Do you define yourself (too much) by your clinical diagnosis?

[noname223]

I think I have some manic symptoms the reason probably why I write this much.

I had one good friend at college. I meet him now way less. He was extremely friendly and supportive. But I think inside himself he thought I talk too much about mental health issues and my illness. I am a little bit surprised because my best friends don't care about that. I think they are exceptional. My illness rather strengthened our bond of friendship. We are way more open about inner feelings and secrets since.

First I wanted to make a thread about people saying your are talking too much about your illness. A guy with probably two brain cells told me that in a clinic. He was quite pejorative when he talked about our self-help group. This guy was so dull and dismissive. But I decided for another idea for this thread. With a similar topic. Both are kind of associated.

I think a lot about my illness. Probably due to the fact I suffer a lot because of it and it is daily struggle with the illness.
I am not sure whether I am too obsessed about diagnoses. Probably one could call me that. But I am obsessed by a lot of shit. I think like 24/7 without any real break about all sorts of shit. Many of them induce anxiety. I think my thoughts often have a high pace and they can be really tormenting. I wished I could turn them off sometimes. When I am in this forum I rather turn intrinsic and this gives me time to reflect on my thoughts. Maybe they are sometimes self-absorbed and maybe solipsistic but thinking on a meta level about my thoughts is the best counterstrategy against racing manic thoughts I have. I try to forget the rest of my obsessive fast racing thoughts about sorrows and channel it towards other sorrows. So I worry about college many hours a day without any break. But when I am in this forum I am worrying about my mental health and that college is basically fucking my mind. They rather induce sadness and melancholia and remind me how fragile my mind is. I even recognize that I sleep worse when I am not writing in this forum. I cannot say it for sure but without it I think I wake up ealrlier in the morning which often increases manic symptoms. The depressive thoughts are kind of an antidote against manic thoughts for me.

Okay this was not all perfectly about diagnoses but about being self-absorbed. I think there might be no sharpness of separation. I think currently at the moment I have more manic symptoms I had some social interactions which accelerated the pace of my thoughts a lot.

Maybe I should have made more research for this thread. But I want to sleep soon. So I just talk about my personal experience with it. The first diagnosis which I had was a certain type of psychosis. It was my first diagnosis. And quite a shock. It is very stigmatized. And some people left dismissive comments about my illness. Blamed me for it and called me insane. Though these people did not know anything about my biography.

The diagnosis meant much for me. Probably too much. The first psychologist had some reputation. I still like him a lot. We had our anamnesis talk when I exactly explained him what happened prior to my psychosis. I can remember he told me something like. "Now we will have the talk which will decide the future." To be honest this was pretty detrimental. I could imagine he underestimated the imapct of this description on me. We had a long talk. Very complicated story. I think he made some mistakes but I think I am a difficult case to classify. I don't perfectly fit to certain categories. He was stunned about all the positive predicators of my illness/life. He was convinced I will have a very good life quality and left hints. (He was like this guy deserves it because he did not take drugs.)
Basically the same dude thought I gonna kill myself in the future 4 years later because I was fired and endured severe depression to that time. It is a long story with a lot of nuances which I cannot accurately describe if I don't want to spend several hours for this thread.

I defined myself way too much about my diagnosis. Sometimes it was helpful and sometimes detrimental. Probably more detrimental. One has to find the right balance. All the predicators often don't mean much. You are a single case and statistics don't predict your future. I had to learn this the hard way.

Moreover I was given wrong medication because of some mistakes in diagnosis. The better category for me is bipolar. And I received the better treatment after I realized that. And without a joke I mean this literally. Not my therapists realized I was bipolar. To that time I did not take antipsychotic medication, was kind of delusional all the time and on the edge of going insane. And my therapist to that time basically believed most of the distorted thoughts I told her. Honestly this therapist was incompetent as fuck and she basically left me also with the reasoning that I am an hopeless case who will probably kill himself. I turned to the other therapist who thought I gonna off myself he realized that I am in delusional thinking fallcacy and helped me out of it.
Honestly all of this sounds so aburd.

