Interesting excerpt. Also I read the linked article. I agree with it.

I got diagnosed as having "major depressive disorder with anxiety." I always felt anxiety was the bigger issue. I think, for me, depression was a way of retreating from anxiety. But, yes, clinicians tended to focus on the depression. With one exception, nothing they ordered - drugwise - helped. Therapy never helped either, and I did it to death, for years and years.

Focusing on the anxiety, what helped was me pushing my way through situations that made me anxious and just facing them. Basically, I had social anxiety - which no one ever diagnosed me with. I would make myself do things I didn't want to do, but felt I wanted to prove to myself I could do them. I would say to myself, "This isn't going to kill you . . . or even hurt you. So just grab the bull by the horns."

I was sensitive and would feel very bad, if I thought I had badly handled myself in a situation amongst other people. Then I would tell myself, "Look I didn't kill anyone, or even harm anyone. Maybe others think I'm weird. Okay, so I'm weird. They'll get over it. I'll move on to the next thing."

I guess - in therapy - you're supposed to gain some big insight that changes how you look at things, and you're then liberated in some way. That never happened to me in any therapist's office. Life experience has given me some hard won insights. Usually that involved some emotional pain. There's dues to pay for everything in life - I believe.

That whole DSM taxonomy has been losing credibility in recent years. It's useful to me to realize that I experience anxiety and that I'm prone to becoming depressed. I like being able to name things. I never believed in the "chemical imbalance" theory, which is also getting thrown out the window, from what I read.

I think "bipolar disorder" is a crock of baloney and doesn't exist. Obviously, some people have striking mood changes. That's an observable reality. But to say that a person has mood fluctuations because they have "fluctuating mood disorder" is a tautology. It's circular thinking. It yields no insight.

Another disorder that I think has become a crock of baloney is PTSD, which now everyone and his dog qualifies for. Anyone born into this world is destined to go through some pretty miserable experiences. That's life. If everyone has PTSD, then it's just part of being human and not a disorder. I do believe in PTSD, as an infrequent disorder that represents someone who is severely stressed by an unusual calamitous experience. It's strange how so few WW2 vets that were POWs claim to have PTSD, but now the incidence has skyrocketed. I know a vet (close relative) who claims to be severely traumatized by the "survivor's guilt" he feels over never having been in combat. Yeah, everyone ones to get on the bandwagon.

25 years ago, dissociative disorder was trending (in the USA.) Suddenly lots of people had multiple personality disorder. Doctors in the UK called it "The American Disease" because it became an epidemic here, but not in Britain.

I think personality disorders are under-diagnosed because being labeled "Axis 2" is taken as an insult. One therapist told me it just means the clinician doesn't like the patient.

What matters is what is missing in a person's life and how does the person go about remedying that deficit.