PSYCHIATRIC DIAGNOSIS, INPUT NOT ALLOWED In 2015 I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD). My psychiatrist told me I had only about three features, “not the whole thing.” And yet, my file—for all medical personnel to see—showed that my diagnosis was borderline, the whole thing. In their book Beyond Borderline: True Stories of Recovery […]
Read More...When We Lose the One we Depend On As a person with a diagnosis of mental illness, dependent on others for your everyday needs, have you ever wondered what would happen if your husband, wife, or other caregiver were to die? Will your rights be protected? I fear for mine. Were your husband or wife […]
Read More...OVERCOMING DISCRIMINATION It happened again, as it so often does. As I woke up from a sleep, God brought me an answer to a problem I’ve tried to solve for years: How to overcome discrimination towards people who are different. “It’s all about love,” he whispered in my ear. “As simple as that. Love is […]
Read More...Why do you despise us so? What have we done? Was it our physical appearance? Was it the way we act? Was it that you had forgotten we were people like you? Like others you knew? Like the people you could understand and love? But you don’t stop long enough to know us. To spend […]
Read More...That’s the way it is when you have a mental illness. No matter how good a person you are or how much good you’ve done, you’re not considered to have credibility. Many like me have things to say: to protect ourselves, defend ourselves, explain ourselves. But we’re not listened to, not heard. Not like “regular” […]
Read More...Throughout history, anger has proved to be an instrument of change. It leads to revolutionary action that can upend unjust social structures. Mahatma Gandhi was incensed with the state of his Indian nation, where his countrymen were made to feel inferior under British rule. Some years later, Nelson Mandela felt the same way when […]
Read More...On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” Matthew 9:12,13 I guess I’ve been angry far too long about how people […]
Read More...Bored? William Wilberforce, the British slave trade abolitionist, once said, “It is inconceivable that we could be bored in a world with so much wrong to tackle, so much ignorance to reach and so much misery we could alleviate.” I’m certainly not bored. I only wish I were younger so that I would have more […]
Read More...EXCERPT FROM A FIRM PLACE TO STAND (PAGE 198) – MARJA BERGEN (2008) In the introduction to his book, No Man is an island, Thomas Merton said that loving ourselves properly is “desiring to live, accepting life as a great gift and a great good, not because of what it gives us, but because of […]
Read More...“I WAS DETERMINED TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE” Excerpt from A Firm Place to Stand, Marja Bergen, 2008 If I go up to the heavens, you are there. If I make my bed in the depths you are there. Psalm 139:8 The last straw, the final thing that started my mind working overtime and threw […]
Read More...© 2025 Marja Bergen
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