The advocate was a friend of the neighbours. I didn't know him, but they say that he's helped them when they're in the hospital.

Doug is hundreds of miles away...too far away to be of immediate assistance, but I see him as a father figure, if I'm in trouble, I e-mail him first and then he notifies Lindsay if need be. And he's been giving me exercises to do to work on my anger and despair. Faith-based a lot of it, but that's very important to me, and he's encouraging me to keep the lines of communication open. He's encouraging me to let my emotions flow, where I would hide from them before. He's encouraging me to ask questions of God and to write things out...even if these questions express the desire for suicide...suicide which is forbidden by the church.

For example, he wanted me to thank God for everything that's happened so far; everything;my abusive parents, my confinement in the mental hospitals, all that horrible surgery and the chronic pain.

The first day I was able to do it, but the second day it became impossible. I started to ask questions of God and why he didn't let me die. I just set up a website with a poem I've written expressing my hopelessness and despair; I brought that poem/prayer to church and read it. I was basically asking to die...in a church.

It's really weird, but after that happened, people started rallying around me. Father Lindsay walked me partway home. Doug phoned me long distance to give me a psychological hug. (Just hearing his voice is like being tenderly rocked in someone's arms, like a small, wounded, scared animal;He just talked to me gently and "rocked me", back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. It nearly brought tears to my eyes, my heart is becoming softer and softer. I am slowly waking up to my emotions, even as I struggle in vain to push people away, I am drawn close, by six people in real life today.) Try to close your prison door when your being overpowered by six people, four of them giants in your life. I was curled up in my prison cell, shivering. And they just came in and performed an extraction. If you're weak and helpless in prison and six people come in and slap the cuffs on you, you're pretty much going where they're taking you.

And they were taking me into the sunlight, into the prison yard. Kicking and screaming at first, but then the giants came in, after I read that poem in church and I happily and peacefully went into the sunlight. Nobody knew I had the poem and was asking the questions but my Maker and then the giants came to lovingly wrestle me to the ground. Father Lindsay, Doug, another woman who embraced me, Rick...

Rick was the one who first told me that something might be wrong with the way my parents were treating me. I grew up in a household with a lot of yelling. People with borderline personality disorder fear rejection. As a disabled person,you deal with it all the time. I first learned rejection from my parents...and they said everyone else would reject me too.

When your own family rejects you, who does that leave?

Rick and I met at university. It was he who largely convinced me that something was wrong and I had to move out.

I was 22. My father's psychological grip on me was so powerful, I needed Rick in the room to make the break. I would have gone running home otherwise...to my father.

The break took place in a public restaurant, the day after I turned 22. I remember little of the day except snippets and what Rick's told me.

I was scared that day. My parents wanted me to make Rick go away, so I would become putty in their hands. When that didn't work, they tried to turn Rick into my caregiver. When that failed, along with humiliation, they used scare tactics...on me. (Your back's going to collapse by the time you're 30)

To Rick, my father saw himself as a perfect man in denial of his problems, choosing to blame his daughter, who Rick saw as having a wonderful head and heart and would give of herself in a minute. And she had a wonderful imagination. But she didn't see these gifts within herself and her father didn't either.

Rick was unimpressed by my father and found the whole incident of my father defending the family honor quite amusing, especially when my father threatened to take him on physically. They stood nose to nose and Rick decided to spare me the sight of my father rolling around on the floor with a bloody nose.

When it became clear I wouldn't come home,my parents stormed out, leaving Rick to nurse a shocked, sobbing woman.

Rick found my first suicide note and stayed to ensure I got help. I Withdrew from him later,not wanting to scare him with my problems, but he understood, having gone thru h%Ll himself.

He paged me via MSN Messenger today and we talked for three hours on the phone. He jokingly threatened to be waiting for me to talk to me if I committed suicide. That Almost made me sob. He said I sounded lost. (A telling moment for someone who fights to maintain control at all times) He's coming to visit tomorrow.

Doug is glad I'm finding it hard to do some of the things he's asked me to do. He says it means he's struck a chord and he's on the right track and that we should keep going.

I prayed to die in the church openly and everyone I love rallies round me. See my PROFILE website to understand the significance of today's events.

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There is a thing more crippling than cerebral palsy: the prison of your own mind.