diagnostic confusion!

...got the breathable air around my trained hand got my lab coat on... got my eduacted gravity heavy on my presumptions I'm very skilled at this!

I'm a doctor!...a mental health expert


maybe I can hit the target?


but?...me?...I'm not the doctor I'm the patient here...


I am so confused...likely just enough to have to seriously want to work this thing out myself!

...it began as just "troubled"

...then it went to ADHD...

soon after it went to "drug addict...with ADHD!"...
then simply "depression"...

quickly followed by "bipolar"...(manic depression")

...and ""anxiety disorder"

and some time later "borderline"...(this diagnosis was delivered with such sincerity!")

....and to finish it all off...another version of "mild autism"...the only version for me apparently!

and inbetween all this?...

I even met an 'expert'....he said there was totally nothing wrong with me....with an unavoidable compelling tone in his voice and a look in his eyes as equally seducing as all the others were insisting I had this and that!

and they were not all he's there were she's too...

...so much time!...so much space wasted I could have filled?...likely not!
I made my choices I medicated myself just as much as they medicated me...at least tried to and mostly caused more problems...

there is a reason why mental illness is still so inconveniently 'not' incorporated into regular society!...

nobody who thinks that they should know how to deal with it...they?...they don't know how to deal with it!

the only people who understand mental illness?...are those who experience it every day and every night.

...and God bless those for trying to apply their training!...surely this deserves much credit!

but I don't know what I am?

am I a hypereractive hypersensitive person subject to manic rapid cycling and also a mentally challenged emotionally crippled man with a death wish overwhelmed by social anxiety?...but with an ability to survive and express in ways that cause me to abuse myself!

I doubt there is a diagnosis for this...and especially no medication....not off the shelf anyway.

to make it to 41...after so many potential medical blunders?

and I won't even include the effects it's had on my 'actual' reality...
the "drama"...the stuff this modern world seems to be so fascinated with!...as long as they aint in 'it!'

I know I don't know myself very well...
but I know whats right and wrong!

and I do a little more thats right than all that I do thats wrong...

the rest?...I have to work it out myself...

I share similar feelings, monkeyman.

Have to say this: don't put too much emphasis on the word "society". What you don't know about "society" would amaze you. Having lived a good bit longer than most of you, I've seen "society" and its changes, its unbelievable inability to be rational about some things, and its weak and strong qualities. Believe me, those are both there and a lot of pretension, as well, among some of the more authoritarian ones. Look for tyranny among a few, and see the compassion and helfulness of most of those who regard "society" as their "thing".

Most of its most beneficial qualities are those of efforts to keep the positive view uppermost and to cover up or hide the human "mistakes" of life.

I prefer the open honesty and integrity of people of deeper thought and greater compassion and thoughtfulness.

"Society" isn't really what many have a conception of its being, frankly, though its positive contributions to life are admirable when they are being done without with the desire to have individual rank and recognition.

I guess I've just seen too much in life.

As a human being, Dubblemonkey, you've got more understanding of human nature than many, many others of any degree of "social standing".