Hello mermaid: Well... the Skeezyks doesn't know the answer to any of this. Many years ago, in a psychology class I took, the professor said that mental illness symptoms are simply more extreme examples of behaviors we all exhibit. So, for example, we all wash our hands when they're dirty. Some of us may be more concerned about this than others. But if we start washing our hands to the point where the skin is peeling, then it becomes a symptom of a mental illness. He went on to say that he could go around the room & pull pathology out of each-&-every one of us, even though we were all presumably successfully functioning college students. So maybe mental illness, like beauty, is sometimes in the eye of the beholder. Or maybe, as the saying goes, it's just mind over matter... if you don't mind... it doesn't matter.

Personally, I have a very long & twisted history, although I managed to keep the cork in the bottle, so to speak, for half a lifetime before it all came crashing down. Sometimes I imagine that if I could just sort it all out, that somehow it would all begin to make sense & I'd at least feel a bit better about the life I've led. But the reality is that it's all just a ball of twisted wire that will never be unwound. And imagining that it could be otherwise is delusion. It all just is what it is. Consequently, I simply try my best to let it all go & live out what's left of my life one day at a time.