I did a very good job of remaining asexual for 13 years. I was/am physically impotent because of diabetes and poor circulation, and my libido dwindled until it ceased to exist. I felt and feel some shame when I dream of being in sexual situations with old lovers because I know that they expect the rollicking good times that I can't deliver.

I had a manic episode that started in maybe October of last year and didn't really come to a complete close until last month. The behavior was textbook mania – a spending spree and, in the midst of that, a hypersexual episode. During the latter, I experienced physical miracles and my libido was out of control. I was fortunate to have two old partners who "comforted" me so that I could find relief without engaging in risky behavior – love those girls. And their understanding husbands.

During the past week I've been having overly vivid recollections of memorable sexual encounters with the four women that I have loved in my life. I can 'feel' the two moles on Chandra's back and I can 'feel' her unique ability to take me down her throat. I can taste them, smell them, recall how Nancy liked to feel her long blonde hair being pulled, the shared curiosity and wonder with my first lover, various unique experiences with those that I didn't love.

All types of sexual experiences, from smooth cool and breezy shorts to ever more titilating marathons to blood rough ruts.

But there are only memories of excitement, no actual libido stimulation, nothing like I felt when manic. I just cry, for hours and hours, thinking how very fine and rare and unique was each experience. It was good. Better with love, certainly, but out of those thousands of experiences, there were only two that were unpleasant.

I seemed to have a type: tall, blonde, slender, long and lithe with sharply defined facial bone structure. Think of a 26 year old Michelle Pfeiffer. I only realized earlier, looking at my shaven face and then photos of Chandra and Pfeiffer that there could have been some narcissism at play. My shaven face reveals the angular defined facial features. My body was tall and long and lithe (but with a fuller fit and muscular torso and legs). I was vain, but I didn't think that back then. I wasn't visual. I was touch and taste. I got a genuine overall body tingling bringing women to orgasm. Because of my early encounters, I didn't believe at first when some women would tell me that they didn't always come – at first I thought that I had failed.

I could write so much more... I feel as if I could write a sexual memoir on each one. But I can't stop crying. Good sex was important but it wasn't the overarching reason that I felt love for each.

I am so confused, sad and guilty. I wish that I'd never released these memories.

Nothing's working for my depression. I wrote earlier of deciding to go back for ECT, something that has helped before, something that I should have done last year.

Do you ever recall sexual experiences and ache? Not because it's something that can never be repeated but because it was so rare, so shared, so beautiful and peaceful to so screaming with intense beautiful pain?

I ache. I grieve.

[Skeezyks]

Hello ciderguy: For a variety of reasons, the Skeezyks left sexuality behind quite a few years ago now... and he is content to have done so. He wishes he could simply forget the whole sorry business. I wish you well with regard to your decision to return for ECT.

Originally Posted by Skeezyks

Hello ciderguy: For a variety of reasons, the Skeezyks left sexuality behind quite a few years ago now... and he is content to have done so. He wishes he could simply forget the whole sorry business. I wish you well with regard to your decision to return for ECT.

I did, too. Gradually and gracefully accepted it. Only a few (sexual) regrets (but so many regrets for hurting people).

That's why the hypersexual manic episode shocked me. It lasted so long, it was so intense, the physically impossible became achingly possible, thinking that I was going to have to go to the hospital if not for the tag-team graces of former lovers. Three in a single bed, one with no legs? Imagine. Grotesque.

Keyser Söze – "Like that –*{poof} – he's gone."

So it goes. I guess it's been in the past week (I HAVE SUCH TROUBLE WITH TIME!) that I've been thinking of them. It started with a word – lissome. An old favorite that I've not used in decades that just popped into my head - just like everything just popping into my head lately. Then I thought of all four. Then 'long.' And I thought of the first three. Then tall, blonde, and the very first.

And now I've a fear that I'm headed for another manic episode. I'm certain of it. I've proof, now. No longer crying, not so overly sentimental but feeling overly sensual with memories.

And I don't know what to do.

I spent $20K during the last episode. I believed that I was in perfect control. I can feeling it draining - the control - just over the past three hours. I'm terrified. I'm uncertain of what I've done for the past week and I don't know how to make it stop. It's what I imagine a drug rush feels like. It feels good and I want it to stop. I don't want to feel these feelings. I wrote my ex-wife, an hour ago, a one page letter that may be the finest prose that I've ever written. She tortures me by refusing to give up the letters that I wrote to her shortly after we met. She fell in love with me through the letters. And I just did as I'm doing now – whirlwind, non-stop typing. I have to stop.

[Pikku Myy]

I am sorry you feel this way sweetie. I too have regrets from past hyper mania. Move on and understand your illness

Originally Posted by Pikku Myy

I am sorry you feel this way sweetie. I too have regrets from past hyper mania. Move on and understand your illness

You've nailed one of my most maddening problems: I don't understand what's happening now. At the moment, I'm sinking from an anger-induced calmness and something else, but I can't name that something. Not clarity, not less confused… maybe a feeling of being grateful for the respite from feeling imminent insanity.

I had visitors today. I felt fear as they came through the door, charming while they were here and anger when they left. Now it's back. The only two things that are predictable are that I'll not sleep and that in trying to understand I'll get so very close to the edge of madness only to continue the cycle of hourly changes, manic hypersexuality to a self-disgust of my body to crying for almost any reason and feeling the evil filth of my soul and on and on and on but always deathly fearing the edge as the bizarre continues to change.

I'm queer about knowing my diagnoses. Depression, anxiety and a plethora of phobias. If a new symptom arises, I can pigeonhole it to a known diagnoses and, in that way, understand my illnesses. This new… thing, this thing with no name, these many things that go through my head as the anonymous thing takes complete control and pushes and pushes and pushes me, using my most painful and shameful and tenderest and rarest feelings to keep pushing. Feelings that I've never discussed, thoughts that I've kept hidden and things that I've done. The oddest part is not all of the feelings, thoughts and actions are bad.

Thinking of happiness and joy always makes me feel worse.

I've never considered hypersexuality to be something that shamed me. But then it did. Mania should last longer than a couple of hours, shouldn't it?

I'm beginning to master the rude exits but I'll thank you for reminding me of what I need.