On Self-Diagnoses

Having read several posts on this blog, it is probably fairly obvious to you that I have at least one personality disorder. However, I am not sure what that disorder may be, seeing as I've never had a professional diagnose me with anything.The doctor says (based on some surveys they made me take) that I probably had some sort of anxiety disorder, which makes plenty of sense to me, but that's the most I've ever heard on the subject.

In this world of labels, it is imperative sometimes to find an identity that works for you. Me? I have no idea what I am in any way, except that I'm white. I say I'm a trans dude because it's what's easiest, as I do feel like a man at least 95% of the time, but sometimes I feel feminine and pretty. I labelled myself as genderqueer in the past, and that more or less worked for me, but it was easier to conform to a binary. I still "genderfuck" quite often, but I act like a guy as much as I possibly can while in public. I used to think I was a lesbian, because my first very strong crushes were on girls. Then I realized how hot Benedict Cumberbatch is (I'm sorry, that'll be the only time he's mentioned here) and started to question how I'd thought of myself before. This led me to just saying I'm pansexual, because it covers all bases. I also realized in the seventh grade that I was polyamorous after I fell for two women at the same time, and then felt the resulting depressions simultaneously as well, which I can assure you is no fun at all.

This all leads me to the way I've labelled my mind. For twelve years, I simply didn't think of it at all. Thinking back, I probably could've figured a lot more out at ten had I been presented with the necessary information. That is to say that I exhibited anti-social tendencies coupled with many dark thoughts, as well as a general discontentment with life. I didn't have the words to describe that, though, so I didn't. I was well aware of being an outsider, but I thought it was simply because I was quite mature for my age and didn't fit in well with other kids. I think it can all be summed up, though, in a sentence by ten year old me written in a time capsule letter that I received this summer. The question was, "Where do you think you'll be in three years' time?" or something along those lines. I responded with "I'll be hardcore emo/goth or I'll be dead." It was quite a shock for me to see that and finally recognize, yes, I did have issues as a kid; no, I can't blame all of them on one woman I met at twelve!

Last summer, I definitively said that I had depression. Nearly every symptom of it I saw online applied to me, and I did feel awful most of the time. I had little energy, nearly no will to live, and what you might describe as chronic boredom. I was convinced that it would fade away come the beginning of the school year, and I appeared at first to be correct, but it came back in full force around the holidays (which will probably be featured in its own Stressor Talk post come December). I could no longer avoid it, and I was becoming despondent and broken. There was one day that I believed I couldn't live past that afternoon, and tried all night to kill myself, but was met with failure each time. My answer to that was to switch schools so that I could have better access to my best friend. In the long run, that was probably a good move; he's all that's kept me going on multiple occasions now. But anyway, back on topic. That distraction only lasted about a month before I was hit in the face with dysphoria for the first time. Mind you, I've never exactly been gender-conforming; in elementary school, my best friends were almost all boys, and I won many a belching contest. I curse like a sailor, and usually got in the first "fuck" of the day as well.

I'd long accepted by that point that I had depression, and the dysphoria only served as a stressor for it, making it much worse than before. I was engulfed by near-constant pain as well as a desire to just end it already. I did not. I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing; only time will tell.

This lasted for months, until July of this year, when the doctor told me it was likely that I had some sort of anxiety disorder. I denied it for a healthy seven weeks, then finally looked up the symptoms of one. And yes, I embodied basically all of them. Even better, I self-diagnosed myself with bipolar disorder today as well - I was having a manic episode when I realized that hey, that's not really an anxious thing, and it all kind of "clicked." I don't get manic often - the only times I can remember it happening recently were when I got an A in algebra, the time my chorus teacher let me switch to the tenor part, and basically whenever I get a message from one of my favorite board members, who I will not name here. So that's probably about five, six times tops.

I have no idea what's going on, as I do have most of the symptoms (as in, over 80%) for all three disorders. However, the internet seems to believe that you can only have one of depression, anxiety, or bipolar. I might try to see someone about it, but I also have trust issues that generally prevent that. (I believe these issues stem from the time in sixth grade when I wrote a lesbian flick in class and the teacher outed me to my parents. Writing is an incredibly personal outlet for me, and for her to break that trust seriously fucked it up for me - I can no longer share writing with anyone because I'm scared they'll betray me. I'll probably write a post about self-expression later in the week, as I have a lot of thoughts on it. But that's a subject for another day.)