My sponsor in the Catholic Church has been in town the past couple of days. He's my spiritual advisor and more. He has been my main hold on sanity since chronic pain entered my life four years ago. He often talks with staff at my Church in an attempt to break my isolation, boost my morale and improve my situation.

I would happily do almost anything for this man. He has often told the story of how we met and how I came to be a Catholic. It is a touching and popular story with his listeners.

He now wants me to write my autobiography, as well as my side of the story and how we met. It's about more than telling a story. He wants to help me find some peace in my life before I die--whenever that comes.

My childhood doesn't make for pleasant reading:botched surgeries, physical and emotional abuse as well as betrayal at the hands of my family. I have been so terrified of people's reaction to my past,that of my parent's and friends, that I have quashed any idea of writing for extra money.

I am plagued with regular and graphic flashbacks of what doctors and family have done to me. The combined stresses rob me of any joy and could easily serve to push me over the edge. I want to write my autobiography, but fear losing friends if they knew my story....I can't just write it for me, I know that and my friend and I want to help others with my story.

What my close friend is unaware of is the fact that I was fighting the desire to make suicide gestures with my hand throughout the day today. Making a finger-gun and pointing at my temple. This tortures me and it is a regular part of my life- I fight this temptation because I have no desire to freak anyone out. People are intimidated enough by my wheelchair as it is without adding emotional disturbances to the mix.

The only mental health support I am receiving at this time is 15 minutes every three weeks with my psychiatrist and that includes time spent in the elevator. (When you have chronic pain and cerebral palsy, people tend to think of it as a good reason to commit suicide. I have basically been left to fend for myself where mental health is concerned.

I can't live with the memories of my childhood even the good bits. Would I end my life over people knowing I was in a psych hospital right after kindergarten, for a year and a half? You better believe it. I can't even live with the memories of my childhood in silence, and there are plenty more memories to add to the misery.

18 months in a psych hospital isn't something you feel proud of, nor do you care to share it with friends, especially if your parents made you believe it was because you were bad.

I've even spent years believing I'd go to Hell for whatever caused my parents to carry a chip on their shoulder against me from day one, and this is well before I became a Catholic. Many of my Catholic friends say I am too hard on myself.

I desperately want to be a writer and to write the story of my life, leave a legacy behind me. (Readers here know that my health recently has taken a huge dive--a life-threatening one. The past is a loaded topic, but someone is going to go digging into that topic even if I write fiction. My friend feels that writing can only help me, as the flashbacks have been plaging me in silence for years. He says many of my e-mails to him read like letters from Saints who battle what Catholics call "The Dark night of the Soul." (He long ago asked me to e-mail him regularly. I think of him as the father I wish I had.)