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Does a diagnosis really help?

DefiantPandaSenior Contributor15 Sept 2015, 5:34 pm AEST

Does a diagnosis really help?

I am interested on hearing what people around here think.

I personally have put off getting a proper diagnosis for years because I didn't think it would help me. I'm very ambivalent about it. Sometimes when things are bad I think about it but then I come out of it and convince myself I don't need the label. I seem to keep ping ponging back and forth.

I already take medicine and as far as I know that is the only treatment, so it's not like I would get better treatment with a diagnosis.

The thing is I have suffered with this for years and it might make me feel a little better about myself to relinquish some of the responsibility - i.e. to not think of myself as at fault or as a bad person but just as having a difficult disease. It might, however make me feel worse to think of myself as having this disease that there is no cure for that I have no control over. At least if I think of myself as 'bad' I can imagine I have some control over that. That one day I will just stop being bad.

Sigh. Just not sure.

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In response to: Does a diagnosis really help?

PeppiPattySenior Contributor09 Apr 2016, 8:31 pm AEST

Re: Does a diagnosis really help?

Hi @Seren and @DefiantPanda, @Former-Member @Neb @Appleblossom others,

@Seren I like what you right.....

Maybe in choosing not to get a diagnosis, there is some sense of keeping some power & choice for yourself.

How are you? I have come home absolutely knackered from purchasing 10 sheer purple curtains from a place 45 minute drive away. My husband was sitting next to me, talking constantly, gicing directions, smetimes wrong, constantly talking about how his mouth was dry, so we needed to stop while he drank ice coffees and fizzy energy drinks all the way down and back.......

I kept on thinking, if I wasnt on the right medication, I would have dropped him off at the supermarket a long way away from our home and gone home, Is this worth it?? If I didnt be on this huge high sntidepressant and moodstabilizer, I'de be talking all broken and not making sence and staring weirdly at strangers but no.......I smiled very kindly to a lovely woman in the car next to me and asked her if she was pulling out so I could park.

If HE wasnt on the right medication, I'de probably not be walking properly or ........have much spiritual life left in me.

But when we have it together, when things are calm, look out, meet a couple who are meant to be together.

In response to: Does a diagnosis really help?

Unknown userMember09 Apr 2016, 11:32 pm AEST

Re: Does a diagnosis really help?

Hi @PeppiPatty, sounds like you had a trying day. Think my life is so empty (people less) because God knows i wouldn't cope. How do you do it? Medication & deep down true love. Hang onto the latter. Just do the best you can.
My son is my closest family but is young lives away & has a wonderful woman who seems to have replaced me (as is the way of things). No other family have ventured my door step in 5yrs but i can go to them (accept my currently stubborn sister who wont talk)
Apart from my amazingly wonderful son fighting to keep his own life in check (work, degree, partner & sanity), the only family that talk to me (if u can call it that) are losing l, my narcissist alcoholic mother, father slipping into dementia & two dope head, paranoid schizophrenic very angry brothers who deceive MH their having their injections when they are not. I try to tolerate & love them but can't handle the abuse & live away which makes communicating (being understood) more complex.
Anyway, basically i don't have anyone to live for which sometimes makes me want to die. You have love but it comes with challenges you don't want. All relative. Just do the best we can with what we got, somehow.

In response to: Re: Does a diagnosis really help?

AppleblossomSenior Contributor09 Apr 2016, 11:48 pm AEST

Re: Does a diagnosis really help?

@Former-Member Your family situation is so severe. It must have been traumatic for all of you. Be gentle with you.

It is good to hear about your son having a caring partner. It gives some hope for the future.

In response to: Does a diagnosis really help?

Unknown userMember10 Apr 2016, 1:04 am AEST

Re: Does a diagnosis really help?

I know, and the isolation & hopelessness of it all drives me to the edge. Often. Can't figure out a future on my own. Frightening world.

In response to: Does a diagnosis really help?

PeppiPattySenior Contributor10 Apr 2016, 8:03 am AEST

Re: Does a diagnosis really help?

OMG @Former-Member
Long time no see.
Yes. I like how you speak of your son. My brothers like thinking that they don't need medication for their certain mh but my brothers wife Told him shede divorce him if he didn't so he takes medication.
I feel how you see the world. I have an empty gaping hole sometimes inside my belly and simetimes it's in front of me.
I try and fill it with art but it's hard because I've got other chores to do.

