I just got diagnosed with cPTSD and it helped so much. I had suspected it but had so far only been diagnosed with severe depression. I had so many years of treatment for depression that never fully helped, so I’m hopeful that being treated properly will make my life better.
It would add to legitimizing myself, suffering and needs but on the other hand nothing can magically fix being different and the people outside don’t care.
To me, ADHD diagnosis helped me to start making sense about the way I do things, and the reason for it. Accepting it is still quite a work, though at least now I understand it, and can make at least some movement.
It created a permanent record in my hospital file and since then every single fucking lazy specialist points at that as the source of all my health issues.
Nevermind that the psychologist I spoke with regularly for several years determined that I didn’t actually have depression or needed treatment.
Instead I used our sessions to create resilience in my life and learnt a few things about myself.
Nothing really, ASD part was slightly surprising, but ADHD was already known since childhood.
My wallet was more effected than me, especially from the completely useless locally available ADHD meds.
The accompanying talk therapy was kinda pointless as well, like i didn’t get the point of it. I already analyze my behavioral and thought patterns myself from a bystanders perspective, therapist was doing the same just with much more limited information die to limited timeframe.
The socialised health care paradise I live in has accepted my psychiatric diagnoses as part of the reason why I am unable to work. I cannot express how grateful I am for that (and how scared I am looking at how the system is slowly starting to be eroded from the edges).
But also, knowing that there is something in my brain that prevents me from being like others has helped with the negative self-talk. Hasn’t stopped it, of course, because my brain is still my brain and will absolutely doubt a diagnosis if it means I can blame myself instead. But in general, I have a better understanding of what is happening and why I do things. That’s nice.
It’s been kind of a mixed bag because it’s taken a long time to get to the current diagnosis and it’s not necessarily done. Bipolar, Borderline Personality Disorder, ADHD, and Major Depressive Disorder all sort of look like each other and I have been diagnosed with a few of them by different providers. I’ll get one and some medication to go with it and spend a few years ruling it out.
Some of the meds I’ve tried have been rough and others haven’t put a dent in symptoms. I’ve been at it trying to find the right diagnosis and meds for about ten years and at this point I keep trying because I have to know definitively.
Every provider I’ve tried has been hesitant to go with Borderline because of the huge stigma it can have on your chart. According to one doctor she thought that might be the right call but didn’t want to put it on my chart because it would change how every doctor would treat me for the rest of my life, even my gp because it’s a common misconception in the medical field that people with that disorder are pathological liars.
