I have been thinking more about the non-communication of my daughter’s medical diagnosis labels. One thing I do remember is our psychiatrist is not into labels. She rarely points out the obvious, prefering to focus on the person not the label. Good therapists will always do this. Remember you are not whatever eating disorder, mental health illness you have.
I also go through my Tumblr site reading the different entries. Some girls put up their diagnosis labels. One poor girl had 6. I find the girls are divided into two camps. One is proud of all their levels, put them out there like some sort of competition as to who is the most screwed up. The other lot are so weighed down by their labels, they have lost their identity and don’t see a way out of the labels. Regardless of what camp the girls are in, the two camps both have the same outcome. Recovery is impossible for me, cause I have so many labels.
Humans love to box things and label them. It is part of all our natures. We happily stuff everything into boxes, label it, put it away. It annoys and challenges us when we find something slightly different to the boxes and labels we already have. So we created another box with another label. Soon we have so many boxes and labels that we need another label to organize all the original boxes and labels. For example there any now so many ‘exoria’ labels, that it is hard to tell what is acknowledge by the medical profession and what isn’t.
Categorical labeling is a tool that humans use to resolve the impossible complexity of the environments we grapple to perceive. Like so many human faculties, it’s adaptive and miraculous, but it also contributes to some of the deepest problems that face our species. (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/alternative-truths/201005/why-its-dangerous-label-people)
Sophie, as you all know, is anxiety ridden and the more things wrong with her the heavier the weight. Just finding out she has haemochromatosis and asperger was enough to flatten her for a while. Thinking through our psychiatrist’s omission, I know she is right. Sophie did not need to know at a younger age that she is BDD and has a social anxiety disorder. But now as an adult I do think she needs to know at some stage – lets at least wait until after HSC. I also think as the parent, I should have been told. There were enough times when I was the sole occupant of the therapy room when that information could have been imparted.
Medical labels are important, they let medical professionals know what is wrong, how to treat, how to provide appropriate care and understanding to the patient. In the mental health world though, care needs to be take just how much we fling labels around. The labels themselves can contribute negatively and stigmatise a person. It shapes the perception of not only the person themselves, but of those interacting with the person. Some labels we give those with mental health illness are short-term things and would bring more pain and negativity than needed if known. Anorexia in its most intense stages, mimics other illnesses and also brings out other ‘behaviours’ that could be interpreted as another comorbid illness. Often once the anorexia is brought under reasonable control, weight is restored and the mind recovers to some extent, some of the other behaviours disappear. Sophie’s OCD is a good example. It only presents when she is very sick with anorexia.
It is a wise medical professional who only diagnosis anorexia until further therapy and recovery is underway before considering other medical diagnosis.
I hope this all makes sense, it is hard to express in an intelligent way exactly what I am trying to say. Research also backs up the negativity of labelling and being careful how we apply them and when.