Borderline Personality Disorder by Susan L.

  That has to be one of the cruelest diagnosis. So much so that even the newest version of the DSMV (the psychiatrist's diagnostic tome) no longer calls it that. It is now classified as a socialization disorder. The previous label is one that creates the ideology that it is all our fault we're sick, that there's something wrong with us.
  It's one that was slapped on me in my first hospitalization prior to its name change. It literally felt like I had been slapped. It left me awash in guilt and shame that I was less than...It took a while to get out from under that diagnosis which in itself is also traumatizing but God proved faithful and helped me do that.
  Here's what I've learned about it since then:
  First of all, recovery is possible.
  Secondly, it is rooted in trauma. One of the coping skills in dealing with trauma is to slap it into a box and bury it deep within ourselves. Sometimes it's so deep we have no memory of those events. Along with the trauma, pieces of us get frozen and shut down. It's the mind's way of protecting itself. The more traumatic events in our life, the more fractured our personhood becomes.
  Thirdly, there is some discussion about a new diagnosis called complex Post Traumatic Stress which basically says the same thing: our personhood, our identity, is fractured and non-cohesive because of events beyond our control. It has nothing to do with our personality!! It`s about doing what is necessary to survive.
  I have often thought of a kaleidoscope during my walk of self-discovery. All the tiny pieces of coloured glass represent events in my life that contain pieces of my whole identity in Christ. Together, and by holding them up to the Light, they have the ability to create a beautiful and complete image.
  "Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, though the veil, that is, His flesh." Heb 10:19-20