Great response, athena, I totally agree with you. My difficulty is that I now understand that I am NOT the diagnosis of BPD, in other words, it isn't the defining description of who I am. I am so many other things, some great, some not so great. I am human. What bothers me about the diagnosis is perhaps influenced by my own professional involvement in the field of human services. I see how the diagnosis is used to put clients in a corner, to "identify" them as having a pervasive disorder that can never really change. It's wrong. . . but then, the DSM was originally created for insurance purposes . . . too bad it's become something that is used as a club rather than something to lift clients up. Guess I'm just being sad tonight. Thanks for the response.