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Over the years I think I have been given as many psychiatric diagnoses as there exists in the DSM listing. I've been called a schizophrenic, a paranoid schizophrenic, depressed, manic, schizo-affective, a schizoid personality, borderline personality disordered, an unspecified psychotic and more by the professionals who treated me. Although I suffered tremendously in the past, I never accepted those labels as definitive definitions of who I was, because to accept I was one of those labels made me feel worse about myself, was a terrific blow to my self-esteem and increased my feelings of hopelessness, which all made it much harder for me to feel well. I have since learned from opening myself to spiritual ideas that I am not a disease, but that I often have negative experiences (like every other "normal" human does), which are manifestations of a man who has been affected and conditioned by a very abused childhood and by "a sea of troubles" in life, a man who consequently has made some bad key decisions in life, and continues to make moment by moment mistakes. There is a fundamental difference between the two previous descriptions. The first-"I am mentally ill"-has a sense of lifelong, incurable hopelessness. As for the second-"I am temporarily experiencing a delusion or a depression or a sense of unreality or anger or fear or whatever, even if it may be a prolonged experience"-there is hope. In short, this too shall pass.

By reading and absorbing spiritual ideas such as those of Buddhism and Judeo-Christianity, and by practicing meditation, which helps me to stay in the moment, I have realized that even the most horrible states I get into due to my mind and the "slings and arrows of life's misfortunes" are transient. I do my best to live in the now and face "reality." By practicing moment by moment awareness of my feelings, emotions, moods, mental state and thoughts as well as keeping as much awareness as I can onto outside reality-that scary, other part of reality that is outside me and over which I have very little control-I am able to maintain mindfulness, which is all I can be expected to do given that I decided a while ago to turn my life and will over to the care of God, as Step three of every 12-step anonymous fellowship says one needs to do. And it is working. I have been slowly changing.

I know now that no earthly being has all the knowledge or the power to cure what afflicts me-I realized a while ago that I am my own worst enemy-but that a reliance and trust in God, letting go and trusting God, can and does lift suffering from off my shoulders. I have practiced meditation-I learned how to do so 25 years ago-and the practice of that spiritual exercise has often brought me serenity and clarity; clarity of eye and thought. This state-serenity and clarity-is how and when I know I'm all right. For me, there is nothing that can compare to this peacefulness. For a period of time, my suffering is lifted. No fear or anxiety, no anger, no hates, no angry thoughts on the past, no fearfulness about the future. Nothing but internal Zen emptiness or inward quietude and, like that Native American saying, "Peace above me. Peace below me. Peace to my left. Peace to my right. Peace behind me. Peace in front of me. Peace all around me."

Previously, my suffering-schizoid state?-was all that I knew. Since I have experienced this peace, this serenity, this emptiness, this internal quietness, this absence of feelings and thoughts, I have a positive state of being to compare to my suffering state. Through the practice of meditation and the spiritual/religious experiences I achieved thereby, by reading spiritual/religious writings, by believing that at the core I was all right and by accessing that serene core, I experience many moments where I do not feel "mentally ill."

The reader of this article may have become aware that I have used references from diverse spiritual traditions. This is because the truth is where you find it and is not confined to any one tradition. Peace be unto you.