Thank you both so much! I have been almost totally incapacitated from the first week of the new semester. I have slept the past two days. But I did read your responses at some point this past week and I needed to think and research the advice I was given. athena2011 and Towanda, I am so grateful to you for responding. I felt so relieved to hear all you had to say; I was in tears. The symptoms and disorders I described were just a drop in the bucket because I didn't want to overwhelm everyone with all the problems I have. I will address the advice about exercise: I have maintained an exercise (gym) program successfully for the past year--the first time I maintained fitness for that long. And then in the fall of 2011 it all fell apart despite my efforts. The first 2/3 of 2011 was the healthiest I have been in a long time. My T and I were beginning to wean down my sessions and I had good control of my diabetes when suddenly I began having trouble seeing. In October I was diagnosed with diabetic retinopathy, for which there is no cure and only partial management, so I am facing blindness in my future. I kept on managing my health and had a positive attitude; I thought I was handling it well. Everyone thought so. Then my pain from degenerative disc disease flared up and I could barely walk so I quit going to the gym but continued my job and eating well. I couldn't see very well, but my students were patient and I got through the semester until finals week when I developed sudden and severe dry eye and a visible eye hemorrhage. I got a colleague to cover my finals and I somehow got through grading them all. But the visual problems (we think) led me to develop a very pronounced tic. So I got new glasses that cost 1000 dollars and are not covered by insurance. The vision correction helped the tic somewhat, but was not the miracle cure we were all hoping for. Then I developed problems with my balance. During all of this, my T became frustrated with me and even told me that she wasn't making eye contact because my tic was too distracting. I was mortified and felt so rejected, and you know as someone with bpd it does not take much for me to feel rejected so this was awful. I have not seen her since that session because she has been out of town. I am not sure what is in store for my relationship with her. I am afraid about that, and I had to start the new semester with a lurching walk and a tic! New students who don't know me and I must appear so bizarre, and I can't be engaging or enthusiastic when I lecture because it takes all my facial energy to hold back the tic. I am waiting to see a neurologist, of course, but can't get in until February. Meanwhile I am in terrible pain from my neuropathy and RA, and my T hates me and she is the person who led me to have this super year last year and I was almost in remission from my bpd for the first time in my life. Now she is letting me down when I need her most, so I turned to the internet and found psychcentral. It has helped me so much to read posts from people and to be able to recognize the exact feelings they express as things I have felt or am feeling. Somehow it makes me feel less insane. I have just today discovered that if I wear sunglasses in my house I can actually see better and it helps my balance and my tic to calm down. This is a wonderful discovery! I will be sure to make a list of all these things to tell the neurologist when I see him next month. I am really afraid of not being able to do my job because I love it, I know I am great at it and my students all give me so much love in the class room that I get endorphins that help with the pain--at least, last semester. This new semester with new students and I look so monstrous; I don't know what they think. But I love this site and I am so grateful to you all for telling your stories, and to Towanda and athena2011 for writing back to my post. One of you mentioned that I am strong and have survived a lot. This is very true. I earned a Ph.D. while raising my son by myself and suffering from diabetes and bpd and extreme anxiety and I was turned in to child welfare by someone who said I was too depressed to take care of my child and he was being neglected. I fought through all of that and kept on going somehow. I don't know how, except that my son and my students are all very tender toward me and patient with me. I don't know why I deserve that, but it has been there in the past and sometimes it is the only thing that keeps me going. Thank you all for being here and for reading this, and for your encouraging remarks and stories. I will try to be on for the bpd chat on Monday.