Do you think you're a <insert medical, psychological condition>? Are you? Why?

I’ve never been diagnosed with anything, but I often suspect that there might be something slightly wrong with me, if I compare my thought process and emotional means to deal with things with that of other people.
Of course that may mean nothing at all, as I can’t get into other people’s heads to really confirm any significant differences, and most people actually have some form of mental illness or another. Just that, in many cases it’s not bad enough to hinder with every day life as decreed by society’s norms.

On the other hand plenty of folks go through life with severe mental illnesses and nobody ever knows, not even themselves, and don’t get treated. This is why, although I know it’s wrong of me to think so, I get extremely frustrated and annoyed by people who HAVE been diagnosed with something and just won’t stop wearing it as a badge and use it to justify everything they do.

Either way though, I’ve never been medically labeled with anything. I’ve seen professional help at school and a few years after, but I think it was mostly to test my interpretation of morality and social conduct which may, or may not, have been questionable to some, especially representatives of educational establishments.
Can’t be that bad however, as I’ve never had any real feedback from the many sessions I had to attend.

I have had type 1 diabetes for 20 years and was recently diagnosed with ms.These labels can be useful in showing others that these things are nothing to fear and I try to be an example of how to kick some ass when dealt a “bad” hand….and I do:)

I have been diagnosed as <Overdiagnosed>. Like most of America. I’m nervous, sometimes sad, all over the place, and overdramatic at times…but I’ve finally realized I’m not clinical anything. I’ll be just fine, I’m just certifiably human. snap. snap.

My thoughts exaclty @Symbeline – from my years of stying biopsych, one thing is clear. We’re all crazy. So if that’s a fact, the only thing that matters is how, and how can we improve the quality of our lives.

I’m also a proponent of positive-psych. Not just improving what seems maladaptive or negative, but improving the quality of life of every person.

Personally I find labels are unavoidable if you’re trying to create a categorical system. And you need categories to be organized. Biology labels animals, but all animals are constantly changing – so the labels have to adapt and move along as well.

It’s so easy to get one’s identity burried under a label, feeling singled out, looking at the “normals” and feeling abnormal. But given the realization, there is no real normal – I think one ought to be better off :)

http://comedians.jokes.com/john-caparulo/videos/john-caparulo---type-b-personality

thought everyone would enjoy this…pretty funny about type b personalities!

answering your question: call me anything you like! just words…loll

I think I am a need to know, need to understand type of person. Is there a word for that?

@JLeslie we can turn this into a – write your own label event!
I’ll pass out blank name-tags and markers :)

@phoebusg Psychology and its science is also extremely complex and still very much within an infantile stage, so I don’t personally think it’s as simple as categorization and labeling. If it was that simple I’m thinking we’d be much further ahead with these issues.

@Symbeline I wasn’t referring to that when mentioning categorization, just that you need it – but it’s a necessary evil. It solidifies your view, helps you organize. But you need to be able to see through categories all the time.

I wouldn’t say psych or biopsych are infantile still. Conflict resolution studies is, but it’s also an important viewpoint. Most theories that I use are proven to a pulp with excruciating repetition and endless statistical analysis. Enough stats to make you gag :P That said, you have to see through that as well. It’s just another label. All knowledge is connected – and doesn’t live under neat labels of this or that.

Anybody that knows me personally or been a passenger in my car knows all too well I am a Type A personality all the way. Interestingly at work I am just the opposite but knowing I am a Type A I believe adds fuel to the fire and encourages me to fulfill my labeled personality. Maybe I need to think I am a Type B and give out more hugs….

I am a type-2 diabetic and a chocolate chip cookie addict.

There is much conflict going on.

@phoebusg Hahaha. Then we can submit them all for the DSM. We need the Latin for know and understand, I know the Spanish, assuming it comes from the Latin root, Saber, and comprender, or entender. I’ll work on it. JK LOL.

@phoebusg—Hmm, maybe. If I were to use more accurate words, I’d guess that psychology seems shoddy as it does because it doesn’t seem to be all that primary an issue in modern society? (Countless mentally ill people out in the streets for example.)
As for labeling, sure we need it, but because of psychology’s backstep, people might rely on said labeling too much and have an entirely wrong idea of themselves and situation for their whole lives. especially if it is as advanced as I otherwise believe it to be.—

I try so hard to be Type A, but my Type Z traits overrule it ALL!!!

