I’ve spoken candidly about some of my struggles with mental health. I would like to preface this—I don’t believe mental illness is real. I think the myriad of dysfunctional behaviors we observe and label as pathologies in the DSM-V are simply coping disorders. Life is suffering (to a degree), and to cope with this, some people have cultivated dysfunctional behaviors to manage the stressors of life. Some people have cultivated these behaviors themselves, and others hold an origin story of watching adults around them cope with life poorly in their youth and, as a result, adopt some of those behaviors. And even then, disorders are only disorders when they disrupt your life. Does it matter if you have Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) if your symptoms are controlled? Do you then even meet the criteria for GAD? If you don't meet the requirements, do you still have it? The opposite of disorder would be order. So, if your life is in order, what weight does a diagnosis carry at that point?
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