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A Diagnosis is Just a Label is Just a Tool

I’ve talked about labels before. Today I was thinking about how a diagnosis is just a medically recognized label.

Like any tool it can be used or not, and used well or poorly.

Another thing a diagnosis or label is, is language. It’s shorthand that allows those who understand it to skip past a lot of repetitive description. And like language it’s usage and meaning can and does change over time.

So, is your diagnosis limiting you? Or are you using it as a tool to liberate you and access support? The U.S. medical insurance system sucks, and working to improve it is definitely worthwhile. At the same time, understanding and figuring out how to work within the existing system might be necessary for many of us until change does happen.

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Time Blindness

What Time Blindness is: Could You Be Time Blind? | Psychology Today

Ways that human society have changed that have removed the nature supports for people who are time blind:

  • Developing electricity so that we’re no longer bound by the sun or lighting methods that visibly mark time by the consumption of fuel – like fires, candles and oil lamps.
  • The development of suburbs so that not everyone lives within hearing distance of the bells on a clock tower to mark the hour both day and night.
  • The development of digital and silent analog clocks so there is no longer an auditory cue of time passing.

It’s only in very recent human history that we’ve removed the supports that someone with time blindness used to be able to rely on. I’m not surprised that we’ve only recently figured out that some people are time blind. Honestly, I’m surprised that it isn’t the majority of people, but it’s likely tied into our circadian rhythms and we didn’t “invent” time, but rather invented a way to track and coordinate it.

ADHD Scheduling & Time Sense

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Using the Restroom

Bio break, relieving yourself, whatever you want to call it.

Is it bad to hold your pee? – Heba Shaheed – YouTube TLDR: It can be.

Instead of asking if someone needs to use the bathroom, try asking if they can try to empty their bladders (hint – your kidneys are always working, so the answer will always be that there was at least something in their bladder, even if they weren’t feeling the urge to go).

Good explanations of why you should empty your bladder now instead of later? This bathroom is much nicer than the one at <location> or we’ll be traveling and stopping to find one later will be hard or might make you miss out on part of <activities>.

After using the toilet, make sure to wash your hands!

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Hydration

Figure out if your sense of thirst works (part of interoception). If you can go hours without getting thirsty, it might not be working so well.

If your “thirsty don’t work” then building in a hydration habit is important to avoid dehydration.

Ted Ed: What would happen if you didn’t drink water? – Mia Nacamulli – YouTube

Habits: https://youtu.be/PZ7lDrwYdZc 
Effective practice: https://youtu.be/f2O6mQkFiiw

Water | Bunny’s Info-Dump (sweetpeastudio.biz)

Water Calculator: Water Intake Calculator – How much water should you drink per day? (gigacalculator.com)

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Link Tracking – Pain Treatment

I’m working on reconnecting with my body so that I can manage my pain appropriately and do my physical therapy exercises.

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Post Covid Update

I haven’t updated in a while, mostly because I’ve been focusing on taking care of myself and accepting help.

I’ve been doing EMDR and it’s been helping me reframe my memories. At first I was doing it to recover from the trauma of being hospitalized for bipolar disorder. We’ve started working on my childhood trauma since then. This morning I was thinking about how Penelope said that the biggest impact for kids was when their moms got more support. This has been true for us because I’m able to be more regulated and present for my child, which I’ve written about before is their primary need.

One of the things that has come out of my bipolar diagnosis is being forced to focus on taking better care of myself and asking for or accepting help. I’ve been learning that ignoring my needs, such as disassociating from my pain, is one of my maladaptive strategies I’ve brought from my childhood.

One of the first stories I reframed with EMDR was about my elementary school worms.

The school I went to had one of those red dirt tracks out in the field. Whenever it rain the track would be covered in worms. During PE if it wasn’t raining, we would be told to run the track. It took me forever because I was avoiding stepping on the worms. Eventually I’d get in trouble for being squeamish. I was the only one reacting that way, so I was the wimpy freak. Re-examining it I realized that I was the only one sensitive and caring enough to want to avoid killing the worms by stepping on them. And instead of my kindness being honored it was dismissed.

I didn’t find out about the trait of high sensitivity until my late 20s or early 30s, so while I was able to do some reframing on my own, I didn’t realize how many formative memories I had with negative interpretations. And it was only recently working with my chiropractor that I realized how disassociated I was from my body and its pain signals.

I wouldn’t say I feel lucky to have bipolar, but I do feel lucky to have such a large caring network of friends and family to support me while I rewire my brain.

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Pain Prevention

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Heat vs Pain

I’ve been using the Sunbeam heat pads to target my mid-back pain. Sometimes they are enough for my cervicogenic headaches, but the last one I had it was not. Next on the list is trigger point injections to help with my mid-back pain.

Even just raising my arms is enough weight to cause my rib/spine pain to flare up. So then I have to go sit and heat treat to prevent it from cascading into another cervicogenic (mine last three days usually) headache that was misdiagnosed as a migraine.

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Misophonia

I was looking at upgrading my 23andMe, but then I saw they mislabeled Misophonia. So I sent them a letter instead:

Misophonia was incorrectly labeled: (hatred of the sound of chewing) on https://you.23andme.com/chip-upgrade/
While that is the most well-known and common form, Misophonia is actually specific sound sensitivity. Having two family members who suffer from it and NOT the chewing form, it was disappointing to see 23andMe spreading misinformation.

Misophonia – Wikipedia