Label Parade

I have plenty of psych labels. By law, I'm declared "mentally ill" and "disabled". The primary label is DID - formerly MPD, and the secondary one is PTSD. By some standards, I've been misdiagnosed in the past... but anyone who knows anything about MPD knows that's pretty common, as each "alter" can display a different "mental illness". I've had many labels... Major Depression - recurrent, Borderline Personality Disorder, Bipolar, OCD, Autistic, Gender Dysphoria (thank the Gods that one went the way of the Homo), on and on. There was a "social worker" when I was about 7, the stint at the Drug Rehab in '85 (I wasn't even an addict yet!), the shrink from '85 - 86, the loonytute in '87, and 3 more times in '94. I think that there were about 10 shrinks total. If you get a shrink that's intelligent enough, they can be a good sounding board... keeps a lot of the weight off of your friends... but I've yet to find one who does any sort of real good. I usually spend most of my time educating them, and they spend most of their time being fascinated by me and concentrating on things that are their issues - not mine. It doesn't help that I'm defensive as all hell, but it's their job to get past that. I'm the one who's supposed to be crazy.

The meds are endless as well. For every label there are at least 3 billion drugs, and they love testing them out. I can't even remember them all. Thorazine, Lithium, Xanax, Risperadal, Ativan... to name a few. Ativan is my current one, 3 mgs a day. (*chuckles* I challenge anyone to function on 21 mgs of Ativan and 2 cases of beer a week.)

At this point I'm considering looking for another shrink. No, I don't think that there's one out there with a magic wand, but I feel badly about putting so much pressure on my friends. Things are getting a little worse too, and it's best that's documented. The last thing I need is someone doubting my insanity... bad things happen when someone attempts to say that I'm "normal".