I've just come out of an acute adolescent mental health unit after my first attempted suicide. Anyway back to the point, I wasn't diagnosed with anything at all, but I feel the need to be. The docs seemed to have no interest in diagnosing me, which add to my distress. I find myself constantly worrying 'could I have this? or this' if I find myself fitting into certain criteria for certain mental illnesses, and I feel bad for doing so. But until a matter is resolved, my mind cannot rest.
the doctors at the hospital usually don't diagnose you. they didn't with me either.
you have to go to a therapist or psychiatrist to get a diagnosis. you will probably have to get a recommendation from your primary doctor but i don't know
I'm running low on words right this moment, honey, but I just wanted to let you know I understand where you are coming from. It can help our minds to be more at ease when we have a solid "confirmation", we have a name to the unnamed and we know what we're dealing with. I truly do understand how you're feeling. I hope it all works out okay for you, darling. Keep us posted about how you get on. Stay safe,
I struggled with that for years. I had no diagnosis, no-one wanted to label me, and I was admitted to a psychiatric hospital with no diagnosis. Or so I thought. I've since seen my notes, and "borderline personality disorder" was mentioned a few times, except no-one told me. I found out six months later that it was my official diagnosis.
I kept telling them that I needed to know what was wrong with me, otherwise how could anyone fix it? They kept telling me I was too young to be labelled and put into a box.
Once I found out I had BPD I felt so relieved. I still do to a certant extent. Lots of people with BPD hate having the label, they feel it's almost a life sentence. I was just ****ing happy to know what was wrong!
Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes but when you look back, everything is different…
you once called your brain a hard drive, well say hello to the virus.
I have found that my Dr's have diagnosed me but don't like to actually tell me, I found out via a letter that I had paranoid schizophrenia and before that in a report by my hospital (IP Unit) Dr diagnosed me with schizoaffective disorder. If you don't have a Dr you can ask like a psychiatrist or a specialist, then go to your GP and ask then as maybe the Unit would have corresponded with your GP when it comes to how you were doing and official diagoses.
Hope this help, I can totally understand what you mean, I just wanted someone to be straight with me. Take care,
A lot of times doctors will have a 'working diagnosis' when they start treatment. It can take YEARS to properly diagnose some psychiatric conditions because everyone presents differently, and many people have more than 1 thing going on.
Anytime a doctor treats you they have some sort of working diagnosis formed. They can't treat you otherwise, because they wouldn't know what to treat you for. Doctors often won't share their working diagnosis with the patient because it's not concrete and may change.
Think of it this way. You hurt your ankle and can't walk on it. Now, your ankle could be broken, fractured, bruised, sprained or strained. The doctor won't know which one it is until they can run all their tests. So a working diagnosis may be "acute leg injury". With that diagnosis they can give you pain medication, put a cast on your ankle and give you crutches even though they don't know exactaly what is wrong with you. It's the exact same treatment you would get no matter if it is broken or sprained.
The way psychs work is really the same way. You tell them about their problems and they form a working diagnosis. They may prescribe you meds based on that diagnosis to see if they help instead of waiting for 6 months until they have a better idea of what is going on. However, it's not a 100% diagnosis because they haven't had enough time to gather all the information they need.
Psych doctors also don't want to diagnose people to early because it can affect how they act which may cause issues if there is more than one problem going on. If you go talk to a psych because you are hallucinating and they immediately tell you that you have schizophrenia most people are going to go home and look up the symptoms of schizophrenia and think there is a certain way they are supposed to act now that they have a label, which totally defeats trying to get an accurate diagnosis.
Knowing what your psych thinks is wrong with you is not going to change things, and may even make getting a accurate diagnosis harder. A diagnosis is simply nothing but a name for a group of symptoms.
Well it breaks my heart to see you this way,
The beauty in life, where's it gone?
And somebody told me you were doing okay,
Somehow I guess they were wrong.
I think a lot of people go through what you're going through, I know I did, but when I finally did get my diagnosis I regretted ever asking! Do you see CAMHS? In my experience they are hesitant about telling you of your diagnosis, they wouldn't tell me anything until I was a little bit older.
I think asking your psychiatrist what he is thinking of would be a good idea, although if they're anything like mine they won't want to tell you! I hope everything works out!
Heartbreak, incarnate, I'm nothing if not your memories.
MAybe you had a genuine or understandable reason for wanting to die so they didn't diagnose you as having an unstable mind. I don't know if that happens. I'm glad you will be seeing a psychiatrist who will hopefully shed some light in things and that you survived the attempt and now have the hope and chance to get better and feel happier.
