Why is acceptance important when it comes to managing a mental health diagnosis and living well with it?

Acceptance is important because if you are battling the diagnosis, then you are really only battling yourself. The longer you deny reality, the longer you put off the work of coping with things. I have found that acceptance can be a relief as well. If you know what it is that is going on with you, you can begin the journey of coping with it.

How can psychoeducation help someone accept a diagnosis? 

We are not born knowing any of this. And sadly, due to mental health stigma and the differing priorities of the education system, we are not taught psychoeducation much either. Learning more about the diagnosis in particular and the mind in general can help make it all feel less overwhelming.

How can support from others -- like peer support groups -- help someone accept a diagnosis? 

Support from peers, therapists, and even friends can be helpful in normalizing whatever the diagnosis is. With peers in particular, you can see that “oh, other people are like this as well, and they don’t seem as ‘crazy’ as I would’ve thought.”

What else can someone do to work toward accepting a mental health diagnosis? 

Not take it TOO seriously. Diagnoses were created in part by the medical profession as a way to classify people. ‘OCD’ or ‘bipolar disorder', for example, are designed to be a shortcut for practitioners to understand the client’s situation at a glance. The mistake we often make is to turn it into a self label or a self identity. Whatever the diagnosis is, it is only one of many personal characteristics. 

What else to say about this topic?

When I am working with clients and they tell me their diagnoses I try to avoid making assumptions about them. Rather I will often ask “what does that diagnosis mean to you?” I feel that is more important than knowing what the psychological world thinks it means about them.

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Ever catch yourself feeling angry and wish you could just shut it right off? If only it were that easy.

When something makes us angry, our amygdala -the almond shaped mass in our brain responsible for fight or flight- says "my time is now." Before we have a moment to think it over, the amygdala commands our body to produce and rapidly fire chemicals such as adrenaline throughout our body.

Unless we are in the rare position of actually fighting off a real attacker, this is not a mental state we want to be in. Prolonged anger can lead to health problems like heart disease and significant damage to relationships.

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Ideally we would stop anger like stepping on a car's brake. At the size of a common vehicle we can go from 60 to 0 pretty rapidly. But anger is not like that. Anger is like a 100-car train flying down the tracks. In the cab of the train's locomotive the engineer pulls the brake lever to stop. The brakes are applied, but that of course does not stop the train 'in its tracks'. With all that weight behind it, it can take a large train well over a mile to stop.

Adrenaline is like that. Once you notice it moving in your head, the brake lever needs to be thrown immediately to head off disaster. The force of the adrenaline will want to keep the train moving. That is why it is important to not let up on the brake when the adrenaline urges you to.

Whatever method you use to calm - breathing, mindfulness, walking away - do it and stick to it as soon as you notice the nasty chemicals flowing.