I'm really sorry to hear about your struggles, and I sincerely hope you are doing better now. I did want to mention that the new DSM (and even the current one)

I'm really sorry to hear about your struggles, and I sincerely hope you are doing better now. I did want to mention that the new DSM (and even the current one) does cover situations such as yours. I understand the reluctance to call duress (whether that be social, emotional, etc) "mental illness" and surely an argument can be made that it is not, however in some ways it is. I think the real point here is that there are forms of therapies that can help someone through these tough times. Of course that takes finding the right psychologist; which takes effort. Anyways, the main reason I commented was just to say that "mental illness" doesn't necessarily mean you are crazy or have a chemical imbalance. It is a much broader term. The opening paragraph on the wiki page for mental illness describes it well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_disorder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_disorder