I honestly don't know if I can hang on much longer. I'm not doing well, but have no way to get any help for it. Xander is doing everything he can to help me, and I'm scared to think how this is affecting him. He's the one doing the necessary chores here, not me. I barely have the energy to get out of bed. I have the lithium shakes, and I'm trembling so bad that I drop things now. I'm not sleeping, either. I fall asleep around five, and have to be up with Xander at 7:30. I nap during the day to make up for it, but it's not restful sleep. I'm afraid to try sleeping pills because I'm afraid I'd OD on them. I can't do that to Xander.

I have a documentary on my harddrive called 'Death of a School Friend', in which the former British politician Michael Portillo talks with the family and friends of a school friend of his, who commited suicide just before his sixteenth birthday. Hearing the boy's 80-something parents talk about how the pain is just as bad now as it was fifty years ago is heartbreaking, and I watch it to remind myself the the pain I'd leave behind might be greater than the pain I escape. It doesn't feel like it, though. It's as if the depression puts blinkers on you, so that all you can see is how much you are hurting, and how much better everyone would be without you.

I'm fighting so hard just to get through the day. I don't know how much longer I can fight. It's too much. I'm tired. I just want to give up and let it win.