Would You Rather Be Diagnosed With A Mental Health Condition If You Have One Or Choose Not To Be Diagnosed?

Suppose you’re diagnosed with a mental health condition.  Are you going to think positively about yourself and see it as a chance for improvement? Or are you going to let your illness define you, preventing you from achieving all the things your life could have been?

In my opinion, I would rather be diagnosed with a mental health condition than not.

Don’t get me wrong; the negative stigma society has towards mental health conditions is completely understandable, but it can also be harmful.  If you let that stigma define who you are then you’ll never be able to overcome obstacles in your life or reach all of your goals like certain people with mental health conditions have done.

There is not much known about the brain, so it could be possible that if we were to discover more then we would find a certain pattern in people who suffer from mental health conditions that cause them to act differently than normal people (although this may seem like it contradicts the idea that there is not much known about the brain, but I’m referring to how we don’t know whether or not people who suffer from mental health conditions have a different brain structure/functioning than normal people).  For example, if we were to discover that people with schizophrenia had a larger amygdala (that’s the part of your brain that processes fear) then we would understand why they feel more overwhelmed by their emotions and why music is a factor that worsens their symptoms.

In my opinion, having a mental health condition is not an automatic free pass to be a ‘victim’ of said condition all of your life (Generally speaking…).  It’s just like any other illness that can either make you or break you as a person.  You can either let it disable you, or let it motivate you to achieve all of your dreams.  Yes, some people might think that having a mental health condition is an excuse to act the way they do, but I believe that those are not the people who should be given attention.  If you’re suffering from a mental health condition then that’s a reason to let it motivate you.  If more people thought this way, the stigma surrounding mental health conditions would probably decrease as more and more people with mental health conditions overcome obstacles in their lives.

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In my opinion, I would rather have a mental health condition and know about it, than have one and not know about it, because of how it can help motivate me and how it provides a reason to go out and achieve all of my dreams.  I do not claim to know everything about mental health conditions, so I am open to discussion if you disagree with me or if you want to talk about your experience(s) with your mental health condition.

Please don’t forget that this is just my opinion, so feel free to disagree with anything I’ve said.  Don’t let my views or anyone else’s views stop you from doing what you want with your life.  You decide who you are and no one else.