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When I Finally Understood the Phrase 'I Am Not My Diagnosis'

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“I am not my diagnosis.”

I had heard this phrase used time and time again for years. But I could never relate to it. My entire life from my early teens on just felt like one struggle after the next. I didn’t understand how not to be defined by my diagnosis. Depression. Anxiety. Bipolar disorderBipolar II disorder. Epilepsy. Several of these diagnoses turned out to be incorrect. However, I became immersed in looking up symptoms and reading other people’s stories about how these illnesses affected them to find any piece of information that felt relatable to me. I was miserable for years because I was so heavily focused on what was “wrong” with me.

A few years ago, I made a move out of state, and out of my comfort zone. I left my family and friends and moved into the unknown. The transition brought on new challenges for me, triggering binge eating and dependence on alcohol for the better part of the first year of my move. But I ultimately found my dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) therapist and she changed everything for me.

My therapist never makes me feel like a person with a deficit. My therapist
acknowledges I have a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder (BPD), and she is the one who finally gave me the correct diagnosis. However, she doesn’t make that fact the focus of our discussions. She reminds me of my strengths, and the beautiful parts of being an emotionally sensitive person. She reminds me through all of my struggles, I came out stronger and more resilient. She reminds me I am capable of doing the things I never thought were possible, and most of all, that I am not defined by this diagnosis. I finally understand what it means to be completely and wholly myself, and not just “Caiti who has borderline personality disorder.”

The term “personality disorder” can sound scary and that’s why there’s a stigma. While BPD is characterized as a personality disorder, it’s best understood as an emotional dysregulation disorder.

I’m a person with a diagnosis of BPD. I am also a person who works full-time, loves music and writing and lives on her own with her cat. I am compassionate, witty and intuitive. I am passionate and giving and I have an intense capacity to love. I am highly sensitive and perceptive and creative. When something great happens, it feels like I’m experiencing the wonder of the excitement for the first time. At the same time, heartbreak sometimes feels like the end of the world. Rejection sometimes feels like intense personal failure that I’ll never come back from. Therapy has given me the power and control to move through the intense emotions that can stem from heartache, and to overcome my “all-or-nothing” thinking.

While I no longer define myself as a person who struggles with BPD, I see myself as someone who has had the experience of living with heightened sensitivity, and who has been given the chance to recover and prove to herself and the world she is worthy, powerful and resilient.

Unsplash image by Ramy Kabalan

Originally published: July 9, 2021
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