Don't Let Anyone Diagnose You*

*unless you're paying them to do so

In the past week I’ve been told I’m manic, depressed, a sex addict and co-dependent (ha!) and I haven’t even had my weekly Friday session with my shrink yet. The people who felt the need to share their unsolicited opinions about my mental health range from a comic, to a yoga instructor to a random woman in a 12-step program. 

What’s funny about it is I haven’t felt this good in years, or as mentally balanced. When I entered my woman’s 12-step meeting fresh off a hot and heavy sexting session fully glowing from my newest crush, my friend said, “You’re high. Let me know when it stops working for you.”

When I was working out my stand up material about the Algorithm of Doom at our weekly Write Club, a comic said, “I hear what you’re saying but what you’re describing is depression.” To which I responded, “But what if I feel great?” To which another comic said, “Or denial.” Ah yes, I hate when depression masks itself as joy.

But the most insidious comment, the one that awoke a worm that's been trying to infect my brain’s hard drive with a virus for 20 years, came from someone I have known for a decade and whose opinion I respect. When I entered yoga filled with the super surge of energy that I always get in July, I half-jokingly said I believed I had magic powers. (I mean, I do, but I don’t tell that many people.) And he said, “That’s the mania, darling.”

This one struck a chord and I felt my soul shrink in fear that very moment. I grew up in a household where one of my primary care providers had bi-polar disorder. The swings from violent, raging depression to extraordinary heights of delusions of grandeur were disorienting and chaotic. My step dad was in and out of mental institutions. He would disappear for days after threatening to kill himself and we wouldn’t know whether he was dead or alive and my mother would be crumpled in a ball crying, distraught. Her attention was completely dominated by the never-ending drama that seemed to follow him wherever we went. Mind you, I was a teenager with no concept of mental illness and what that means. It’s taken me nearly 20 years to get a rudimentary understanding of what bi-polar disorder looks like, and I would have to go get my PhD to fully comprehend the consequences of how that played out in our family.

See at one point that delusional parental figure was the only person who believed in my own personal delusions of grandeur (most teens get to think of them as “dreams”—not me). I had big ideas for starting a company and of being a writer and a performer. I was 19-years-old and right out of rehab for a heroin addiction. I never felt more lost but suddenly it was like I had discovered my purpose or at least, the beginnings of a life path. It never occurred to me that I could actually pursue those dreams of acting and writing, I thought I had to go to college and get some job I would probably end up hating. My step-dad believed in me when no one else did and not only that, he financially supported my desire to train in dance, in photography, in whichever of the arts I wanted to explore while I found my way. He told me I belonged in LA or NY and I even got headshots and made up a ridiculous stage name (more ridiculous than Phetasy--trust me).

At a time when I was feeling like a hopeless loser, he gave me hope. At a time when I wanted to kill myself, his faith in my delusions of grandeur gave me a reason to live. And then one day, he took it all away when he sat me down to tell me he was in love with me. And that day the world felt heavy on my shoulders and life suddenly didn’t seem so hopeful. And then the shit hit the fan and I was told that he had a manic break and everything he said during that time was coming from that place. Everything including all the stuff about following my crazy, Hollywood dreams.

I went from dancing on what felt like my truest path to becoming horribly lost in the woods. Now the only thought that plagued me was, “Holy shit, I’m crazy too. Why would I believe any of this about myself?” I moved to LA to become an actress at 19 but the worm of doubt had been unleashed; once in LA, young and lost with no guidance, the virus replicated and spread to other neural pathways deep, deep, deep in my subconscious. I moved back home around 22 and spent the next 5 years completely giving up on myself, resigning myself to a lifetime of waitressing and sinking further and further into a hole of depression I wasn’t sure I’d be able to climb out of ever again. 

I had wasted my potential as a teen dealing with the endless drama and now I was losing most of my twenties bouncing around trying to get a normal job or go back to college or just become a housewife/waitress while knowing on a deep, soul level, that I was living the worst kind of lie. But I couldn’t get out of my own way. I was worried if I was who my step-dad said I was, that would mean I was crazy, too. So I kept myself small and safe until I couldn’t take it anymore. If he was right, I was crazy. If he was wrong, I was fucked.

And once again, my step-dad intervened. And once again, he saved me. But once again it came at a huge cost because I had to lie to my family about the fact that he was helping me start my beloved business and website, Phetasy.com. And once again, it all fell apart in highly dramatic fashion that I can’t even write about now because I’m already crying.

At that point I had no relationship with my mother and siblings. I’d lost everything and Phetasy.com and my stupid dream, was literally the only thing I had left. So this time, instead of giving up on myself, I knew I had to work on untangling what was true and what wasn’t. I had no choice. It was that or kill myself.

Yes, my step-dad had mental illness, but that didn’t mean that he was wrong about me being a writer. And I’ve spent the last 10 years pushing forward on this path and constantly, subconsciously self-destructing with every step forward I took, because some part of me believed that I’m just a crazy person and none of my dreams would come true. My business went bankrupt. I had crushing rejections in my writing. With every one of these failures, it wasn’t just the normal sense of “Oh shit what am I doing?” that every artist or entrepreneur feels on this incredibly hard and risky path; but there was the sense that “Oh shit, I am delusional to think I’m talented enough to make any of this happen. The only person who ever believed in me, ended up in a psyche ward for slitting his wrist the long way about two months after telling me that I'm a creative powerhouse.” 

So needless to say, when my friend insinuated that I was manic, I went from feeling great to panicking. How would I know if I was crazy? I wouldn’t! Even though I have an actual fucking writing job. And even though I’m almost four years sober and feel like I’m living my absolute best fucking life. Even though I know that I’m on exactly the path I should be. Even though I talk to a shrink weekly and we’ve discussed why in her professional opinion, I don’t have to worry that I have bi-polar disorder. (I have plenty of other massive character defects to worry about.) Despite all of the evidence to the contrary, that insidious little worm of doubt that infected my brain long ago is still alive, waiting for a security failure to harm the network.

We live in a time of peak self-help and therapy; many people think they are an expert because they’ve read two books and have a shrink. People find it perfectly reasonable to diagnose their friends in a comment on a Facebook post. I’m absolutely certain I’m guilty of taking someone’s inventory and telling them what my opinion of their disorder is. But I’m trying very hard to be cognizant of not doing that ever again (especially after that mania comment) because we don't know what little worms are buried in everyone else's head, waiting for the exactly right misdiagnosis to awaken. I had to remind myself in that moment that this person is not a licensed practitioner and I wasn’t seeking their guidance. 

You shouldn’t be doling out unsolicited mental health diagnoses. Ever. That’s not to say you can’t suggest a friend in distress seek professional help, but we should be easier on one another during these stressful times—trying to bring more compassion and light—not take what joy and excitement you see by saying things like, “Oh you’re obviously a love addict. Let me know how that’s working out for you.”

And you shouldn’t be listening to unsolicited mental health diagnoses from non-professionals, either. My therapist and I work tirelessly on how I can become more centered in my Self and less self-centered. When I’m self-centered, I am filled with fear and the wrong remark can completely throw off my whole day, triggering that little worm of insecurity buried deep within the recesses of my psyche. When I’m centered in my Self I can look at someone diagnosing me with whatever and say, “Oh, that’s nice.”

Last night, clearly, I went into a bit of a wormhole because today I’m writing this. But luckily, I have therapy in two hours.