@cprevite -I know how you feel :))

No, I’m not. I have been ill, just like I’ve had the flu and so on, but the idea that one can identify with an illness does not compute for me. One can’t “be” an illness.

@Symbeline I’m up for discussing common misconceptions about what Psychology and related disciplines such as biopsych (neuroscience) are and what they’re not in private or in another question, maybe put one up :)

But as far as labels resulting to “blocking”, I fully agree. Thinking your diagnosis is all you needed, may make one stop the search. Or paying attention to yourself, observing etc. All labels are on a continuum and with individual differentiation. All birds have wings, but some don’t use them as such – and others have claws on them.

@phoebusg Yeah don’t mind me lol, I always go off topic everywhere. XD But yeah, the aforementioned could be a very interesting question.

@aprilsimnel You bring up a good point. We tend to label people and they become their label, which is wrong, it is damaging in some ways. I am a diabetic, instead I have diabetes, or I am a person with diabetes. Like you are the disease, it becomes a persons identity, which can feel unchangeable I think.

I’ve been diagnosed with depression in the past but I never felt that it defined me in any way. It was a temporary illness which is now gone.

I’ve been told this many times. I’ll say, “I’m bipolar,” and someone will chide me for saying that. “You’re not your disorder,” they will say. I know they say the same thing to people with cancer. “You are not your cancer.”

Instead: “You are living with cancer;” “living with AIDS.” “You have bipolar disorder.”

Honestly, I don’t see what the big deal is. I’m bipolar. So what? What is this identifying with the disorder? It’s just words. Identification is a behavior. But people seem to worry that I’ll use bipolar to define myself in some way. Well, how? How can a mental disorder define me? I’m way too much more than bipolar disorder. Yet, whenever I say that, people always seem to worry that I have somehow become my disorder (whatever that means), and have been smushed down into a definition the size of a pea.

@Symbeline says, ”I get extremely frustrated and annoyed by people who HAVE been diagnosed with something and just won’t stop wearing it as a badge and use it to justify everything they do.”

What does this mean? If people have a disease, then it does affect their lives. What makes anyone else qualified to decide if someone is using it as an excuse or is “legitimately” disabled by it? How denigrating is that? And with a person with mental illness, it is guaranteed to make them feel worse about themselves and blame themselves for their condition, and it could easily throw them into a depression.

I don’t think people who have never experienced depression can possibly understand what it’s like. For 51 years of my life, I was one of those people. I hardly believed in depression and I didn’t think drugs made a different (lazy man’s way), and that, if they really wanted to, they could pull themselves out of it.

When I got a diagnosis of bipolar and went into a depression, I realized I had had no idea. None at all. I can write and write about it, and use all kinds of metaphors, and you’ll think I’m exaggerating or waxing poetic or some such, and discount it. I’m just malingering or something.

I don’t know. Perhaps I am. But how can anyone know? And how is it helpful to me to judge me? How?

One thing we learn in group therapy is how to listen. We listen sympathetically, and we tell people that their worst shames are ok. That’s what happens when you have this disorder. In fact, sometimes I think folks go farther than I would go in “letting people off the hook.”

However, it works. Shame is what keeps a lot of people sick. It’s a never ending spiral—sometimes to death. When you release some of the shame, people can start to work on themselves. They can put some of the shit behind them.

I really don’t like it when someone tells me how to define myself or not define myself. Why do they get to say who I am? When did they become God? I think such people are well-meaning. They think there is some psychological factor at work here, so that if you say “I’m this” or “I’m that,” it will somehow have a negative impact on how they see themselves or their capabilities. This, too, is nonsense. It is condescending bullshit—very disrespectful.

I’m sorry, but I know a hell of a lot more about who I am than you ever will. Have the decency to have some respect for your fellow humans. Think about what it says about you that you can say such a thing? That you can judge? That you can believe you know more about a person than they know about themselves.

Think about this, too. When you say that someone is using their illness as a way to get out of it, you are saying that a person wants to remain sick. They are milking their illness. I don’t know, but I don’t see how anyone who has ever been sick could think this. How can you possible think that someone wants to be sick. And especially if it’s mental illness. Do you think we want to die?

