Benefits/Drawbacks of getting a mental health Diagnosis?

[Michael569]

13 hours ago, Matt23 said:

True.  I think of all the times I've considered myself to fit the bill for one of the diagnostic categories, this time BPD actually feels positive and relieving

I think it will. Like I said, at least you'll have a name. The thing you'll up against will now be somewhat labelled and you can now go deep and explore a variety of specialist areas. Whatever condition it is, books have been written by doctors, herbalists, nutritionists, natural healers, energetic healers. You chose what resonates and give it a shot, if it doesn't work move on to something else. 

13 hours ago, Matt23 said:

dunno if I explained it quite right. 

No, I get you and agree. 

13 hours ago, Matt23 said:

But I've put off getting a diagnosis from fear of possible negative consequences for a long time now, and feel that this would be a positive thing.  So maybe it's time to just bite the bullet and see what happens.  Assuming I even get a diagnosis, let alone a BPD one.  

 

Even if you did it is important you do not associated yourself with it. So many times people just became their diagnosis and it becomes part of their identity which renders the disease incurable because they would rip off a part of themselves which (in a somewhat sick way) makes them special. I've seen this many times especially back in my home country which is somewhat stage blue. 

So even if BPD was diagnosed it is important to realise that it does not mean anything besides the fact that there is some imbalance in the body and with right tools and guidance it can be healed. 

[Ethan1]

Entire field of psychology is a new philosophy. 

DSM 5 isn't perfect. 

DSM 1 was published in the 50's..

DSM 3 was published in the 80's...

Which was a huge reform to allow for descriptive diagnosis. 

Since the 80s it's been pretty much the same. 

There's been a ton of debate on BPD. It was actually supposed to be renamed as emotional dysregulation I believe. Yet they kept the name. 

.. 

I'm not a therapist so don't take my word for it. 

Um I've been around people that have that type of split. Personally I think IFS is the best thing to look into. It doesn't focus on pathologizing or labels. It's more seen as a fractured self or a protective part that is activated to defend the self. 

I've never done IFS therapy. I've done a bit of research on it. Looks legit talking to different parts of ourself.

I could see in the future it directs toward IFS. I would love to be trained in it but the cost is extremely expensive & there's a huge list of people that want to get trained. Not enough instructors to teach it. 

The protector subself seems to be really dominant from a BPD perspective. Kind of like a DID episode where there's a flip in the self & a locked attitude with people. 

... 

Talking about personality disorders is tricky. There's a ton of debate on this stuff. 

Edited October 16, 2021 by Ethan1

[lmfao]

@Matt23 Did you chase seeking a diagnosis in the end? I get BPD-vibes stuff swirling in me too 

For me the flavour of experience is a very particular flavour of having no skin, as though I'm extremely low and deflated. (Mood swings within the span of hours and 24 hour time frames) 

It's a feeling of emptiness in that hollow, shame way {ah, the pungent sadness fills me, how sweet} 
I think the mechanics of true shame are an entirely different thing which I've written about before, but not here 

Edited December 2, 2021 by lmfao

[Matt23]

6 hours ago, lmfao said:

@Matt23 Did you chase seeking a diagnosis in the end? I get BPD-vibes stuff swirling in me too 

For me the flavour of experience is a very particular flavour of having no skin, as though I'm extremely low and deflated. (Mood swings within the span of hours and 24 hour time frames) 

It's a feeling of emptiness in that hollow, shame way {ah, the pungent sadness fills me, how sweet} 
I think the mechanics of true shame are an entirely different thing which I've written about before, but not here 

Not really.  I studied some stuff more basically, and spoke with some people (one being a psychologist to discover how the process goes in getting a diagnosis: basically it can take a long time, sometimes years, to get a diagnosis (some psychologists are very hesitant to give out diagnoses at an unhelpful degree -- there's people who have issues which getting a diagnosis could/might help but they wait like years, sometimes decades before getting a diagnosis).  

@Ethan1  @lmfao  I'd both recommend taking a look at the video below, at the very least.  I tried summing it up below, I doubt I did it justice or accurately though. lol.  Fucking complex shit man.  

 

I was able to ask Zak Stein, Gregg Henriques , and John Vervaeke a question about this (where does the paradigm of mental disorder fit in with how they see psychology and development) on the Stoa.  You can watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCU0UJ_2G6E - Jump to 37:40

 

 

Gregg Henriques: Psychologist, Professor of the Combined-Integrated Doctoral Program at James Madison Uni.  Developed the Unified Theory of Knowledge (https://www.unifiedtheoryofknowledge.org/).

Zak Stein: Harvard grad, Academic Director of the activist think-tank at the Centre for Integral Wisdom, the chair of the education program at Meridian University.

Johnny V.:  You know him  ... if not = Professor at the Uni. of Toronto (colleague of Jordan Peterson), created the Awakening From The Meaning Crisis series on YT (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLND1JCRq8Vuh3f0P5qjrSdb5eC1ZfZwWJ), highly recommend. 

