Posted by Dinah on May 31, 2003, at 18:20:30
In reply to Re: Why am I so obsessed with a label?, posted by deirdrehbrt on May 31, 2003, at 13:28:43
You guys are right. There are a few advantages to an accurate label. Searching for information and finding others who share your problems are definitely two of them. In fact, I did find a new label yesterday, emetophobia, fear of vomit, that gave me tons of information and fellow sufferers to empathize with. There was even a list of strange activities associated with emetophobia that made me laugh. I printed it out and am going to circle the ones that apply to me. (I could add a few too, but won't. They're just too humiliating.)
And since it was on my mind, I went over it yesterday with my therapist. We sat there with the diagnostic guide and decided that no, I wasn't borderline (although I had some features). That maybe I was schizotypal because I had a lot of features, it was just a question of degree as to whether I fit or not. And I was definitely DDNOS. Of course, he isn't really qualified to diagnose and didn't. We just went through all the characteristics.
Now what I really need to do is contact the APA? is it? and tell them off about their lame system. Tell them to come up with a category to fit me IMMEDIATELY. I'm sure I can't be unique.
And you're right Dee, it is possible to try to live up to a diagnosis. I think that shortly after I was diagnosed with OCD (oops, forgot that one. I have OCD.), I had an exacerbation of the symptoms. Or perhaps I was just more aware of them, and labelled things as OCD that I previously thought of as just being me. But that resolved itself soon enough. I now think of my OCD as being under pretty good control.
But I still think that it's largely a matter of a mythical quest.
poster:Dinah
thread:230170
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20030529/msgs/230465.html