I'm anxious. I have alternate personalities (DID) to help me with that, and even that is a mental illness. On top of all that, I have OCD, an anxiety-based disorder. Then I also have PTSD symptoms on top of all of that. I use coping skills to manage or even prevent panic attacks, but the nightmares, flashbacks, and intrusive thoughts remain. I think "anxiety" is an understatement for me.

I also never get why people are so vague with their diagnoses on certain forums or in certain mental-health-based publications. When they say, "I have depression and anxiety," that could mean a million diagnoses, or not even one. Many people who don't meet the requirements of a mental disorder/mental illness will experience both depression and anxiety. To be clinically depressed or clinically anxious is a whole different playing field. Are you unipolar (major depressive) or bipolar (manic-depressive)? Or do you have depression with PTSD, etc.? Is your anxiety from trauma (PTSD), or from something more neurological, like OCD? Do you suffer from panic attacks with your "anxiety," or something else? I wished that people were more to the point, more clear, and less hidden. It's the secrecy and denials and all of that that reinforce the mental health stigmas, including specific diagnoses.