Your Diagnosis Doesn't Define You

*Thank you to Amelia Pink for allowing us to share this piece. You can see more of her writing here.*

A few years ago, I was diagnosed with a mental illness. Finding this out changed my life.

For as long as I could remember, I felt different. I felt that there was something ‘wrong’ with me and something that I couldn’t understand about myself.

So often I felt like a stranger in my own body, the place where we are meant to feel our safest and most at home.

When I was told what was going on, all I could feel was relief. It was as if all of the cruel words that were circulated up in my brain about not being good enough, that I was the issue, and there was no explanation for what was going on, were released from me.

I know it can be confronting, there are so many different emotions when finding out a diagnosis and along with the relief, I felt grief. Grief for my younger self not getting the help she needed, grief for all of the things she missed, for the moments she spent wishing things could be different, for the moments she couldn’t work out why she didn’t want to be here anymore.

There is also a level of feeling different when you get diagnosed that I want to acknowledge. It’s incredibly easy to feel like you are an issue or a burden but being diagnosed is meant to do the opposite - it allows you to get the right tools to manage what you are going through. You cannot help the things that happen to you, you are incredibly strong for getting up each morning and getting through the day.

If this resonates with you, please know you are not alone and you are so incredibly loved.

-Amelia Pink

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