GeniesLoki

yep for many people, the utility of a diagnosis is primarily about speaking the same language as bureaucracies and gatekeepers if you think you might need to someday (see: foster kids accruing diagnoses to qualify for education accommodations and state-funded medical care)

lots of high minded intentions and arguments on the medical provider side are about categorizing the disorder for scientific/treatment reasons but for the rest of us it's basically a passcode+figuring out which google searches might lead to resources

I was very relieved when a professional told me "you have BPD and OCD traits", because that gave me the legitimacy to go away and learn. Sort of shut down my resistance. I appear to have a script. "It's totally fine for other people to have mental illness, but I mustn't." Sigh.

check out comorbidity of OCD, CPTSD, autism, ADHD, etc, if you need a little more permission to go off and research (I feel like I'm being pressure-y, but the intent is to expand your optionality if you want it, rather than nudge you one way or another)

No pressuring vibes at all. I will go and check these out though.

(CPTSD is a modern-ish formulation of a cluster of symptoms that map to BPD)

I have That CPTSD Book and got stuck when I felt like the author was coercing me onto thinking my parents were actively terrible people. But I will give it another go and assume he is just talking about his own experience.

hm I kinda interpreted this shtick as "they really sucked at this important thing", doesn't translate to them being bad people/abusing me on purpose/etc etc. You can say your parents fucked up at something without thinking them evil!