The Object Of Our Anxiety

Lack of mental peace is putting it very lightly. Since you seem to know a little bit about it, I will tell you honestly that I have a mental illness. It is called Borderline Personality Disorder.
A lot of people do not know about it, but it is caused from abuse and neglect in during childhood. Since I wrote this post six months ago, I have learned an awful lot about me. I was abandoned a lot in childhood and abused do to the fact that my mother was in and out of the hospital with cancer.
Now, not everyone who has these kind of experiences will suffer from BPD, but mental illness runs in my family. I stopped seeing that therapist years ago, but I run into her every now and then at church. I realize now that she needed as much help as I do. When she sees me, she will smile and say hi, but then run off like a bat out of hell. But I guess we all have our issues.
This is why I have learned to trust God, he can be there for me when no one else can help, I can always count on him to see me through. I continue to work on my issues on a daily basis and am becoming stronger and stronger every day, one step at a time.

I a glad to hear of your determination to overcome your fears, and I am happy to notice improvement, as there is a visible shift in your focus over the last six months from imaginary fears to something more concrete. I am sorry to hear of the "abuse and neglect" you went through as a child and regret that you suffered because of your mother's illness. Would you like to describe it in more detail in subsequent posts?

I am amazed how you were able to diagnose yourself as suffering from "Borderline Personality Disorder" (BPD).... a diagnosis that has often outsmarted even the most experienced psychiatrists. For your own benefit, I suggest you get a medical evaluation before you make any strong judgments about yourself. I am sure you must be convinced that you know about yourself more than any doctor ever would ... which is true in many respects. Further you must also have done extensive research before you were able to diagnose yourself (considering the wealth of information available in published literature and the internet); I must caution you however that it is considerably easy to be lead astray in a world of information overload.

The medical information available for patient education is by no means a substitute for a qualified doctor. This is because the information is oversimplified for easy comprehension by a layman. In the process it gets severely limited to be of any help to make a diagnosis.

The diagnosis of BPD as mentioned in the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth edition" (DSM-IV-TR) is based upon, among other things, the presence of five or more criteria from a list of nine, for a significant period of time. The nine criteria together form two hundred and fifty six different combinations of symptoms (no kidding). Symptoms taken individually should have a huge prevalence. That would label every one in the world as a psychotic.

BPD can be mimicked by an episode of mood disorder, or even by normal swings in mood. Further more, other personality disorders may be confused with it because of certain common features.

It is therefore in your best interest to get a medical evaluation. Sessions with your therapist or psychiatrist may also be very useful at this stage, as you are trying to discover your hidden self. Online forums may provide additional help in the form of emotional support.

By the way, I am amused by your assumption that my knowledge regarding you condition is some how limited... surely you must be joking!