‘Better’ and ‘Worse’ Mental Illness Diagnoses

There is this concept that some mental illness diagnoses are better or worse than others. Once you start looking for this concept, you’ll see evidence of it all over the place, such as in: “At least I don’t have schizophrenia,” or, “Don’t date borderlines, they’re really messed up.” But why do people think some mental illness diagnoses are better or worse than others?

A Worse Mental Illness Diagnosis?

I once wrote “What’s the Worst Mental Illness” and, to this day, it still gets many visitors. That’s because people really want to know this. People are naturally inclined to group and box things. After all, if you can figure out the “worst” mental illness, then you can feel better about not having it. Or work to avoid it (if that were even possible). Or simply feel better than those who do have it (ludicrously, obviously).

But even if you don’t but into the idea that there is a “worst” mental illness, people seem to think that worse mental illnesses are the ones they don’t have. For example, if you have posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), you may think, “At least I don’t have complex PTSD.”

Similarly, bipolar disorder and complex PTSD are often confused with and misdiagnosed as borderline personality disorder (BPD). People often feel better once they get the correct diagnosis which, in these cases, aren’t BPD. This leads to the thought that “At least I don’t have borderline personality disorder.”

In other words, even people with mental illness malign other people with mental illness. It’s like we feel the need to be superior over others with mental illness. Oh, sure, we’re crazy, but we’re not as crazy as them. Sure, we’re sick, but we’re not as sick as them.

And I probably don’t need to point out that this is mere prejudice talking. We’re discriminating against other mental illnesses in spite the fact that we do not want to be discriminated against ourselves. It’s ironic and ridiculous.

A Better Mental Illness Diagnosis

In other words, our own diagnosis is a better mental illness diagnosis. Other people’s diagnoses are worse mental illness diagnoses.

And I admit, early on in my mental illness journey (before I became a professional writer), I was guilty of this. I did think that those with bipolar disorder were somehow “better than” or maybe “less crazy” or “more fixable” than those with borderline personality disorder. Holy moly. That is so unfair. How dare I think that people with borderline personality disorder are somehow “lesser than?”

Now, at the time, they were actually much less treatable as dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) for borderline personality disorder wasn’t around yet. That’s a fact. According to my doctor at the time, it was also a fact that when a doctor gave up on a patient, the doctor would simply label the person with the “borderline” label so they no longer had to treat that patient (as no evidence-proven treatments were available). It was a cop-out on the part of the doctor whether the person had borderline personality disorder or not.

And, for whatever reason, my doctor really spoke poorly about those with borderline personality disorder primarily calling them “manipulative.” And while some of the symptoms of BPD can be interpreted as manipulation in some, it’s an unfair global characterization, obviously.

So for a while, even I walked around thinking I had a “better” diagnosis of bipolar disorder. Of course, I was wrong too.

Better and Worse Mental Illness Diagnoses

So, I encourage everyone to look at themselves, their beliefs and their language and determine if somewhere in there, you’re not ranking mental illnesses in your head. While I think it’s normal to feel grateful that you don’t have a diagnosis when that’s based on empathy (e.g., it must be so hard to have a psychotic disorder), it’s not okay to be glad you don’t have a diagnosis because yours is “better” somehow.

What I have learned by talking to people with all manner of mental illness diagnoses, is that pain is pain. It doesn’t matter if your pain comes from unstable relationships and an extreme fear of abandonment or from a panic attack in crowds or from extreme depression — pain is pain. All those people are experiencing it. My pain is not better than their pain.

The truth that we need to focus on is that we really are connected — not separate. There may be a line between serious mental illness and minor mental illness (I find this understandable; the experiences between the two are quite different.), but most of us need to band together and recognize that our pain is like our neighbor’s pain. Sure, I don’t know what it’s like to be psychotic, but I sure do have empathy for those people. I sure do feel connected with those people. Those people are in the same boat, maybe just with slightly different oars.

Because let’s face it, there is enough prejudice and discrimination to go around from the people who don’t have a serious mental illness. The last thing we need to do is shoot ourselves in the foot by drawing more lines and creating little “in” groups within our whole. When we fight for our deserved rights together, we are more powerful.

We are one just as all those with cancer are one. No cancer diagnosis is morally better or worse and no mental illness diagnosis is morally better or worse. The sooner we realize that, the better we all will be.