Hi Wandering Soul: I guess I would have to admit that I'm never truly alone in the sense some people are because I am married (although I do often feel very alone. There is never any discussion of my mental health struggles. I bear them silently... alone.) Still... I'm not physically alone the way some people are. My kind of aloneness carries its own burdens. But when it comes right down to it, I don't have to worry that if I had a heart attack or a stroke, no one would find me for a week. It must make a difference. Yet I have done many things certainly out of desperation. To what extent my own personal kind of loneliness played a part I don't know. But it is true that in all my life, I never found anyone else sufficiently like myself that I could call them a friend. And now I simply keep entirely to myself. Thanks for your post. It made me think...