Should Mental Illness Be Mentally Ill, Or Neuroatypical

I was and continue to be socialized to be mentally ill, or neuroatypical. Being neuroatypical is a trait that is both ascribed and achieved. Some aspects of mental illness are chemical or environmentally triggered, so my OCD and mood disorder are both directly a part of my biology. Similarly, my anxiety it is thought to be genetic and my PTSD is obviously caused by trauma. These things seem concrete and ingrained enough in my being that I can call mental illness ascribed, but at the same time, there are aspects which seem to render them achieved. The diagnoses themselves are assigned by various doctors. However, these diagnoses are clearly constructs, because the diagnostic criteria and language have evolved over time, and I personally have had several damaging misdiagnoses over the course of my life (the treatment for which exacerbated my other conditions). Often, diagnoses are based on the patient s compliance or identity (such as race, class, and gender), and highly stigmatized d iagnoses can be given out by doctors who display strong biases or are more willing to want to abuse a patient in psychiatric setting. Recently, five doctors disagreed about a specific diagnosis for me, though there was a general consensus among four of them that it was some form of bipolar disorder. The fifth saw me when I was in an abrasive and highly anxious part of my manic episode, which made him treat me more poorly and give a diagnosis that all of my other healthcare providers disagreed