You are a great writer, I hope you know that. I could relate to just about everything you said. I am 34 and was just diagnosed last October. On Christmas Eve as I was returning from the hospital my boyfriend of 12 years told me he couldn't take it anymore and to find another place to live. I went right back into the hospital and I have very little memory of what happened over the next 4 weeks. I'm too ashamed to give any details about what I do remember and what I have been told I did.

Since then the overwhelming depression has been punctuated by hours or days of hypomania and mania. I feel unworthy of love because I failed with the one person I wanted to be with forever. If something so precious could shatter in an instant, how could I have faith in my ability to build something with a near-stranger?

Yes, it is only fair that we become stable so that we don't subject another human being to this hellish roller coaster that we are on. But here is the truth. There ARE people out there who love unconditionally, in sickness and in health, and we deserve to find that. We deserve partners who won't seek solace in the opposite sex outside of our relationships. We deserve partners who will notice our lethargy and despondency and will offer us comfort instead of drawing away. We deserve to know, even at our lowest or highest moments, that there is someone at home who may be hurting, but they hurt out of their love for us, not themselves, and they will wait through thick and thin until that day the sun is shining again.

If we keep chanting this to ourselves, maybe someday we will come to believe it.