Identity Crisis: When Diagnosis Defines Who We Are

There’s a yin and yang to this experience we call life.  We can’t understand, connect with or appreciate the goodness of life without experiencing the pain of loss.  Grief is a part of our lived experience. For many, suffering has been an inevitable part of their existence, there has never been a life without suffering.  For those who have experienced complex trauma, grief can be intensified and magnified in unexpected ways.  Because our body holds our experiences, there is the potential for an onslaught of grief in the most unexpected ways: the smell in the air, the song on the radio, the tv show that hits too close to home.  It can be discombobulating to be hit with that wave of sadness that seems to come out of nowhere.

The Limiting Definition of Grief

The Diagnostic Statisical Manual of Disorders identifies complex grief with the beginning criteria of having experienced the death of someone who you’ve had a close relationship with.

While this diagnosis provides a necessary framework for addressing individuals who have experienced loss, it is incomplete and falls short in acknowledging the complexity of grief as a result of relational trauma.  While the DSM-V made the decision to not include complex trauma as a category, it is the reality that so much of the diagnostic categories are a result of complex trauma and the lasting impact that trauma has on a person’s mental health.   

While we try to simplify and put people into nice, neat symptoms and diagnoses, the reality is that life is complex and messy and people’s wounding happens in the context of complex, messy relationships.  Attempting to neatly package our pain and suffering inadvertently looks over the intricate nuances of our experiences.  Life, with all its messiness and complexity, cannot be neatly compartmentalized into diagnostic criteria.   

The Identity Crisis

One concerning  fallout of diagnostic labels is how individuals align the diagnosis with their identity.  There is an overemphasis on “What’s wrong with me?”   We are meaning making beings, so it does make sense that we try to use a diagnosis as a way to make sense of what we are experiencing.  There is some relief that is gained in being able to define our experiences underneath an umbrella of symptoms and categories.  The concern is that it has become encompassing, where now you ARE the diagnosis.  I am depressed.  I am anxious.  I am bi-polar. 

Beyond Labels

It is important to broaden our understanding of grief and trauma beyond the labels.  Our wounds are created in relationships and our wounds are healed in relationship.  That’s what makes the therapy experience invaluable.  A diagnosis does not change what is happening, it just provides context, a way of attempting to understand what is oftentimes unfathomable. If we stop there, with the diagnosis, and focus exclusively on managing thes diagnosis, we fall short in our journey of healing.