I was a teen in the 60's and enjoyed Woodstock, drugs, and free love. I started doing portraits, professionally, when I was 15 during summers in Atlantic City. I knew I wanted to be an artist, and thought college wasn't necessary, and I didn't want it to interfere with my creativity. I did portraits to earn a living and my own art at night until 1981. There was a recession and I had a toothache and no insurance. I got a temp job working in a bank, filing papers in numerical order. I did it so well that 11 years later I was an assistant vice president at the second largest bank in the country, traveling across the country, representing the bank as a computer analyst, making decisions that affected hundreds of people and earning good money. I worked 80-hour weeks: no social life, no art. My boss and mentor was the only person who mattered to me. He determined my worth. I wasn't doing a job. I was the job. The last thing that he would say to me would determine how I felt about myself until he spoke again. One day, he decided not to speak to me anymore. He wouldn't tell me why. I thought that I had disappeared. After six months of this torture, I bought a gun. I was going to kill myself because I couldn't go to work anymore and I couldn't not go. I saw a psychologist during this time, and after 4 years on medication and therapy and 4 stays in psych wards, and several suicide attempts (one where I took 120 xanax at my desk at work and left on a stretcher), I, now, am starting to believe that there are things in life that I enjoy. I have a fiancee. Last year, he said that he loved me. It was the first time I had ever heard 'I love you' from a man that I wasn't having sex with at the time. We rented a house (another first) and I finally have a dog that I love more than I ever expected. I attribute this success to my doctor. I was very lucky. I also paint ceramics and do gardening. Thank you for letting me vent. You look like a professor that I knew 20 years ago and some of the things that you quoted or said on your web page made me want to tell you all of this. Finally, my wishes. I wish for continuous peace of mind. I wish for peace of mind for my fiancee. I wish that I could create everything in my mind."