Hi Hamster Girl -- I so love Gloria's words about you -- the transparency of your heart and the way you express yourself.

As I look over the look of negative statements that your mind -- and many of them speak to the minds of all of we depressed -- two stand out.

The first is that you've brought this all on yourself. Hooey. Not your physical illness. Not the depression.

As for the negative response we get from society, yes, we are stigmatized and misunderstood.

The other thing is about telling yourself that only a pervert would want to have sex with you.

I've mentioned my friend Alan before, an MD patient from brith, who could barely hold a glass to his lips with 2 hands, confined to a wheelchair, couldn't do anything without help. But he was such a flirt and "people person." His room was always filled with a person or two come to see him. I would find absurdly handsome men there, asking Uncle Al for relationship advice -- not the other way around.

I also recently finished reading some information about how quadripelgics can learn to have orgasms by discovering very sensitive erogenous places on other parts of their bodies -- the inside of a elbow, etc. And surely no one thinks that Christopher Reeve's wife is a "sick pervert," do they?

Thank you so much for sharing your brave story and loving heart with us.