Crashing of text editor?

[J]

What on earth would make an app as benign a BBEdit Lite crash just 
while I am typing?
This is unheard of in any other Mac OS I've ever used...
How does one fix BBEdit when it won't open?
All my coding is done in it and I'll be verily toasted if I can't get 
it to work.
I don't like the built-in editor because it does funny things with the 
text,  while BBEdit is text only and stays that way.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.