BY MEG LAUGHLIN

 The Marisleysis Gonzalez mystery deepens. She again is hospitalized for an illness only vaguely described as ''emotional anxiety,'' and the Gonzalez family again is drawing a protective curtain of silence around her.

 This latest hospitalization of the 21-year-old woman, called the surrogate mother of Elian, brings the known number of hospital stays to 11.

 On Monday, her father, Lazaro, went to see her at Mercy Hospital. He was joined there by two INS-appointed psychiatrists and a psychologist who came to discuss the transfer of Elian to his father.

 Marisleysis Gonzalez has been hospitalized eight times since Elian's rescue at sea in late November, and three times prior to that -- always for stress-related problems.

 Since December, she has been admitted once to Pan American Hospital, South Miami Hospital and Hialeah Hospital, twice to Coral Gables Hospital and three times to Mercy Hospital.

 Family spokesman Armando Gutierrez attributes Gonzalez's frequent panic attacks and stomach problems to worry that the Immigration and Naturalization Service will send her 6-year-old cousin back to Cuba, as well as the unrelenting media attention.

 But hospital records show that her emergency-room trips for stress-related problems began years ago.

 In June 1996, when she was 17, she sought treatment at the Kendall Medical Center emergency room. She also was treated at emergency rooms at Baptist Hospital in May 1998 and Palmetto General Hospital in June 1999.

 When Elian moved in with Lazaro and Marisleysis Gonzalez, the hospitalizations became more frequent: eight since December, including three hospitalizations since April 1.

 Saturday, the grandmother of Gonzalez's good friend Georgina Cid, whose home Gonzalez often visits, described the young woman as ''vomiting constantly with stomach cramps.''

 ''Her state is precarious,'' the grandmother, who asked not to be named, said in Spanish. ''She is in need of a long rest, away from everyone.''

 Outside of her immediate circle of family and friends little is known about Gonzalez's history of emotional anxiety. She graduated from Miami High School in June 1997, where teachers describe her as ''a decent student'' who was ''quiet, well-behaved and pleasant.''

 ''No one remembers that she was troubled,'' says a teacher who asked not to be named.

 After high school, Gonzalez went to Miami-Dade Community College for three semesters, dropping out before the end of the semester each time. She then became an assistant loan processor at Ocean Bank, where she is on unpaid leave.