Everyone I know would much rather be a productive citizen. They’d rather work, which sometimes they can’t because then they lose disability and health insurance and their meds, and end up back in the hospital for just trying to regain a bit of dignity.

I’m sorry, but arguing with me about how I talk about myself makes me sicker, not healthier. It makes me angry. It gives me a fucking headache for God’s sake!

I’m bipolar. So what? I’m crazy. So what? I’m a liberal. So what? I’m a musician and a dancer and a writer. So what? I’m a husband and a father and a cheater. So what?

No one thing defines me, nor does one thing define anyone. If you don’t like how I behave, you don’t have to listen to me or talk to me or spend any time with me or work with me. If I wear my diagnosis as a badge, well then you know exactly who I am and you should just walk right on by. We don’t need to interact. How do you justify what you do? Do you even have a clue as to why you do what you do? You may think so, but you probably have no idea how much of your motivation comes from unconscious thinking.

In any case, nothing is more off-putting than someone who thinks he or she is better than me because they don’t use any excuses to not do something. This kind of Puritan pseudo-holiness just sickens me. Next time you hear someone offer an excuse—any excuse whatsoever—not to do something, do me a favor. Try not to shame them. It doesn’t help. It makes things so much worse.

It’s often been said that I’m an asshole

@wundayatta “I know a hell of a lot more about who I am than you ever will” – ‘you’ including the person who gave you this label. Very true, but one more reason that you’re not your label. You are you, and currently use this label – hopefully for your betterment.
The label may help to some extent to accept that something may be wrong, to get you going on a healing path as you state. Your therapist is there to help you – figure out strategies to help yourself. You are the one with the most information (if you attend to it – sit in the middle of it – and watch it go) about yourself.

You seem to have a lot of emotion(s) behind this. But again, as you say: “Do you even have a clue as to why you do what you do?”. I could be wrong but you’re making some assumptions about people’s intentions there. Although you recognize people intend to help, you’re labeling them back. You said it’s all behavior, so what behavior are you focusing on in terms of labeling?

One thought on emotions. They are just a secondary information system – geared mostly to priority environmental reactions (fight/flight interactions etc) but also an interface for bodily signals and interconnected systems. That means, it is also a processing system, and as such it can be checked. You can de-construct why you’re feeling a certain way, in relation to what etc. Emotional intelligence, as it’s called – is one very important aspect of intelligence for the above reasons. And often left out, ignored, or left almost completely unchecked/examined.

You mention respect, and disrespect, two more labels. But do you question them? What does it mean to be respectful? To me it means to say the truth as I see it to everyone that I encounter, I try to focus on the delivery – but I taking away from it – is what I consider disrespectful.

In that sense, I respect your answer. Only it’s a little hard to follow. But so far—this is a great discussion on labels :)

I’m a walking series of labels, it’s about all that is left of me. Aspergers Syndrome, depression, grief, uselessness. None of these labels do me any good. I have to take pills to avoid going suicidal.
The diagnosis of AS came far to late in my life (late 40s) for anything to be done about it, all treatments are for children diagnosed with it. The diagnosis was just an “aha!” moment, explaining why I’d been a social zero my entire life, despite a high IQ and stellar academic performance.
I should probably add “asshole” to my list of labels, since that is what most people who have met me face-to-face would call me.

No, I am not. But my friend, is an idiot. If only she would follow my lead, do as I suggest, she could function (somewhat) normally in society.

@UScitizen idiot (from Greek) means owner. In antiquity, owners too preoccupied only with their possessions were—wait for it… idiots. Contrary to those that contributed to the common good. The story of some word-labels is particularly interesting.

@phoebusg I did not use the word “label” once in my comment. Perhaps I missed the point. I was thinking about something else.

I’m afraid I’m not sure what the significance of a label is, other than to name something, and why that is a problem. Are we saying the name is not the thing? Can’t be. That’s perfectly obvious. So maybe someone could enlighten me as to why labels are bad?

Generally, it seems to me, labels name things. They are nouns. I’m a bit weirded out by the idea that a label describes something. You are respectful. That’s an attribute, not a label.

