The Dark Side of Diagnosis

How labels are letting us down

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Let’s say you have trouble doing certain things that seem to come easily to other people. Focusing for more than five seconds, reading social cues, tolerating ambient noise, whatever.

For most high-achieving, self-critical people, the go-to explanation in this sort of situation is to blame ourselves. If other people can do these things, then clearly we should be able to as well. Therefore a) there is something wrong with us, specifically; b) it’s our fault; and c) we should be able to fix it. If we can’t, see b).

Needless to say, this feels terrible.

So when something or someone comes along and tells us that, actually, we have this condition that other people have too, we usually feel huge relief.

Part of this relief comes from not being alone, and the de facto de-shame-ifying that happens when we no longer feel like a uniquely damaged outlier.

But I think the even bigger part of it comes from the revelation that, even if there is something ‘wrong’ with us, it’s not actually our fault. It’s not a failure of will we should be able to correct. It’s a misfiring of biology that is happening outside our control. Which means we can hit pause on yelling at ourselves constantly for not being other than we are.