 

Key takeaways:

 

Gregg Henriques

• What a "mental disorder" is is still not philosophically agreed upon, solved, or established. 
• The DSM has been captured by the pharmaceutical industry for decades (so you can't really start there to sort out what disorders are). 
• Jerome Wakefield's Dysfunction Harm Analysis helped define and analyze what a biological disease was (i.e. Disease = Broken Biology [which was defined by Functionality, which in turn was supported through evolutionary theory] + a Social Evaluation of Harm).  This model was then used to define and analyze what mental diseases and disorders were.  
• It's argued, by Gregg, that Jerome Wakefield's analysis was great for the medical field dealing with biological issues, but it left out a huge domain of mental disorders which aren't reducible to broken biology.  So, even though there are some mental disorders which do have a significant biological basis (e.g. severe autism, ADHD caused by contaminants in the environment, Dementia, Cerebral Palsy, etc.), there is another large class of mental disorders which aren't reducible to broken biology (e.g. low self-esteem, issues of meaning, ADHD with no toxic basis, depression, anxiety, traumatic events, PTSD, and I assume probably some things like, in some cases at the very least, BPD, DPD, etc.).  
• Gregg thinks that this class of disorder is trackable by development, maturation, and learning which aren't preset like biology, but evolve by design.  So, you can get people with maladaptive and dysfunctional behaviors and psyches which were instead caused by both/either...
  1. Sick cultural incentive, ideational, contingency, and relational structures that drive people in dysfunctional directions.
  2. People who have inadequate personal and interpersonal meaning-making structures and coping structures to help them metabolize those experiences. 
  • Both of which then results in all sorts of negative feedback loop cycles (e.g. psychological "immune" responses to those events and associations and relationships to those events, cognitive and interpersonal reciprocal narrowing [see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoBR5BPfoNo], & triple negative neurotic loops: negative reactions to negative feelings to negative events).  
• So when Gregg sees people with issues with self-esteem, meaning, depression, anxiety, etc., he sees a psychological architecture that's working exactly as you'd expect.  

 

 

Zak Stein

• Distinguish between...
  • Disorder
    • Deep biological dysfunction
    • "Hardware" issues (John V.)
    • ADHD: from physical toxins in the environment. 
  • Disability
    • Atypical nervous system in an environment that makes it pathological
    • "Software" issues (John V.)
    • It's perfectly fine and not pathological in and of itself.
  • Disagreement
    • Completely normative level of disagreement.
    • "Interface" issues (John V.)
    • e.g. Halted development caused by the person not agreeing with (thus rebelling) the culture or environment they're in. 
    • ADHD diagnosis: but the person is just ignoring and disagreeing.

 

• Distinguish between...
  • Development
    • Types of disorders: developmental
  • Ensoulment
    • Types of disorders: personality
  • Transcendence
    • Types of disorders: attentional and with awareness

 

• Politically...
  • We're in a situation where people are pathologizing disagreement.  The soviets did that and threw political dissidents into institutions.  
  • If you call your political opponent "crazy", then you can claim they aren't responsible for their actions, resulting in people being put in institutions.  
  • Which is why keeping Disorders, Disabilities, and Disagreements very, very distinct is crucial.  
  • Propaganda also feeds into this issue.  

 

 

John Vervaeke

• A model or way of thinking about pathology that equivocates between hardware, software, or interface issues will probably fuck things up. 
• The very processes that make us adaptive also make us self-deceptive.  How do we work this out while being responsible to that fact while also addressing individual differences?

 

• Distinguish between...
  • Sin     vs.     Sickness
  • You treat sin and sickness very differently, even though at time they can interpenetrate. 
• Alleviating these distinctions by reduction is stupid.   

 

 

For me..,

• I dunno. 
• All this new info and I Still don't know what's what.  Where/what I am.  What's up with me (if anything is even "up"). 
• Lol...  It's funny cuz this is almost the exact same experience I've had with psychologically typing myself (Myers Brigges, Enneagram, etc.).  Like... I can't see myself or ever seem to get a "AHH!! FINALLY!! THIS IS ME!!  Solidly, knowingly, etc.
• It's like I just want to really get a handle on myself, who and what I am (if anything, lol), but that never seems to happen.
• lol

Edited December 3, 2021 by Matt23

[Nadosa]

Look man, for looking who you really are in experience or thought doesnt lead to anything as who you are is not behind thought, not observing thought - you are everything, but you have to first kill the Idea that you have to find yourself. Just kill it all and be. 

[Matt23]

3 hours ago, Nadosa said:

Look man, for looking who you really are in experience or thought doesnt lead to anything as who you are is not behind thought, not observing thought - you are everything, but you have to first kill the Idea that you have to find yourself. Just kill it all and be. 

