

This is work that will never be finished, I know, but as I have said a thousand times, the best thing about mental illness is that you get to recover every day.

I didn’t know that there are many empty and needy people out there, they fill up their own lives with the lives of others. It makes sense. When I make a new friend, they will often say that they are not a stalker, they are not obsessed with me.

How sad that people feel the need to say that. I want to say, I know, I can tell.

And it is almost always true. But not always.

I think often about that FBI agent, he had a blond crew cut and was thin and ramrod straight. It was years before I saw how right he was.

You will always have to be careful about who  your friends really are, he said, and choose them wisely and well.

(The Inn we stayed in in Vermont was quite beautiful, even the toilet seats were beautiful, this one reflect a design in the lace curtain, brought to us by the sun.)