Therapy is the second worst thing in my life to happen to me. There were the tens of therapists who put me down or told me my life experience didn't constitute "real trauma". By remaining in the therapy system for so long, years and years, and chasing support I could not actually be offered, all I received was a slew of new trauma (of once again having my lived experience denied) and a hole in my savings. Not kidding, I could have set all that money on fire and have turned out better than I did.
But far more damaging than that was how I was pushed into seeking out labels and spurious diagnoses that only covered up the true causes of my shame - my caretakers and the medical system that acted as their apologia. The idea sold to me (indeed sold, with thousands of dollars of uninsured medical practices) was that with an ADD or other diagnosis under my wing, I could start "really" healing, that the "true" causes to my dysfunction were finally in front of me after being lost for so long.
I now disagree. I was goaded into believing I was a product of unfortunate circumstances instead of malicious incompetence or the just plain abuse and neglect I really did suffer. I was bucketed into the same labels everyone else uses to navigate their problems without regard to their appropriatness and was told it was ME and MY condition that was the beginning and end of the problem. Instead of providing a cohesive narrative, that only served to alienate me further.
We need to stop treating symptoms as labels to be celebrated. Therapy-speak needs to be societally ostracized and die out. My label was the consolation prize to the unfairness and abject cruelty I was subjected to in life. Nothing could be more insulting to the fiber of my being. I am now just myself. I refuse to be medicalized any longer.