You raise many good points, Carmina. It isn't a perfect analogy but I tend to think of modern diagnostics as colours of paint on a canvass, but a complete description of all the colors doesn't tell you what the painting is about.


Also, in terms of what qualifies as illness, mental illnesses are supposed to be in some sense disabling versions of what other people might experience on a mild or occasional basis.

But what has done the most damage to my life has been the difficulties I have with relationships and personal boundaries, not the psychosis, mania or main symptoms of bipolar. Maybe that's how I picked up the 'traits of a personality disorder' in a diagnosis by my psychiatrist. I think it has something to do with all the legal problems i had last year that ended me in forensic detention for a month last year. It is hard not to look at that and see some kind of failure. It is also a failure of a community that chose to treat me like a criminal.

That is also where I would expect to see healing if healing were to occur. I have a better relationship with my son now than before, but this is the only close relationship that has survived. I simply don't trust anyone else to have my best interests at heart.