Sorry for the long text, I’m still dealing with some side effects…

So first, a little background. About a decade ago mental health wasn’t anything I worried about too much. I had a couple of things I did to keep my mental health running well, but there wasn’t all too much I had to do. Of course nothing is always 100% great, but for the most part, things were going well. I had good, even great friends. I had a job I loved, pretty much my dream job with a great boss. I could almost say I loved life. Eventually the one missing puzzle piece came, or so I thought - I got into a relationship. Well, her “mother”/egg donor was a narcissistic, (mostly psychologically, but not only) abusive piece of shit. I’m not going to go into details since they’re not relevant for what I’m trying to get off my mind right now (and it will let me avoid potentially triggering topics for whoever might be reading this). Well, within a little under two years my mental health went from what I described before to just about as bad as you can imagine, again without going into detail for the same reason as before. Since a little over 5 years ago I’ve had pretty much no contact with my ex and her “mother”, and in that time I’ve been battling my mental health problems. Things have gotten much better, but in the meantime I’ve gotten into a weird state…

The last two months I was in a day clinic, today being my last day. Honestly, save for a couple of more minor issues, the staff was great - including the head doctor, something I’m not used to. They were there to help people, and you noticed it. They didn’t get stuck in arbitrary treatment rules, but focused on what the patients need. In my case, they did a paradigm shift in my treatment, and while it’s something where the effects are still unfolding (and in the short term had some pretty negative effects - something I was clearly warned about and consented to), I’m hoping that it will have a good effect that will help with my symptoms.

My path there wasn’t simple, though. When I arrived, I did the standard depression test they do around here which uses a score to assign the severity of the depression - and I landed smack dab in the middle of a mild depression. My first thought - whelp, I’m in a mild depression and need to take a couple of months off of work to go to a day clinic? Something doesn’t add up there, a thought which, looking back, the staff there apparently had as well. I eventually had an hour long conversation with the head doctor which essentially amounted to “what exactly do you need from us?” I went through my background, a fairly long list of symptoms, and the broad strokes of what happened to me. “Do you know what it is?” “No, not directly. My psychologist said something along the lines of ‘I don’t believe in treating diagnoses, I believe in treating people’, which is a thought I can kind of get behind. When getting things lined up to start my treatment here a number of people had mentioned PTSD, but I prefer not to interfere with which diagnoses I get so I don’t usually go into much detail there.” It apparently gave her some food for thought, a couple of days later she asked if I would be OK with a therapist change, since a different therapist can do a method she thought would be good for my situation. I deferred to her judgement, and so we changed therapists, and the therapy continued from there.

Then, today, I had my final (short) talk with my individual therapist. We eventually went onto the topic of diagnoses. She asked me if I remembered what I got on the depression test from where I started, since she hadn’t gotten it during the therapist change (in retrospect, I wonder if that was a tactful “mistake”). I remembered what I had scored, and she said that the diagnosis they were working with for the treatment was a medium depression, later mentioning “if you had a mild depression, we wouldn’t have been allowed to treat you here”. I asked if there was anything else, and she said no. There was no singular event like a car crash or a violent event that she could use to diagnose PTSD, and she couldn’t diagnose “parts of PTSD”. There was nothing else that really fit the bill, either, of which she mentioned a couple of examples. I had to fill out the depression test again, and I didn’t get to see the results myself because of time constraints, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t even score a mild depression, and even if I did score it, it was just, just barely.

Which brings me to the diagnostical situation I’m in now. I’m still pretty far from mentally healthy. There are a number of things I either can’t do or have to be extremely careful with since they can trigger some pretty bad things, including bodily symptoms, incapacitating me in severe cases. It holds me back from a number of important things. But my diagnosis? Technically, it’s a clean bill of health, at least if my impression from the last depression test is correct. Which does not reflect the reality at all. Heh, maybe if I think about it enough I’ll land in depression territory again.

My therapist from the clinic said I can always come back if I need it - which would have the advantage of not going into all the details of what happened in the relationship back then, and also of them knowing exactly where they have to start the treatment. But what if I end up having to go somewhere else for whatever reason? I wouldn’t have a diagnosis that warrants treatment in a day clinic, unless things had seriously gone downhill since then. If I technically don’t have a depression anymore and there’s no other diagnosis left, that would mean I might not even qualify for individual therapy, which I definitely still need. I’m probably worrying too much (probably also a side effect from my last intense therapy session which was only yesterday), but it is kind of a weird feeling to know that you’re still fucked up mentally but can’t even get a goddamn diagnosis.

Anyone else ever have or heard of anything like this?