This post originally appeared on Pills to Paleo, my former website.
In July 2012, I walked out of a psychiatrist’s office with a laundry list of diagnoses: bipolar type II disorder, social anxiety, agoraphobia, and avoidant personality disorder.
I was simultaneously relieved and terrified — a dizzying combination of emotions I’d never felt before.
On the one hand, I was deeply comforted. The symptoms I was experiencing had a name. Other people had experienced these same symptoms, in the same combination, and they were common enough to be labeled under a recognized diagnosis. I was not alone. I may have been crazy, but at least my crazy had a name.
As they say, “better the devil you know.”
On the other hand, I was scared shitless. Though the psychiatrist spent a good amount of time explaining the differences between bipolar type I and bipolar type II (the former being the “extreme” version you see portrayed in movies, and the latter being more subdued), all I heard was the word “bipolar” — and all of the negative connotations that come with it.
Over the next several days, the diagnosis hit me hard, and I beat myself up about it: I’m bipolar. And I have social anxiety. And I’m agoraphobic. And I have avoidant personality disorder. What a complete and utter wreck I am.
However, the diagnosis made things seem more real, so it was also easier to feel genuine compassion for myself: See, I’m not making this up! A doctor in a white coat with degrees from prestigious schools told me exactly what’s wrong with me. This is why I hate parties. This is why I can barely pull myself out of bed in the morning. I have an illness that has a name. It is just as real as cancer or diabetes. It is OK that I feel this way.
I spent the next year or so flip-flopping between feeling victimized and feeling validated. I felt both emotions so frequently that they consumed me.
My diagnosis wasn’t just a diagnosis — it became my identity.
Every thought I had, every sentence I spoke, and every activity I participated in was consciously or subconsciously informed by my diagnosis. It was my crutch and my curse. It explained my past and informed my present. It was always there, in the background, reminding me who I was.
As I worked through treatment, my psychiatrist (who prescribed my meds) and my therapist (who listened to me talk for an hour every week) had conflicting opinions.
My therapist had always been wary of the bipolar type II diagnosis, and insisted I had major depression and PTSD. The psychiatrist stuck with her diagnosis, but as time went on, she added more things to the list: impulse control disorder, dissociation, and potential ADD.
I bemoaned this in a therapy session: “Can’t you just tell me what I am? Like, once and for all?” I begged.
“Why do you want that?” my therapist asked.
“I need to know that this thing has a name. I need to know what it is and how to change it. I need to know that I’m not alone. The fact that you and my psychiatrist keep disagreeing on my diagnosis makes me feel like my problem is unnamable, and therefore untreatable. That is too much for me to handle.”
I can’t say exactly when I started detaching from my diagnosis, but over time, it lost its meaning. The medications prescribed by my psychiatrist caused horrible side effects. My time in therapy was repetitive, and eventually, I realized it was doing more harm than good. The longer the treatments were ineffective, the more I questioned my mental health practitioners’ judgements.
I also came across this sobering fact: Homosexuality was listed in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders until 1973.
That’s right — being gay was labeled as an illness until 1973. If we got that wrong, what else were we getting wrong?
More research led me to learn more about the significant physiological roots of depression, covered extensively by psychiatrist Dr. Kelly Brogan and others.
And the theory of “chemical imbalance” in the brain that’s been circulated throughout American culture for the last 20+ years? Yeah, that’s a myth. No one has a Prozac deficiency.
The more I questioned my diagnosis, the more I pulled away from it. Over time, I’ve come to the important realization that I am the only person who can truly know me. It’s a lonely, existential truth, but an important one. I don’t need someone in a white coat to create an identity for me to accept.
Let me qualify that: Of course I think medicine is useful. I am still on my health journey, and in fact, I have an upcoming appointment with a functional medicine physician to try to address the root cause of certain symptoms I’m still experiencing.
I am not discounting medicine or physicians. I think the majority of physicians really do have their patients’ best interests at heart.
What I am against is a fervent attachment to your diagnosis.
Whatever you have been diagnosed with — be it a physical or mental illness — don’t let it define you. Let it inform your journey in a healthy way, but don’t let it define you.
Recently, I listened to a wonderful talk by Dr. Jonathan Prousky, a psychiatrist who presented during The Anxiety Summit. The focus of his lecture was how to safely wean off of antidepressants. While he talked a lot about dosage protocols and side effects, I especially enjoyed his comments about the importance of mindset.
Here’s an excerpt from his talk:
“I have patients who haven’t been successful in coming off their drugs because they’ve bought into the notion that they’re brain damaged and they’re disordered,” he said. “And I think our system does such a disservice to people by making people believe that there is something intrinsically wrong with their brains, and leading them to believe that they actually have this diagnosis that is going to stay with them forever.
I have some patients who have not been able to get off of medications because they truly believe that they’re damaged goods.
And no matter how many resources I offer them, they have basically given into the notion that they’re brain damaged and that their diagnosis defines their life. I fault our system in mental health for that. I don’t fault these people. I think they’re trying really hard. And my heart goes out to them. But this is an issue that people seldom realize has a huge role to play in whether people are going to be successful in coming off their drugs or not.”
I can tell you with 100% confidence that deciding not to believe that I was “damaged goods” is the reason that I am able to live a happy, healthy life without medication. If I didn’t start researching the underlying causes of mental health issues, and if I didn’t start believing in myself and working hard to create a better lifestyle, I would not be here today.
I would be sicker, I would be taking more medicine, and I probably would have more “disorders” added to my laundry list.
A diagnosis can be an important part of your road to recovery. It can give you answers and point you in the right direction.
But ultimately, you have to decide: Who’s going to win? You or the label?
Decide that you’re going to get better and fight for it. Believing in yourself is stronger than any prescription.