I loved Sleeps original post about "Wanting to be a Buddhist" and am a bit sorry I didn't get to respond in time, because at this time he's retreated from posting, which is a serious concern, and by all means he is most welcome to join into what he has started. But in the mean time, I feel it important to continue in the spirit he started as best I can, which will in no way equal his intensions or intensity, so please accept this weak attempt.

My impressions were not with the content of what he said, but rather the various motivations that brought him here. We've all been at various states of despair. It's never about those points of despair, and this is SO VERY hard to learn. The dharma teaches us that it's always about the emptiness of that despair, but it took me minutes here to even remember to type that answer. It's so obvious, yet not.

My history is well-documented here if you look. By telling my HELLS I am finding my Buddha, present tense! And what I am learning is that the HELLS do not go away; I just learn to live with them better. And as I I hope I've pointed out, it hurts like HELL to reveal yourself, a HELL beyond words, a HELL beyond the original experience of HELL. To live it is one Hell, but to reveal it unearths a deeper HELL... gotta pause here.

Sleep well, Sleeps. Come back and share when you are ready.
We can't fix you; we can just listen.
You, the buddha within you, can fix you, and maybe we can help you find him/you.