I think that a diagnosis can be important really just in the sense of treatment....

I get that 'labels' can also be harmful especially if they're incorrect

In my own case I didn't sleep for 8 days.... I heard voices in bushes... had shadow people jumping out at me... I was completely paranoid at the time... It was awful

When I was treated and the treatment was effective it really helped me a great deal

I had been struggling with depression and anxiety for years and eventually I had a really rough time with sleep

I felt I knew what was happening and had been happening for a time..... So I found that having a 'diagnosis or label' helped me with research and more understanding myself if that makes sense

In my case I believe the 'label' was the correct one so for me it didn't cause me distress.... It was really a relief

I think if mistakes are made or things go off of the rails somehow that can be a whole other can of worms.... xo

total agreement that a name for ^it^ is a great place to start. call ^it^ tom, jane or harry, if you like. the ptsd dx wasn't available in 1972 and i remain grateful i didn't wait the extra 25 years to wait for a more viable explanation until i got to work on the symptoms. i still solidly believe i picked up some valuable and functional tools under the manic depression/bipolar treatment plans. the lithium didn't help much, but it didn't wreck my kidneys, either, thank god.

i still hold i was right to encourage my son not to argue the paranoid schizophrenia dx, despite the heavy stigma attached. no, i don't believe the dx played into his death or compromised the quality of his short life.

mostly curious where the plethora of newer schizo______ dx'es are all going

arfie, I find you to be very open to anything you have learned in the course of therapy or support group reflection on your mental health journey. If you question a dx like paranoid schizophrenia for your son or yourself, then, in that
arfie, I find you to be very open to anything you have learned in the course of therapy or support group reflection on your mental health journey. If you question a dx like paranoid schizophrenia for your son or yourself, then, in that context I put stock into it, just speaking for myself.

As for myself and dx's, as you probably know, I went misdiagnosed as bipolar instead of as having PTSD when I first went to a psychiatrist with my symptoms. I took bipolar meds and everything during that time.

It didn't really hurt me in the long run, I have to say. And the switch from the bipolar dx to the PTSD dx didn't come from any struggle on my part. It was just that democracy returned to the part of the world where I survived combat and torture, and I got a Fulbright grant to study the end of the dictatorships that fell.

I started to get paid trips to go back and forth doing research, and when I would get back my therapists would be curious and ask about how it had gone. As democracy proceeded the general trauma of the population as a whole came to light, as so my individual trauma did, too, in the eyes of my USA therapists.

That's when they realized I wasn't born bipolar, I'd survived what was now becoming common knowledge about South America in the 1970s and 1980s. It was similar for survivors of the Holocaust in Europe in the 1940s. After liberation, it took time to process what had gone on in those camps. Heck, it's being processed still, just like it is for those of us who went through another version of it a generation later across the sea.

What I"m getting at, I suppose, is I agree that the ^it^ is a process, as you say. In our case the ptsd dx wasn't available in 1972, and when the dictatorship fell where I grew up in 1985 the naming of what had happened there only began. I, too, think those years I was considered bipolar still gave me valuable tools like you say your time under the manic depression/bipolar treatment plans did for you. Lithium that I took didn't hurt my kidneys; they were hurt by Seroquel when I DID get my right PTSD diagnosis. Recovery is full of little ironies.

I'm curious, too, as to the newer schizo diagnoses. I wonder whether trends in diagnoses by psychiatrists are in any way driven by the drugs on the market. I'm really grateful for the new one I take now instead of Seroquel, Prazosin, because it works super well for nightmares without any kidney side effects at all. There are other new ones for other psychiatric diagnoses. Maybe that's affecting how often the schizophrenic diagnosis is made, I don't know.

I've seen people with schizophrenia. There's a difference in how they view the world, and a true schizophrenic (to me) is one who meets a narrow criteria. The label was slapped on too many, especially in the 1960s-70s, from what I've learned on the subject, such as my leraning is(n't). It was used for what we'd now call bipolar, borderline, pretty much anything that wasn't "in line" with a very tight definition of "socially acceptable".

Just my thoughts. Because while I embrae the healing offered by the psych profession, I also go into it trying to balance what I know versus what is "ojbective" (eh) and what my mom raised me to think ("all psych professionals are evil horrible torturers").

So I juggle a lot myself.

muji,
i don't see myself as too far open to anything suggested. it is good to keep an open mind, but not so open that my brain falls out. when manic depression was the only treatment plan available, i was picking and choosing my treatment according to my personal evaluations. i tried the lithium but didn't stick with it long enough to ruin my kidneys for a non-productive measure. trial and error, yes. not so much trusting snake oil vendors with my well-being. i'm not ready to accuse all psych pros of dancing to big pharma tunes, but i am wary of the phenom.

leo
the schizophrenics i've known come in an even larger variety than ptsd sufferers. it's hard for me to put my departed son in the same courtroom as any of the other schizophrenics i've known. i've never met your schizophrenics, so i won't even hazard a guess on those unknown souls.