Hi Emoxxkid,

first time I tried to post my response it didn't work. Here is attempt # 2

First, I am glad you wrote how you are feeling. Keep on talking about it.

Next, I will offer some of my own experience and opinions. The most important of which is: it is very important not to automatically swallow what anyone, especially doctors may say about who we are, or what is or is not wrong with us.

About a year ago, I got myself referred to the local expert on dissociative disorders, a psychiatrist many here hold in near god-like esteem. I went to him to gain a better understanding of my own dissociative experiences (one of which can be a sense of 'unreality', which need not have anything to do with psychosis).

This man spent an hour grilling me, at times literally referring to lists of criteria in the DSM IV he had on the table in front of him. He wanted to know next to nothing about my experiences of dissociation, and never asked to see the drawings I had brought to illustrate my internal world.

At the end of the hour he announced that I had Borderline Personality Disorder and sent me on my way. He only treats people with dissociative disorders. I was crushed and enraged. To this day I have only one word for the guy: pinhead!!

I have been mis-diagnosed with personality disorders three times now, by people unable to see past the covers of their DSM to the person sitting in great pain in front of them. The problem is really PTSD stemming from childhood abuse, of which in my case, dissociation and depression are two of the major features.

More recently I had a woman psychiatrist who engaged me as a person, express astonishment at his diagnosis and reassure me in no uncertain terms that I do not have BPD.

And no, this is not about hopping from DR to DR until I hear what I want to. I know when I am being treated like a human being and when I am being examined like a bug.

Also, it is very important when talking about things like 'a sense of unreality' to be sure that your experience of that is what is being understood, not the Doctor's book-based understanding of what that is supposed to mean.

Anyhow, I hope you feel better as time passes. You are not your mother! Try not to terrorize yourself with scenarios of disastrous futures which may never come to pass. (And probably won't).

hang in there!

DLRoss