When I say “I’m bipolar,” I’m saying that’s an attribute of me. I am not writing “bipolar” down on a label and sticking it to my chest. Perhaps this is a little confusion in language. I am saying “I’m bipolar,” not, “I am a bipolar.” The latter would be labeling.

I think it is disrespectful to tell someone what to do without them having asked for your advice first. I think it is respectful to have no complaints about how someone chooses to talk. I believe it is my job to try to understand another person. It is disrespectful to tell someone else how to talk about something. I know I’m in a minority in a place full of grammarians and spelling fanatics, but I think the onus is on the listener to try to understand, not the speaker to change his or her words to conform with the listeners expectations.

So, since this does seem to be a discussion about semantics and we seem to be losing the discussion about identity and feelings, I don’t really have much to say. There’s a word—a big long word—that escapes me that describes this kind of discussion. Meta-something? Ontological?

@RareDenver -LOL! :)

@wundayatta well spoken again. You are a good writer. Your comment however felt like it has a lot behind it. And although you went to some extent to face, there are a lot of questions there to achieve completion. In me, at least, it’s created more questions than answers – which is not necessarily a bad thing :)

I disagree on – speaking your mind being disrespectful, as I described previously. If you think someone is speaking in a way not understood – and this is your honest opinion, it is only respectful to voice that opinion without being too personal. Do you mean to be disrespectful? Or are you giving back accurate feedback as to how you really think as a person.

The latter helps both conversation parties learn from each other’s feedback and correct accordingly – or so I like to hope ;)

Words are only temporary vessels for ideas that live in our heads. Only in our heads they have a million attributes – and in language only a few dozens at most. Language is great, but the world of ideas inside our respective heads is much richer. We unavoidably impoverish our ideas and strip them out of their natural connected web-like world, to pass them across. But in doing so, they are losing their true sense, true attributes.
As such, labels are but temporary vessels, holding this or that, for the social collective to process it. It’s what we’ve got, but it’s limited. What I suggest is being careful about the limitations, open about them, and accepting/aware to the difficulties they create.

I don’t think you can have a completely isolated discussion. We’re still trying to answer the original question, but everything is connected. Slicing it up and putting in a box gives us less information about it in the world, rather than more – don’t you think? :)

@wundayatta Speaking of judging others, I think you’re going a little too far into defining my exact words and their meanings with my comment, which, I thought I had made clear, was in reflection towards people who have severe mental illnesses but are never diagnosed for them. They may need just as much as help as someone who has been diagnosed, and my frustration lies with how these people are dismissed because they haven’t been diagnosed. So they can’t be sick; it doesn’t say anywhere that they are.
I didn’t say, either, that said dismissal was perpetrated only by people who have diagnosed illnesses. It just bothers me that many of them seem to think they’re an exception because they’ve been diagnosed.
No, I can’t read in people’s minds, nor do I claim that every single person does it, but it’s something which I’ve observed.
If I’m wrong, someone like you fails to convince me, what with calling other people “mundanes” or assuming that I have no idea what depression is.
I don’t see how you’re doing anything different than what you’re accusing me of doing, really.

I have to have been diagnosed as depressive to know what depression is? Any suicidal attempts just a hissy fit? Is that what you’re saying?

A lot of people have mental illnesses, or traces thereof, but because you’ve been diagnosed with something, that gives you the right to think you can assume anything about me, but I can’t? You can think you’re better than I, but not me? Essentially that is what you’re doing. Me saying it annoys me that some people use medical records in court rooms or social behaviour wasn’t me thinking I’m better than they are, far from it, I’m saying it annoys me. That doesn’t mean I think they’re lesser people, or that they’re trying to “stagnate” and not wanting to get better.
Maybe you’re taking it too personal, because I have negative things to say about everything and everyone, and I mean every single one of these things. This includes my own person. Trust me.

And my comment stands, whether you think it’s true or not; a lot of people will use their mental illnesses to justify their actions, whether that’s legitimate or not. You gotta look into it further than my little comment, (You’re certainly able to look further with everything else, so I don’t see why this would be a problem.) I wasn’t saying it’s to use other people, but perhaps to find a reason, an approach or some way to feel better, or maybe more “normal”. I just said it annoyed me, usually in relation to how mental illnesses is treated.
I apologize for my lack of elaboration, and I imagine what it must sound like since my approach to most of everything seems pessimistic, but that’s all I’ll say about that.

