You Are Not Your Diagnosis

Key points

Diagnoses can be helpful for some, debilitating for others.

We need to treat our symptoms more linguistically and metaphorically.

Seeing symptoms less as facts, and more as metaphors, can lead to better growth opportunities.

A diagnosis can be helpful—it can give a name to your suffering, open access to treatment, and create a sense of shared experience. But it can also trap you.

Diagnoses are not eternal truths; they are historical constructs, the latest in a long line of labels for certain human experiences. Over time, these names shift. What was once called “melancholia” became “ depression .” “ Shell shock ” became “PTSD.” The reality didn’t vanish, but the way we speak about it changed.

Language does more than describe—it constitutes . In communication theory,