I understand your point totally. I am not my addiction, I am not my depression. It would not be healthy for me to identify myself with my characteristics or my behaviours. Or identifying yourself with any disease for that matter.


I used to be very sensitive to labels for all those same reasons.


Nowadays it is just a matter of semantics to me. Disease, diagnosis, label. I don't define myself by these any more.


My point is don't you want to have the most accurate diagnosis possible to make informed decisions. I understand that with mental health diagnosis it is as much an art as it is a science and can get very blurred.


When I first started in treatment I did not care how they diagnosed me because it seemed to me all the treatments and meds were all the same no matter what the diagnosis. That was 20 years ago. It probably wasn't totally true then but I certainly don't think it is true today. Your treatment should be tailored to your diagnosis(s). In fact I almost accepted a diagnosis of BPD just to get into a certain treatment group that was new and cutting edge at the time. When they told me it would be permanent record in my charts I decided against it.


It is much more black and white in regular medicine. You have type II diabetes so we are going to treat you in such and such a way. Drugs, diet and exercise. You have hypothyroidism we are going to give you synthroid.