HAha.  Duh.  Ya, I "know".  What was said was more telling what was being felt as a felt sense belief thingy in the body and mind.  Intellectually and consciously I'm like "Ya, well duh that'll never be found."  That obviously isn't gunna happen.   

It was more of a "Hey! Lol.  I'm still having these urges to find a solid self, but I really know that that's a stupid and fruitless endeavor." 

I just wrote it for fun, on a whim like.

Just like chasing anything in life.  Ultimately it's not gunna completely satisfy, but we do it anyways and, maybe it's even still healthy to do so (to various degrees).  Even Leo recommended chasing "lower" material desires n such till you exhaust them.  I imagine that's a similar process with this "finding oneself" thing; sure, logically and using the rational conscious mind, I don't really think it'll do or go anywhere or that there's a self to be found.  But emotionally and deeply, that desire-belief is probably still functioning perfectly, so letting go of that might take more than logic and may take actual life experience and getting constantly proven wrong and demoralized by reality to finally say "OK FINE!  This is a truly fruitless endeavor!  I give the fuck up!"  Lol....   But that might take a while. 

It's more like just a deeper thing that'll probs take a while to be completely let go of.  Just like you probably don't fully believe what you said or have fully let it go yet, YET, still, consciously, rationally, and logically you can know it's silly to chase to such things (though, I dunno, maybe you have).  But  likewise for this dude.

I ain't gunna spend my days doing that.  I've done it in the past and realize it doesn't go anywhere.  It's just there's still probs residues of emotions-beliefs-hopes-clinging that still wants that.  But I realize it's not there.  At the very least partially.

Anyways, I get your message.  Wise words.  It'll take a while to fully appreciate that (in a full-body holistic fully embodied way).

Cheers.  

Enjoy

Edited December 4, 2021 by Matt23

[Loba]

I found it helpful to get a diagnosis because I kept getting sick, and couldn't understand why, and when I got my bipolar diagnosis this made sense to me; the mood issues, the sleep cycle problems, memory issues, delusions and whatnot, spiritual episodes in between.  So this helped me get on the right medication and once I did, my mind has been slowly coming back online again, like from a long, long sleep.

I kept internalizing my lack of progress as something against me, and didn't know that I was so sick until it all blew up in my face and I had to go to the hospital, twice, and there, under observation they were able to give me the right diagnosis.

Different things require different measures in order to heal from them, and it is important to get it right.  It can take a long time.  I trust the diagnosis from the hospital because they had a month and a half to see my behaviour and monitor it as opposed to a quick visit or two and taking a test or something like that.

It is better to know what is going on than to not know and self diagnose anyways.  But make sure it comes from somewhere where they have a chance to get to know you first because if not, it's just like crossing off a check list for them.  Before I got my bipolar 1 diagnosis they gave me: OCD, Anxiety Disorder, Depression, ADD, BPD...blahblahblahdisorder, ect, ect...  Each person had a new diagnosis.

But the hospitals both had the time to see over a period of time what it was.  Psychology is tricky like that because it is not an exact science.

[Matt23]

@Loba Cheers. 

Ya, slippery shit. 

[roopepa]

The only actual benefit I would say is that in certain cases, and in certain places, you may get free or cheap therapy, medication and other such benefits.

Otherwise, the diagnosis itself is really just a thought, a narrative, projection. There is no actual need for it. The illusion of needing something to explain your feelings and behaviour, a "scapecoat", something to fix.

I don't think you need it. I bet you will be doing a lot better soon. I could have gotten an neuroatypical diagnosis, but I like the way I am, no need for such layers really. When you keep coming back to feeling here and now, the clarity is there.

[Vision]

On 12/10/2021 at 7:53 AM, OneHandClap said:

There is a difference between receiving a diagnosis to manage lifestyle stuff versus identifying with the diagnosis. A person who receives a diagnosis of diabetic is not necessarily "identified with" diabetes, but they still have it. Similarly, if you are really, deeply struggling with anxiety and depression to the point where you're not enjoying life, there's nothing wrong with talking to a professional. You do not have to take medication; sometimes talking alone is enough to understand where you're being too harsh on yourself and find adjustments. 

Edit: For clarification, I struggled with anxiety (I also come from a family line with tons of anxiety) and took an SSRI for a while. It was a great decision and allowed me to contemplate/meditate upon the causes of that anxiety and do the work to rewire my own brain. Without that SSRI, I can't say what would've happened. 

@OneHandClap What SSRI did you take?

[BipolarGrowth]

Getting diagnosed has been beneficial for me in every instance. The main takeaways are that getting clinically diagnosed gives you more certainty about a “cause” to certain things which may be problematic and allows you to better pursue treatment for alleviating any problems associated with the illness. 

[Matt23]

13 hours ago, BipolarGrowth said:

Getting diagnosed has been beneficial for me in every instance. The main takeaways are that getting clinically diagnosed gives you more certainty about a “cause” to certain things which may be problematic and allows you to better pursue treatment for alleviating any problems associated with the illness. 

Cheers