I want to say with that. The right diagnosis can help you to receive the right medication. And it helps you to get the right therapy. A diagnosis does not predict your future. Sometimes i wish it did because I am a control freak who needs security. On the other hand this notion can be comforting because the future is uncertain.

I could have talked about people who say you have to internalize "you are not your diagnosis "the illness is not part of your character" "you must not define yourself over your diagnosis" and "the illness must not take too much space in your life".
Most of them did not really help me. But I don't want to be too dismissive. There might be some sort of wisdom in them. For me their values is ambivalent. And I won't comment now on them.

But one other remark on my story. The problem I think with my past therapists most of them did not think about the longterm consequences. Most of them accompanied me during certain time periods and judged my case not independent of that. I mean by that when I seem to be stable they think my future is bright. And when I am suicidal they think I gonna ctb.
Personally I think they are too naive in my case. Currently I am more stable than in the past. But they are way too optimistic by some minor progress. I think I am rather longterm oriented and this is why I think so much about suicide. Maybe I am not rational too. I hope I am just too pessimistic but I will find it out. I try my best but I fear I cannot change the outcome of my life.

Maybe I writing a little bit too much. As i said my thoughts are racing today due to some social interactions. LMAO I have to laugh when I realize how long this thread is.

 

[Maudlin]

That was a fun read.

What I'm about to say is just my 2 cents. It's worth every penny... I assure you.

The purpose of handing out a diagnosis to anyone for anything is billable hours, to hand out meds (billable products), and to encourage self-absorption in the people who seem like likely candidates for such behavior.

That being said, stereotypes are stereotypes for a good reason, and much of human behavior is not very complicated, at all.

Have you ever heard of "cold reading"? Some performers truly turn that art into a science... or that science into an art, so to speak.

Good salesmen turn their job into a sight to behold.

Combine cold reading, an insightful understanding of common stereotypical human behavior, and sales, and you find yourself firmly in the fields of psychology and especially psychiatry... since psychiatrists can get all those juicy kickbacks from the cute young pharma reps that show up at the office every other day.

None of this is actual science, but as long as you've stayed convinced, you are a recurring payday.

Actual brain science involves fiddly things that scan your brain, actual blood and cerebral/spinal fluid tests, measurable levels of real chemicals, and DNA research. Increasingly now days it's implantable gizmos, too... Like what Elon Musk makes, or the nano-thingies that the government wants you to avoid looking into.

If you want to pay billable hours in order to talk to somebody, that's fine. In this day and age, it seems easier than actually making real face-to-face friends, in many ways. If you have the cash to spend, or you have some way of deferring the cost on to the state then why not? Only, be wary of the drugs.

Actual "chemical imbalances" can not be diagnosed by conversation. You need established median norms and actual measured personal results for that. Neither of those exist in modern psycho-sales. Both are much more physically intrusive than a chat for an hour or two.

Regardless, they have plenty of flavors of "happy pill" to sell you. My friendly neighborhood drug dealer does that, too. Sometimes they like to just give those happy pills away, quite like my friendly neighborhood drug dealer.

And like my friendly neighborhood drug dealer, sometimes customers die or get wrenched up for life... some of those casualties you'll find on this website.

There are entire careers based on this business model. An entire sector of the economy of every western country I know of. Those in this business will tell you whatever they think you need to hear in order to keep it going. It will keep going, year after year, one person at a time, to the tune of billions of dollars annually.

You can't stop it, and they won't stop it for you. They're happy to squish your brains between happy pills, to convince you that whatever keeps the sun burning, the rain falling, and the planet spinning somehow made a mistake with you (but don't worry, they can fix it) and so so much more.

If only you knew how bad things really are.

Just my 2 cents. Feel free to ponder on it, investigate it, or throw it right away like you would 2 pennies.

I'd have felt some bad kinda way about myself if I didn't share it with you.
I can tell you're fully invested in a very different opinion. Your life is yours to do with as you wish, and I hope you find peace and a comfy spot to curl up in.