Thanks, bizi.

I believe the Depakote has helped me avoid the "all-nighters" that have been characteristic of the manicky phases of my existence--periods when I'd stay up all night writing (which is sort of my job) or for no good reason at all. I haven't found it sedating in the classical sense, but it's made me more prone to seek out sleep rather than dodge it in a stobborn effort to use the evenings to make up for all of the time I wasted on drinking and non-productivity over the years. But as recent history shows it's no panacea, and I hadn't been taking it for a couple of weeks before re-starting over the weekend (at inadvisable doses).

conigogo, I hear you. All it takes is a few short moments of ruminating over my past and its frivolity, and in a flash I'm holding myself in utter contempt. I waver between rage and apathy at such times, with the overriding theme being "I'd kill myself but I'm too damn gutless and bored. Maybe I'll get cancer instead." I'm shame-driven and just don't have the natural self-preservation or resilience that "normal" people do. They yammer about putting the past behind you and you have to keep trying and I either want to punch them or remind them we're all going to be dead, so why not sooner rather than later for those of us whose lives objectively lack value?

Yet I can go from that kind of attitude to generating a note like the following, which I spat out today in a matter of minutes and sent to my would-be girlfriend:

I do, in no uncertain terms, love you like I've never loved anything. There's no desperation or self-delusion in that; you are not a vision I have latched onto in order to escape the difficulties I have faced ever since we "met," and I am 100 percent confident that if I had my act together, I'd be standing at your side in complete adoration and devotion for as many hours out of the day as I could.

You're the most beautiful woman I have ever known. Mere JPEGs send me into swoon-spirals. I can see not only the physical component of that beauty but the brilliance within--it's in the eyes, the smile, and the awesome messages and words of wisdom you've dispatched my way.

Save for the fact that I'm mentally crippled and thoroughly jaded and nonfunctional as a result, I will never stop believing that we are as made for each other to the greatest extent any two people can be. I have wondered so often what your hair smells like, what your touch would feel like, what your legs would feel like wrapped around mine. I'd love to watch you cook and tend to your cats and plants. I'd get a kick out of watching you open your forChrist'ssake mail.

I've come pretty close during my comparatively collected periods to renting a car and simply showing up there.

You've made me feel very loved, and not just in your unwavering devotion to helping me keep my life in some semblance of forward motion when I've flailed and flailed some more. It's a terrible thing that I've taken that generosity and pissed all over it, but you have not once either nailed me to the wall or run for cover. You've put up with a colossal amount of ****. I hate myself for a lot of reasons, but as for my not being a better friend, there's no self-hatred, because I can't think of You and Hate at the same time. I simply consider it a human tragedy because I don't know what we could have done for one another.

I would have loved to have had the chance to keep you happy. In a universe very much like this one, I'd be doing that right now.

Between rants, I hope I have taken the time to remind you of how I feel about you and how you touch every part of my mind and spirit. I mean that and I don't even know what a "spirit" is. Offering sweet somethings is obviously unworkable when I am bottoming out, and right now I'm as low as I've ever gotten because I believe I have honestly given up for good, and that this is just.

So I don't know how much good it does to say all of this given the reality, but if I'm going to spout off with every other thought, feeling, and opinion, I'm not going to omit the magic that is You.

So. Damn. Special. I was in tears this morning over it.

I love you, P--------. I love you.

Except for the fact that you keep forcing me to reconsider my moves.

So obviously, with the capacity to feel and express such warm feelings, I'm pretty clueless about even the most basic of questions: Do I want to live, and if so (or not), why (or why not)?