The Mental Illness Thread

[Angrboda]

Is being diagnosed/aware of the illness in any way comforting or reassuring to you? Regarding the irrational ideas (if you don't mind me asking)

It can help some with the tendency to blame oneself which comes with depression. However the tendency to self-blame is part of the depression, so it can only go so far. When I'm really depressed, I tend to blame myself anyway.

It didn't help with the psychotic delusions. Even though I knew other people considered those thoughts to be delusional, I couldn't separate myself from the idea that I just "knew" they were true and real. Only medication has allowed me to put some distance between myself and my delusions. Even so, a small voice inside me occasionally wonders....

The one aspect that being diagnosed does have is it can help point the way to managing the illness. I was 17 when I had my first major depression, and I was psychotic from much younger. It wasn't until I was 27 that I started getting help for mental illness, and it wasn't until then that I realized that there are ways of combating what I was going through, and ways of coping when I can't combat it. It's taken another two decades to get to a place where the meds are helping sufficiently that I can see the day coming when I might not have to feel so miserable all the time. None of that could have occurred without diagnosis. (I wasn't diagnosed as schizoaffective until 2008, so it's only been 7 years combating my psychotic schizo symptoms.)