Thanks for that reply.
Hmm. I definitely feel like I'm treatment-resistant. I've spent most of my adult life in and out of therapy. Have tried cognitive behavioral, individual talk therapy, support groups, lots of meds. Overall I've found that once the initial novelty and hope of therapy wears off I slide back into my habit of isolation and emotional self-defense.
For all this, aside from obsessive compulsive disorder nobody has ever really given me a mental health diagnosis. (The OCD is a gimme, I used to stay up all night checking door locks, but it's gotten better in recent years.) My psychiatrist treats me - pharmaceutically, I mean - for depression but she's never told me I have chronic depression, and I don't actually think I do. I'm a cancer patient, recently finished treatment, so it's like she's treating me to deal with the stress of that, rather than an underlying mental health issue.
Yeah I dunno. This is probably misguided but oftentimes I wish someone would just diagnose me. Then at least I'd know wtf is wrong with me. I know it wouldn't really make me better, but I'm not getting better anyway, so...