If I knew someone was gonna take it personally, I would have elaborated greatly.

If everything I said doesn’t apply to you, pleased to take your strawman’s dick out of my mouth.

@wundayatta Agree with you on the annoyance of the “living with___” corrections. I am autistic. It has affected my life so profoundly that it largely defines my identity.

@Symbeline How far down have you been? What was it like at the bottom for you?

When someone tells me “you are not your disorder,” what makes me bristle is that they aren’t owning their statement. If they said, “I don’t think of you as bipolar,” or “I am offended when you call yourself bipolar,” they are owning the thought. But putting it on the bipolar person is judging, it seems to me.

Then there is this blanket, inspecific generalization. There must be a term for it. As you used “straw man” with me. “It just bothers me that many of them seem to think they’re an exception because they’ve been diagnosed.” I can see you are bothered by something, but who is the “them” and where is the evidence to show they think they’re and exception due to a diagnosis? Who are these people? How many are there? Where do you run into them? Of what consequence is it to you? Does it affect your life (or anyone’s life) in any material way?

You say it again, later: “a lot of people will use their mental illnesses to justify their actions, whether that’s legitimate or not.” What is the basis for this assertion? Pardon me if I think it is a sign of prejudice of some kind because there is no evidence to support it. I have heard this from several people, and I’ve never understood it, and it always feels to me like a slur on my integrity.

Now I wish I could say something suitably pornographic about your straw man, but I think he just went up in flames.

@phoebusg Something similar for you. What I find disrespectful is someone telling me what I should do or who I am. As I told @Symbeline, if you own the statement, then it isn’t disrespectful. If you push it on me, then I feel diminished, as if you know me better than I do.

Don’t forget, my self-esteem is precarious. There are times when I will agree with you, and I will try to please you by being the me you tell me I am. I will think I am owning my behavior, but what I am really doing is trying to own someone else’s idea of what my problem is.

I apologize (a little) for any generalizing or labeling I may have done in my above comments. This is an issue that strikes a nerve in me—something I have wondered about, and have never received a satisfying answer to. I find it interesting that this is something that, to my recollection, I have only heard women say.

Let me ask, what do you mean when you call something a label, and you tell people not to say, “I’m [whatever]” and to replace it with “I have [whatever]?”

@wundayatta How far down have you been? What was it like at the bottom for you?

I doubt it matters much to anyone but me, and I don’t see why I should talk about it to you. If you’re wanting to know merely as a barometric indication to whether or not I know what depression really is, what you might dictate as right or wrong based on my comprehension or experiences of anything really isn’t my concern.

When someone tells me “you are not your disorder,” what makes me bristle is that they aren’t owning their statement. If they said, “I don’t think of you as bipolar,” or “I am offended when you call yourself bipolar,” they are owning the thought. But putting it on the bipolar person is judging, it seems to me.

And I didn’t say any of that.
If anything, when someone tells me they’ve been diagnosed, I take it seriously. I believe that such was evident. I never said it was to be mocked or laughed at.
I can’t help it however if some of the observations I’ve had seem to annoy me, and I also believe that I acknowledged, on my first comment, that it was wrong of me to do so. Yet, I can’t lie to them, nor to myself.

An example is, people who glorify the idea of suicide piss me off because we end up paying attention to them when they don’t actually mean it, yet someone who does truly contemplate death says nothing, is ignored and eventually kills themselves.

However, I highly acknowledge that, even if, say the person who talks about suicide alla time isn’t actually suicidal, the fact that they’re trying to get attention by fucking with that notion is still a call for help for something, and they should not be dismissed. I mean for all I know, it could be true. Never ignore someone who talks about it, even if it’s a joke or some kinda Emo scheme.

Then there is this blanket, inspecific generalization. There must be a term for it. As you used “straw man” with me.

A strawman argument is when you’re condemning someone for things that, while related to the discussion at hand, are nothing that the person said. You’re doing this with me, thinking somehow that I was attacking you, which is false because I posted that before being aware that you were in the discussion.
I repeat, I mean nothing inflammatory or degrading towards mentally ill people with my comments, I just said it annoys me.

