I have no medical expertise, at all, but I do offer a cautionary note about how to best deal with our ongoing crisis of mental health: Please, whatever you do, don& #39;t let a diagnosis/condition/however you relate to mental health, become your identity. This is NOT the time.

I& #39;ve lost track of the number of people I& #39;ve met, who so completely identify AS their diagnosis -- real or imagined -- that it& #39;s all they know, in terms of moving through the world. This can be paralysing, even if it seems, at first, that the world is validating your existence.

This is why I write so often about trauma and women and queers in particular: note the numbers of writers and performers who constantly reiterate their symptoms, their broken-ness, their traumas, and must because that& #39;s how they make their living.

The long-term effects of constantly performing your identity as a victim of trauma can, I think, perhaps be even worse than living in a culture and climate where your trauma is not acknowledged. It leaves you incapable of living with/outside of your very legitimate pain(s).