I'm not one for diagnoses and labels, because people are evolving every day, and scientific knowledge is so far from complete. My own interpretation of 'what is wrong with me' has changed because my knowledge has grown but also because I have grown.
(1) I had an attachment disorder from birth due to having multiple emotionally-vacant caregivers. I was also physically abused by my dad and learned to dissociate to cope.
(2) My parents never took my lactose intolerance seriously: I developed severe food phobias as a result of the chronic tummy aches, which led to other obsessive thoughts and compulsive actions (hoarding, binging).
(3) From being moved from place to place, being bullied severely, and having no caregivers capable of soothing me, I spent most of my life with complicated grief and major depressive disorder. The chronic cycling of moods and young start of depression punctuated by several periods of hypomania could easily be described as bipolar disorder.
(4) By the time I started psychotherapy, I had severe anxiety, social phobias, and several parts with overlapping and distinctive personality disorders (schizoid, avoidant, narcissistic, borderline, etc).
(5) I developed many positive and negative symptoms of psychosis as a result of an unsafe therapy.
Needless to say, when my most recent therapist met me, she was more than a little pessimistic about my ability to change. (Thankfully, she never let me know that until the last day of therapy, but it's interesting to reflect on that now.)
What she didn't see then that she perhaps knows now was how relentlessly I have tried to control and heal a pain I was still searching to find. Together, we agreed to start at number (1): attachment and dissociation.
Most of that is necessity, because (A) my inability to attach is why the previous therapy was so unsafe and (B) my ability to dissociate made accessing emotions/thoughts impossible.
If I had to describe my spectrum of experiences in the context of mental health, I may say 'complex PTSD' which pays respect to my traumatic history, hyper-vigilance, hypersensitivity, flashbacks, and dissociative defenses.
But I rarely refer to myself as having complex PTSD. More often than not, my body handles stress very well. I manage the intrusive memories and the emotional flashbacks. I am accepting and processing my history of abuse and neglect. I am learning to manage my anxiety and my sensitivity.
I've experienced a world that many thankfully never have to. My body responded the best way it knew how, and I could say the same for everyone else facing very different trauma to mine. It is shaping us, but it isn't us.
I am grateful for every chance to decide who I am, and especially grateful for the opportunity to let others decide for themselves, too.
More helpful links:
ISSTD Trauma & Dissociation FAQ
Spectrum of Dissociative Disorders
Pottergate Centre for Trauma and Dissociation
First Person Plural - survivor-led association
Complex PTSD defenses
Improving Self-Esteem
Counselling the Gifted
Prodromal / Early Warning Signs of Psychosis
Dissociation & Conflict - Control Theory perspective