I can see you are bothered by something, but who is the “them” and where is the evidence to show they think they’re and exception due to a diagnosis? Who are these people? How many are there? Where do you run into them?

It happens often. People might use their mental illnesses say if they’re charged with a crime, or to explain their behaviours that would, for a mundane one such as me, be unacceptable.
I find it very sad that the majority think that most mentally ill people can’t act, think or be trusted to behave on their or by their own, which is obviously wrong. Many are aware and intelligent. You can’t actually blame them for using whatever is at their disposal to survive, but as I said, I can’t help it if I think it’s annoying.
Whatever the case, I don’t downgrade the intellect or the intents of others based on their situation because of their behaviours. In fact it’s quite the contrary. I’m not sure where I went wrong in displaying this, but then I am thinking you’re taking it way too personally. If it doesn’t concern you, I don’t see what the problem is.

Where does it happen? It’s a huge online meme for one. It happened when I was in high school, and I’ve seen it at work.
But if you’re so stuck with the idea that I mock your integrity, which isn’t the case because I don’t think about you, or your feelings, in either a good or bad way, there isn’t much that I can do to convince you, unless you believe that every single person who has a mental illness acts exactly as you do.
That sounds contradictory on my behalf, but see below.
There are some who are mature about it, like a good friend of mine on this very forum, and some who aren’t so much, like a very intelligent guy I used to know who had it all, ecxept for the fact that he thought it was okay for him to punch out anyone who pissed him off because he had Asperger’s. I don’t know how he reasoned that, but I really doubt the illness is what caused it. He was WAY too smart for that. Mostly because of said issue though, he was always released from custody while anybody else woulda been stuck in remand for weeks.

I’m currently dealing with a very good friend who also has Asperger’s, and he’s extremely insensitive and rude without knowing it. If we point it out, he realizes what he’s done and almost starts crying for having hurt someone. Yet he still uses it as an excuse…somehow though, he and I are borderline best friends, whether I’m totally wrong or not. Jee how can that be amirite?

Of what consequence is it to you? Does it affect your life (or anyone’s life) in any material way?

You might be surprised. A lot of things people say or do have significant reverberations on the lives and thoughts of others, too. If you don’t see it yourself beyond it happening just to you, (As you’ve shown by saying that if I harbour the thought, it’s an insult to you, whether my thought has that intent or not.) as I am, apparently, an evident cause of, (Otherwise why such an uproar on something I said which I was certain was neutral, as I obviously stated my wrongs by saying I shouldn’t think that way and that I’m not a mind reader in my very first post.) it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t happen to others.
So please correct me if I’m wrong, but by asking me if what people say or do affects me, I’m to understand that you’re insinuating it actually doesn’t whatsoever and that I should get on with my life, but if I say something you don’t like, I’m totally raping your feelings?

Of course there I go thinking I know what is in all the heads around me amirite? No, I think Mr. Strawman Boner stands quite proud. I’ll admit, right now I’m doing a lot of assumptions, but it’s nothing different than what you’ve dealt me.

Wow, read my book for the week! loll

Sometimes it’s hard to see what someone’s finger is pointing to – if you stare at the finger.

Thank you @Symbeline. That was an interesting read. I think we’re both personalizing this too much. I was angry not at you specifically, and maybe not at what you said, but at the line I have heard many times which I think represents a condescending attitude. However, I may have personalized it simply because you were convenient, and I was in high dudgeon. I apologize for that.

As to personal experiences with depression—I don’t think it matters what you’ve experienced. You talk like someone who has not experienced it. That doesn’t mean you haven’t. Most people—no—every person I’ve met so far who has experienced depression has never spoken that way. You could be an exception, of course. That’s my experience, and you have yours, and I in no way intend to invalidate your experience.

@wundayatta Indeed, I admit, this strayed much further than the actual question, although hopefully both our posts make for an interesting read to some others. And like I told Phoebusg, I tend to go off topic without knowing it, so that doesn’t help.
But eh it happens, and if you did personalize it too much, well so did I in the end haha.
I think somehow, we can go on from here though.