The Permission to Lean In

Is it okay if I start leaning a little more into my diagnosis?

It’s been four years since I was diagnosed, and for most of that time, I’ve done everything I could to distance myself from it. I treated it like a side trait — something minor, something manageable — like if I just ignored it enough, it would stay quiet. But lately, nothing makes sense. Or maybe, everything has stopped pretending to make sense.

And I’ve slowly come to realise that nothing will make sense until I understand my nervous system. Until I stop resisting and start accepting. Until I fully lean in. Until I embrace this diagnosis — not as a limitation, but as a map.

I didn’t lean in earlier because I was scared. Scared that if I accepted it, I’d use it as a crutch. That I’d start excusing my behaviour with it, that it would define me, swallow me, and become my whole personality. I didn’t want to be a walking diagnosis. I didn’t want to be the wreck I feared I was.

And if I’m being honest, it’s also because of how misunderstood all of this still is — especially here. People are just starting to grasp what depression is. Anxiety is beginning to be taken seriously. But anything beyond that? It’s like speaking a language no one around you understands. You say “emotional dysregulation” and they hear “dramatic.” You say “fear of abandonment” and they hear “clingy.”

So I’ve been carrying this quietly — because I didn’t want to be seen as mentally ill. I didn’t want to wear that label.

But does this diagnosis make life harder? Sometimes, yes.
Does it make me feel broken? Often.
Is it okay to not be okay?
I’m trying to believe that it is.

Because this weight I carry — this invisible thing that suffocates, pulls, claws at my sense of safety — it’s real. And I’m tired of pretending it’s not.