Misunderstood and Misdiagnosed: My Road to Recovery

My mental illness feels like I'm in the midst of a giant, cluttered, shrub. I feel trapped, I struggle to move, and I am almost constantly terrified. Even though I have a mental health condition, none of the labels make sense to me perfectly. I used to think that illness was treated with a straightforward approach, you get ill, then diagnosed, then treated, and then better. I am now realising that my illness—and no illness—is that linear and predictable.

I have symptoms of so many mental health conditions, and I have had up to 11 different diagnoses over the years, but none of them truly encapsulate what happens when I'm ill. And that bothered me, for a very long time, because I felt extremely misunderstood. I didn’t think it was possible to understand me, even I don’t understand what goes on in my brain. But maybe understanding isn’t the most important part of living with my condition. Sometimes having no answer to what is going on in your brain, might have to be the answer.

Diagnoses comfort me, they always have. Being told that what I'm struggling with has a label, an explanation, makes me feel much less alone, and makes me feel like I'm starting to be understood. At least it did. Now I have numerous serious and debilitating psychiatric and developmental diagnoses, and they don’t even explain me. I still feel like have pieces of this illness, and pieces of that. But if I keep thinking that the diagnosis will bring the cure, I don’t think I will ever get better.

I have a very black and white brain, things must be linear, they must be clear-cut. But that’s just the thing, mental illness is anything but. Like any illness, there can be a diagnosis and treatment, but there are also such variations in symptom characteristics and severity that nothing can be viewed from a purely black and white perspective. There is no answer. There is no answer to why I have this, and there is no answer as to exactly what I have. This bothered me a great deal, I have been through many breakdowns and many obsessive phases, memorising the DSM to try and have an understanding and an answer to the chaos that is my mind. But I never found it. I am coming to accept that I may never find it. What I go through simply is what it is, and I need to find a way to live with it.

So, how does one live with an illness that cannot be characterised? I believe that when you are ill, your illness is so consuming, you don’t really have the motivation to pursue anything else, and make your life, your life, it’s more like the illness’ life. Once you start to get space from your illness, and it becomes less and less consuming, all of a sudden you have all this space to fill. Filling it with things that are meaningful to you, that is how you cope. Filling this space with things so sturdy that the mental illness won’t be able to come back at the magnitude it used to, and you will be better equipped to deal with such events.

Mental illness is hard, it's messy, and sometimes a diagnosis can’t explain it. But that doesn’t make it any less valid or meaningful, and just because something can’t be explained perfectly, doesn’t mean there is no hope. Mental illness is a spectrum of severity and diversity, and It can never be condensed and pigeon holed. Mental illness isn’t neat like that, neither are our brains. We aren’t exactly the same as our friends or family, we are unique beings, and therefore our illness is unique. And that is an amazing thing.

I have gone through so many years of torment and distress trying to find answers, but in the end it has just left me confused and helpless. Now I am accepting that I may never have an answer, and I'm slowly finding a way to manage the symptoms I have and live a meaningful life. And you can too.