Diagnoses Don’t Define
Diagnoses Don’t Define
Don’t write off your ability to improve your own life by the choices you make today.
Someone says, “I’m ADHD.”
Someone else says, “I have PTSD.”
These are diagnoses which are medical labels used as shorthand to describe complicated symptoms or behaviors some people have in common.
The best diagnosis you can have is the one linked to a therapy that works every time.
The worst diagnosis you can have describes your problem but provides no answers and leaves you labeled and alone.
I know what ADHD and PTSD stand for but I don’t know of any cures. Certainly there are therapies or methods that might help and if you have one or both of these or any other psychological condition that someone with the appropriate expertise has diagnosed, then, in addition to giving a correct diagnosis, I hope they were also able to provide you with therapy that improved your life.
But let me give you a practical warning: Resist seeing yourself as a diagnosis.
Don’t write off your ability to effect profound change and improve your own life by the choices you make today.
Please note that I said you can improve your life, not necessarily your lifespan. Lifespan is not in anyone’s control except those who choose to take their own lives. The problem with that choice is it gives up having a victorious death.
What is a victorious death? It is the one that comes while you are living the dream, while you are loving and encouraging others you will be leaving behind.
The victorious death is given to those who chose at a point earlier in life to no longer see death as the worst thing that can ever happen in this world. People who think that it is, somehow have forgotten a universal truth. The death rate for mankind is 100%.
Here is something worse than death. It is succumbing to a label, a diagnosis, and living in daily defeat, pining over losing a life you are actually no longer living. By choosing to die to self and live to love God as early in life as possible, the problem of death is defeated up front. Now life can truly begin no longer shackled to the fear of death.
Isn’t it funny that these sorts of things are not discussed ever?
We avoid them most successfully through distracting ourselves on things of overall minuscule importance. By getting a personal grip on the reality of mortality, we have the amazing opportunity to live extraordinary lives, regardless the label we may be wearing or the time we have been told we have left.
I am encouraged that labels don't define. A definition suggests a permanent placement of trait and character. Yes.....I am aware that labels are attached to me. I attach some, my peers attach some and society attach some.
I need strength and resolve to act. By acting I really mean to be genuine in proactive living. My resolve is to place priority on living up to the label that our Lord has placed on me. THAT is is definition of trait and character I desire to act upon. Not there yet.
I think a lot of kids are overmedicated because of "diagnoses". (not sure of plural form of diagnosis). Parents are looking for an explanation for their kid's behavioral problem instead of considering the lack of guidance and/or discipline missing from a child's life. Maybe as adults, a diagnosis is a safety net for our own shortcomings, low self esteem, or lack of self control. So much easier to say that "well, I have such and such" rather than admit that I have some work to do on myself, or commit to long sessions of exercise, a change in diet, therapy, etc. We are complicated creatures!