In response to: Does a diagnosis really help?

PeppiPattySenior Contributor10 Apr 2016, 12:53 pm AEST

Re: Does a diagnosis really help?

Oh here I am again @Former-Member,
How are tou this Sunday morning? I am okay.

My husband was very angry with his diagnosis and it didn't help By not being understood by a sicker younger sister and an extremely stressed but. ....sadly restictive mum.
It's very hard when he and I first remet ( we were in high school together )
I took a LOT of care for myself in reading a mh advocate called Peter Bullimore. there always is many people overwhelmed at his talks they are so good . I feel someone understands when he talked at a conference he talked at 5 years ago.
I'm thinking about you @Former-Member. My social life is pretty much zilch. Lets have a coffee both watxhing the aame Dvd one day. The Dvd Sons Of Anarchy would be good!!

In response to: Re: Does a diagnosis really help?

BeeGeeSenior Contributor10 Apr 2016, 9:36 pm AEST

Re: Does a diagnosis really help?

Hmmm... diagnosis. It's a two-edged sword in my view.

Initially I was so glad to have a diagnosis after 35 years wondering what the hell was wrong with me and why couldn't I just get my s..t together. Finally when the light went on, it was a revelation - "AHAH! So that's why! Finally it all makes sense!"

So, it helped me to understand myself - which is good.

On the downside, a diagnosis suggested to me that if this is an illness then there's a cure, right? Bu-buuuum. This was the beginning of hope - a hope that has not, and may never be, fulfilled. I have been chasing my tail for nearly two years, trying treatment after treatment, and none of them have helped. Before my diagnosis I had more or less made peace with myself that this is just the way I am and I have to accept and deal with it. Hoping that there might finally be more for me and having that seemingly snatched away was harder than not knowing there's a problem.

In the end, I think I still favour knowing my diagnosis - but I wish someone had been straight with me right at the start that maybe nothing much will change through having it. I can now explain what's wrong with me - I just can't do too much about it. Meh. Maybe the real benefit for me has been in learning to be more gentle and forgiving with myself (although I'm still learning about that). I don't beat myself up much any more over my self-perceived failures and deficiencies - that's got to be a plus. Maybe one day I might even get to the point of believing that they aren't deficiencies, just differences - yeah, nowhere near there yet.

In response to: Re: Does a diagnosis really help?

NebSenior Contributor10 Apr 2016, 11:34 pm AEST

Re: Does a diagnosis really help?

BeeGee, I hear you. The diagnosis thing made it sort of more REAL for me too, yes.....i am really kooky! Now where I live, the diagnostic label does not really compute here, but that is a GP thing and being in a small town. I am not really on the MH circuit anymore and even the peer support group is more into other labels rather than DID. However, that is okay.....I was on the spiral down from age 15 and now amazingly I am almost 56 DESPITE everything......it amazes me I am still here as by golly I tried hard not to be....so I WON eh.....😊👍

In response to: Re: Does a diagnosis really help?

KurraSenior Contributor11 Apr 2016, 6:26 pm AEST

Re: Does a diagnosis really help?

Diagnosis has really helped me. Whilst it was initially an enormous shock and I experienced self stigma it quite quickly provided me with the following:

An explanation and understanding of much of my actions and situations I landed in throughout my life

It gave me a label I could ultimately come to terms with

It gave me the opportunity to learn as much as I possibly could about this condition. I keep up to date on published research papers as much as I can and I discuss these with my psychiatrist and psychologist frequently. Knowledge afterall is power or for me it is.

It has allowed me to search for ways to help myself (and others)

It also lead to Kurra taking responsibility for her own mental health. This of all the outcomes of being accurately diagnosed has proven to be the most powerful.

I wish you all well on your journey to recovery.

Hugs

In response to: Re: Does a diagnosis really help?

PeppiPattySenior Contributor11 Apr 2016, 7:57 pm AEST

Re: Does a diagnosis really help?

This is beautiful @Kurra

how did you feel when you started reading stuff and was is difficult if someone said.....this is what you are doing ?

I have noticed lately, the joy of having an MI.my very qualified family have.....lost. , They don't understand the inside of someone ...... here I am .....my home taken from me by my Dad when my son was extremely ill and living in public housing and I NEVER thought I would get relief, I thought I was going to be in this ......pit of pain as I fall into it more and more and today, I'm slowly coming out.

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