For me, the price for that sort of reassurance and ability to talk about something is often too high. To me, the price is fixing people (and myself) in place, having them become the name and that makes change hard.
Even with something like HSP traits. Maybe those are not fixed? Sensitivity to the world can change over time. Maybe the sensitivity is linked to something that can be changed? Maybe it happens as a result of pain - I'm more sensitive when my back is sore? Maybe the person is overwhelmed because of a busy job and demanding home life? Maybe for some people IBS is causing them to become more sensitive and not the other way around?
I find it interesting that there is some association here with saying someone has a mental illness (or, we could even say, a physical illness) means that they are "fixed" in place or that that means there is...something about them that can't change, if
they wanted to change it.
To speak from a physical sense, my uncle was diagnosed as per-diabetic. He changed his life, exercising much more, changed eating habits, really cut down on his drinking - he's not longer per-diabetic.
I've been diagnosed as depressed several times in my life - and I was! Very depressed, hospitalized twice because of it, in fact (for me, severe depression can be accompanied by psychosis. I'll have paranoid delusions and sometimes even hear things).
Depressed. Psychosis.
Those are labels.
I took medication for some months and/or years. I exercised more. I did cognitive behavioral therapy. I discovered more good things to insert into my life that give me happiness.
And now those labels don't fit anymore. Though they could fit again, someday.
A friend of mine was diagnosed with celiac disease a few months ago. She said that - even before she totally eliminated gluten, some of her symptoms went way down. She believes that is because having a diagnosis was incredibly comforting to her. Just knowing what she had to avoid eating made eating far less stressful. Before her diagnosis, eating was like a battle-ground for her - she never knew what would set her off.
I think, InfinitePossibility, that if some people get boxed in by diagnosis...that's really sad. I've never considered having one to be...I'm trying to figure out how to explain this. Because having a diagnosis can be limiting, absolutely. Depending on what we're talking about though (physical or mental, things that can improve or things that are permanent), having a diagnosis might be finally giving the name to a limit that a person has had all along, but didn't know exactly what it was (like my friend with celiac disease). Or it might give them a framework with which to work on themself.
Knowing that my mom probably has Borderline Personality Disorder hasn't caused me to put her in a box. She put
herself in a box in regards to me years ago, with her destructive and abusive behaviors towards me. By having a better idea of what is wrong with her, and how she related to me and the world, I've been able to find ways to let her out of that box a bit, if that makes sense. I know ways that I can now safely communicate with her, so I can relax my hold on having her in that box. Does that make sense?
However, if I said to myself - Oh look, IP, you must be a HSP. That would give me a very different message about myself. It would make the sensitivity more fixed, less open to change. I'd be more likely to leave my life the same and seek counselling or drug therapy to deal with any problems that being very sensitive were causing me.
This is very interesting to me, especially the part I bolded. Why wouldn't you still talk to friends, make changes in your life, think about is going on with you? If I'm reading what you wrote correctly (and please correct me if I'm wrong), you're saying that because you told yourself you had a problem, you would do less and/or give up on changing in certain ways, because telling yourself you have that problem would cut you off from trying to fix it in certain ways. I'm curious - why would you do that?
FTR, my experience with psych doctors has been very mixed. The first time I was depressed, I had a doctor who treated my depression as a life-long problem that I would always need medication for and that was that. He very much wanted me to be in that box, and stay in that box (and probably make him money). I would say he was a very bad doctor, and it manifested in other ways too, like him ignoring me when I said my medication levels were too high. I told him that I could barely function because I was so exhausted from my meds. He would say "your blood tests show the medication is in the right concentration, you just need time to adjust". He said that for over a year.
Eventually, I abandoned him, and stopped taking those meds.
The psych doctor who I have now is fabulous. She coordinates with my therapist. She's open to (and has recommendations for) alternate therapies: art therapy, acupuncture, hypnotherapists, cognitive behavioral therapists, animal therapy...she probably knows about every therapy out there that has helped people. With her, I've taken anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds multiple times - and been tapered off them as my symptoms have improved. I've also tried cognitive behavioral therapy, and hynotherapy.
She definitely doesn't believe in boxing people in, and challenges her patients to look at everything in their lives and FIX them, not just slap medication on them.
I think this is why I really don't understand all the discussion about diagnoses being seen as boxes or limiting. To me, they're tools. If I was a painter, and I picked up a certain kind of brush, I wouldn't tell myself that now that I started using that brush, I couldn't use any of the other brushes out there, not to mention the palette knives, sponges, and other tools.
Does that make sense?
