The Backlash of Mental Health Diagnosis
Battling the stigma of neurodiversity
Labeling Myself
No one wants to be labeled crazy. That’s what people with mental illness were called when I was a kid. Everyone had a “crazy” uncle who the family kept out of sight as much as possible. Mental institutions were called “crazy houses.” Crazy people weren’t meant to be seen or heard. Bellevue was a place for nut cases who couldn’t handle life on the outside.
I felt like one of those people from the time I was an adolescent. Uncomfortable in the world, I labeled myself before anyone else did. I wasn’t normal.
I couldn’t be normal because everyone else seemed to know how to get by. It didn’t seem like other kids thought about hurting themselves, or were tortured by having to go to school because of anxiety. I didn’t think anyone was as angry or sad as me.
There was no diagnosis back then, aside from depression. I didn’t have an alphabet soup of acronyms to make sense of my feelings. I just had issues. I was a malcontent. A miserable kid.
But that was only half the time. The other half I was playful and happy. I loved baseball and hard rock. A serial hugger, I was the most affectionate person in my family when I wasn’t feeling terrible.
