Dear Friends,
   It is my hope that maybe I can help at least one single person out there with my story and life. 
   I am the youngest of four children, three older sisters.   My father drank a lot and was never eally a part of my childhood.  I never learned sports or how to throw a ball or anything.  I was so scared of the dark I had to have a night light on always.  I wet my bed until I was like 17 years old.  I was in deed a very lost soul.  I took up drinking and drugs when I was quite young and found a way to fit in even if it was killing me.  As I thought all of the drinking and drugs brought me down hard.  I tried for three years to try and get into the Army, five attempts and never got in.  I had a bleeding ulcer when I was nine years old and it was peace time so no luck. 
   It was not long after returning to the party scene that I began having panic attacks.  I went through so many jobs and everybody just thought I was lazy.  I just wanted to die, I was going crazy at least on the inside.  I no longer knew what was real and what was reality.  I grew into a big sad depressed pile of death but still walked the earth.  This was not by choice but because of what I believed to be true about taking ones life.  I tried and tried the whole christian thing and always returned back to ask god for help.   
   I then decided to walk or hike every day and clean my act up.  I lost fifty or so pounds and felt a lot better.  I than meant my wife and she liked doing drugs so it was not long before I also started.  We did stop after our daughter was born and went to church often.  But I had went back to eating bad and over time my depression grew.  I was just sad all of the time having no hope so ever in any kind of a future.
   After ten years I got help and checked my self into a christian hospital for a few weeks.  I felt whole again and was looking forward to coming home.  When I arrived home my wife and child were gone.  They had fled California and went to Washington.  My wife filed for a divorce up there and said she was being abused in order to have the court deal up there.  I won out on that because there was no files here that ever said she was abused.  After a lengthy battle she dicided to go back to her unknown by me boyfrind in Washington and allow me to have custody of our then seven year old daughter.
   Life was a total bitch and I did as good as I could.  Leaving the crying for the night time when she was slepping.  My daughter is now 23 years old and a very pretty and stable girl.  She lives in Washington and is a manager of a Starbucks.  I struggled the whole time I raised her and never felt love again.  Not that I do not want this but never felt I had anything to offer.
   I did find some peace when after just losing it I quit my job and got on gov assistance or medi-cal.
I found out that I was diabetic, hi blood preasure and colesteral.  I started taking medication and again with the hiking.  I went to yet another shrink and this time took Effexor and it has been almost ten years now.  I can not believe how much this has helped me.  For the first time I thought that this is not all in my head and there was something wrong.  
I now go anywhere and talk to anybody and everybody.  I never felt that it was up to anybody but my self to seek out help.  It took me until age forty before I got real help.  I will take it because I now know what it is to be so called normal.  
   I am now on disabilty, lost my car when my mom died because it was in her name.  I live with my sister right now and am still ghaving troubles getting involved with a lady.  Because I have diabetes I also have troubles getting an erection and that stops me from even asking any lady out.  But I will still take the sanity I now have.  I now go do yard work for free just to do it.  I find ways to help others like I always intended on doing if ever sane.  I just feel alive now and must tell everyuone not to give up on life and or God.  Forty years and you would not know the times I just wanted to die.  I had no hope, no faith, no dreams and no reason to think anything would ever get better.  I am lonely but am coping and who knows, some day maybe.  Please try try and try and never give up hope.  Take the step and really try, just maybe you are not crazy.  God bless you, Bill bill2u58@yahoo.com