Wandering Coyote left a comment on my last post that was I really resonated with.

I do agree with what you’re saying in this post, but I also believe that it’s important to know where the line between a label and a diagnosis is, because there is a difference. I think it’s totally unfortunate that someone diagnosed you with BPD after 12 minutes. No diagnosis should take place without a complete history being done over more than one session. I’m glad you got DBT, though; so many of my American neighbours either don’t have access or cannot afford the therapy.

Yes, there is a difference between a label and a diagnosis, but I’d never really thought about it before. I realized that I was feeling labeled at times and diagnosed at others. A 12-minute “diagnosis” with no history taken except to know I’d been diagnosed with bipolar disorder sure felt like a label. Might have been 10 minutes, might have been 15, but neither works for making an accurate diagnosis of anyone when you don’t have any history at all.

A lightbulb come on about the complete history done over more than one session. The only mental healthcare folks who did that are the psychiatrist who diagnosed me as bipolar and the therapist who diagnosed me with C-PTSD. Over the 30+ years I’ve been in and out of mental healthcare only two out of many actually got to know me before diagnosing me. All of the others gave a diagnosis after one session at the most, and with no history except what I was able to impart within that hour. One even gave me a “label” and didn’t amend it even though I started having psychotic features and told her. Luckily for me, someone finally took the time to get a complete history.

I do feel lucky about that.  With a diagnosis that fits instead of labels of things that don’t really fit, this last 18 months I’m finally starting to get help that really helps. Meds for the biological stuff, DBT group for improving life in general, and individual trauma therapy for safely trying to let go of that mess as much as humanly possible.  And yes, WC, I am very lucky it’s both available and affordable.

On another lucky note, the Lamictal is making my life more interesting than usual.  I went up to 100mg last week and now I’m uncoordinated/unbalanced when I move, lightheaded and dizzy.    I can’t drive lest I were to pass out at the wheel.  I can walk, but only like a 3-legged duck waddling with the cane M loaned me. It’s a little annoying. My family and friends wonder why it doesn’t upset me.  Because it’s doing something!  All the meds that have turned out to be helpful have had weird effects when I started them or had the dose increased. The ones that had no strange effects ended up with having no effects at all in the long run either. So waddling and feeling lightheaded are good signs to me.  So I’m lucky to be waddling and lightheaded, yes I am.

I’m lucky to have a ride to the therapist today too.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 9th, 2008 at 10:13 am and is filed under bipolar, c-ptsd, meds, mental illness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.