"Mental illness mindset "

I have DID and ptsd, but i am definitely NOT mentally ill. Its not my identity. There is a lot more to me than that. I am a wife, daughter, actress, sister, teacher, child at heart, reader, health nut, child of God, etc. I just happen to have DID, and its not that big of a deal to me 95% of the time.

I like your attitude Starry.

This resonates with me a lot. My situation may be different to many here, but I have suffered with depression and anxiety for the majority of my life. Anxiety pretty much runs my entire being, I have let it take over and now I'm facing the consequences of my panic attacks not allowing me to learn or grow.
I spent years with a therapist trying to convince her there was something wrong with me. Iv always felt I was mentally ill. I couldnt handle the smallest of stresses, i attempted suicide at the age of 15, i dabbled in drugs and found myself as a teenage mother at 17.
I classed myself as mentally ill for a long time. Schizophrenia also runs in my family, so I felt it was the only explanation.

I started seeing a new therapist 5 months ago. During that time I have learned I grew up with a narcissistic mother and treated as a scapegoat. I learned that I was in an abusive relationship with my partner.
I thought for a long time that I couldn't handle life, I wasn't worthy of a better life or good people within it.

Since seeing her, i realized me labelling as myself as mentally ill seriously put a limit on my potential. I thought I just wasn't able, it allowed people to take advantage of me, I settled because I felt abnormal anyway. Now, I realize that the disorders I have dealt with for 15 years or more are treatable. They don't define me or my actions. They are just a reaction to the way my body works and outside interactions.
I finally see my potential and am ready to live my life without labelling myself as mentally ill. I just need a little extra help from medication to work properly

I do not see myself as mentally ill, but, I do have mental illnesses that I accept and no longer let define me. I am ME.

This is an interesting discussion! I saw it this morning and have been pondering on it all day.

I don't think of myself as 'mentally ill', but I suppose I am 'a person who is dealing with a mental illness'. What lolagrace said seems similar to my attitude - it feels like there's an important difference. I don't think my T would ever think of me as a 'mentally ill person' either. As a humanistic therapist it's not really his job to label me - or any of his clients - that way.

I've never felt that my anxiety is really part of me. I'm not by nature an anxious person - the opposite, in fact. It feels like an invader, like a mental tumour... and a person with cancer wouldn't call themselves 'a cancerous person', would they?

Having said that, I'm not sure that my refusal to recognise my anxiety as part of me does me much good - desperately fighting it all the time mostly just ends up causing me more suffering. I also agree with others that fighting mental health stigma is important - perhaps I should be shouting from the rooftops: "I'M MENTALLY ILL!"...

Thanks for starting this interesting thread, GC!

I don't consider myself as having a mental illness -- I'll admit I tend to view most classifications of MI as something that society slaps on when it doesn't understand behavior and thought processes that don't adhere to extant conventional / mainstream norms.

Having said that, I also absolutely dread therapists tacking on MI diagnoses on my immediate family.

Two of my immediate family members (a parent and sibling) wouldn't quite pass a sniff test of 'functional' and so, I've been aware of that for a while. But, I do consider the other parent (and ahem....myself) as high-functioning and not dealing with any serious effects of MI.

However, former T had slapped on an MI diagnosis on the 'sane' / 'functional' parent -- think she did it mostly to help me make sense of behavior that was driving me nuts (a year into therapy with her).

Current T early on made a big to-do on how she never diagnoses anyone she hasn't met etc.

Fast forward to earlier this week and I came in distraught with stuff that the 'sane' parent's done -- current T after trying to coax anger etc out of me (all in vain) and after seeing that I was pretty much showing classic signs of PTSD etc, went on hurriedly to say that she thinks the parent has X diagnosis. I kinda just stared at her and she immediately corrected herself and said that she wouldn't diagnose anyone she hasn't met

I think the puzzling thing for me in this whole situation is that I have no idea why Ts think that believing that my immediate family suffers from some MI is supposed to help me cope better. I'm not sitting in some grad seminar where I can look at their behavior with detachment and say "Yep, Person A is exhibiting classic symptoms of X diagnosis" and somehow feel comforted by the thought. I still have the emotional fallout from whatever they do and just knowing that they may or may not have some specific MI doesn't give me any sense of peace.

So, I guess I'd just say that I'm really really wary of MI labels. I know I've mentioned here (and in other places) stuff about trauma but I don't think of myself as a trauma case either -- that again feels like it's reducing a lot of complexity in my life to a bunch of specific things that happened.

Sorry about the rant -- I'll stop right about here.

This has been a really interesting read. My personal take is that there are DSM diagnoses that are not mental illnesses such as addictions, ADHD, anxiety, PTSD and others. But I see that not everyone here would agree with that. If those of us here can't reach consensus, no wonder it is hard to agree out IRL.

None of my ts has said that I am mentally ill, however when I have said that I am, they don't argue. Possibly because they believe there are different ways of viewing it and that whatever I want to believe is ok.

I plan on being "cured"-which for me means functioning well, being content, staying present. I would not be happy believing that I needed to be on meds for life, but perhaps with a different diagnosis I would be ok with that. In my way of thinking, everything that goes on in my brain is done by teeny little chemical or electrical reactions. Memories, seeing, ideas, beliefs, emotions. So perhaps I can change those interactions with meds, perhaps with therapy, perhaps with diet or exercise, perhaps with meditation, etc. But even the decision to try to change those little chemical interactions requires little chemical reactions. The mind is a wonderous thing. Parts of mine do not make/use/metabolize neurotransmitters as I would like. That is something that I can work on.

I think the only reason for a therapist to talk about a family member's MI traits—and I don't think they could do much more than talk about traits—would be to give a more detached perspective to the family member as a way to help a client not blame themselves for why the family member acted the way they did.

(GC -- apologies for hijacking your thread some.)

rr -- thank you for this. Your point makes sense -- I think I've been a trifle too agitated by all the crap going down to think clearly about it. And, displacing my anger on current T's real and imagined wrongs appears to be the sellout show in town.

And, I also think a part of me is (childishly) terrified that there's little hope for me -- just in terms of the odds of escaping pure biology -- if my immediate family is 'diagnosed' with stuff (although I rationally know this isn't necessarily the case).

I guess I would identify as having a mental illness.. I hate the stigma that people have about it.

The term "mentally ill" actually doesn't make any sense. It medicalizes that which is not medical... unless there is a true medical issue (endocrine disease, infectious disease, gut disease, etc) that is causing mental symptoms, but in that case you would be "physically ill".

Good quote about DSM diagnoses:
"Defining a made-up thing or naming the attributes of a made-up thing does not make that thing exist." -- Eric Maisel, PhD

Maisel also points out how the basic definition of mental disorder changed significantly between DSM 4 and 5, even though nothing in external reality changed. A sure sign that it's largely fabrication. It's a load of feces, folks. Challenge the paradigm or get swallowed by it.

Last time I told t that I don't deserve a therapy because I have no problems, but he said I definitely have problems and that every his colleague would already hospitalized me.

I don't think I'm "ill", but on the other hand my diagnosis makes me feel relieved

I feel no need to sugarcoat my situation.

4 years ago, ex-T emailed me "we are going to get you well..." - I was SO angry, my response was that I didn't and never had, thought of myself as 'ill'.

Even though I now accept I have a depressive disorder and generalised anxiety, I still can't think of myself as 'ill'...
Perhaps I'm in denial.