"What if you just stopped trying to improve yourself, and instead accepted yourself as you are?"
Three years later, that question sticks with me.
Prior, I'd never considered that I could ever "be enough," let alone be enough right then.
My therapist at the time suspected Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD),1 but said she didn't want to label me because she feared I clung labels, which is true.
I don't define myself by labels, but I seek to understand myself through them.
Since, BPD has been ruled out, but learning about it and a lot of the shared traits with Autism (specifically Autistic females)2 is what began my self-guided journey toward better emotion regulation and peace.
As far back as I can remember, I’ve been obsessed with engineering new and better ways of doing something. And with better self-understanding, I could design a strategy to cope with life. (A heavily routine/habit-based strategy, but that’s how I cope so…)
But for me, without a definitive “label,” there is no direct understanding, and therefore minimal ability to take additional steps toward that desperately desired inner peace.
Without the label, there was no framework to build off of.
A friend of mine believes the opposite: labels can be useless and even harmful. He too pursued an Autism diagnosis to be sure (potential work accommodations amongst other “bonuses” to official diagnosis played a role as well, if I recall correctly); but I wonder how much of it is that labels can come with stigma, and it’s the stigma most are afraid of.