I’ve Been Diagnosed; Now What?

 Welcome back, my friend. I’m so glad you’re here. We touched on the concept of awareness last week as one of our foundational blocks in your wellness journey and today we are going to add another block to our wellness foundation by addressing diagnoses. I have several of those myself, a nice little bowl of alphabet soup: MDD, C-PTSD, ADHD, OCD, a ED, GAD, misophonia, trilliomania, and dermatillomania are a few. Let’s look at the definition of “diagnosis” for a moment: 

Diagnosis is defined as the identification of the nature of an illness or other problem by examination of the symptoms. 

Thanks to social media, we are starting to see a decrease in the stigma of mental illness and diagnoses. However, it is still there and I’ll be honest, it still feels a little weird listing out my diagnoses for the world to see. When I received my diagnoses, I felt a punch in my gut that felt like shame, hopelessness, failure and overwhelm combined. Maybe you too have experienced those feelings when you were diagnosed. But the beautiful thing about these things is it gives us an explanation for behavior that doesn’t feel like us, the real us. A diagnosis can help us get the help we need; medicine, therapy, support groups, etc.

Note that I didn’t say, being diagnosed with a mental health illness excuses us from our behaviors. But it helps us neutralize the debilitating shame of unexplained behaviors, thoughts and words by finding the root of where it came from. Once we have that knowledge, we can find tools to help us manage our diagnosis and move forward with a plan on how to show up as the person we want to be in the world. For example, one of my symptoms of the OCD diagnosis is I have intrusive thoughts. Not the silly “oh I want to dye my hair blue” ones that you see pop up in reels all the time on Instagram, but pretty dark ones that come out of nowhere. I’ve had these thoughts since I was a kid and for years, I was terrified of them. Which made me hide in shame, terrified of who I thought I was. But when I was diagnosed with OCD and my therapist told me intrusive thoughts were a symptom of that, I was relieved. Now I had an answer, an explanation for these random, terror inducing thoughts and now when an intrusive thought pops in my head, all I have to say is “Oh, that’s just an intrusive thought” and mentally sweep it away. The diagnosis neutralized it and gave me a plan on how to manage. 

Obviously, your story might be different from mine. But the root of the story remains the same; instead of thinking of your diagnosis with shame or embarrassment, what if you instead thought of it as a piece of data you could use to understand yourself and to give yourself compassion for what you’re dealing with on a daily basis? Or giving compassion to a relative or friend struggling with a diagnosis. A little bit of compassion can go a long way; never underestimate the power of compassion. Let’s think back to the definition of diagnosis. The term is neutral and is a statement about data. We allow any diagnosis to be shameful or embarrassing because of the thoughts we attach to that word. And if the diagnosis still feels overwhelming, that’s ok. You’re allowed to feel overwhelmed, maybe that’s what you need to allow yourself to feel in order to process it and move forward. But above all, I’d love for you to practice giving yourself compassion. Whether it’s because you have a mental health diagnosis or you’re feeling frustrated because the kids won’t stop whining or you have a “blessed” life and yet, it’s hard to drag yourself out of bed on a daily basis. You are human, you are loveable and you deserve compassion, no matter how many times you’ve snapped today. What does compassion look like for you? How do you want to show up for yourself today?

Suggested Tool: Say out loud to yourself (bonus points if you say it to yourself in front of a mirror!) 5 things you love about yourself. This can be that you love your eyes or your kindness or the fact that your elbows bend correctly. If you can’t find 5 things, then say 3 things and if you can’t find 3 things, then say 1 thing. (and if you have elbows, I’ve already given you one for free ;) )