DS has to many diagnoses!

[mindgoinground12]

DS is 20 know and some of you may remember some of my old threads when he was particularly unwell, he is doing well know is a student nurse, lives away from us, is still involved with mental helath teams and does have wobbles. With the combination of incidents happening, moving teams, being at uni we've had a lot of reports with all his diagnoses that people think he has, DS is getting a bit down this week as a couple are unfortunately particularly stigmatised.
Today he has sat down with the printed of list that the gp gives that also has the diagnosed dates, reportatly he has;
Borderline personality disorder
PTSD
Psychosis
Autism
Bipolar
OCD (traits)

He is frustrated, he wants one or two to tell people so they understand, he dosent want a book. He wants labels he agrees with. Honestly I think it is a bit ridiculous, anything we can do? He's spoken with his mental help team and they say they've been diagnosed by other people , he shows symptoms etc. I can't get my head round it and want to help him best.

I think the GP records don’t necessarily get updated so the diagnoses just accumulate rather get amended. Really the MH team need to give a more explicit and formulated diagnosis. But failing that can’t your son just choose his diagnosis? What about Complex PTSD, which is a more descriptive and certainly less stigmatised term for borderline personality disorder. Psychosis just describes some symptoms so not really a diagnosis in the purest sense. You can have it as part of complex PTSD.

Do you think he has autism too? OCD traits can be part of this. So again he has probably been given multiple labels for the same problem

He doesn't have to disclose his autism dx to his employers, unless he needs interventions and reasonable adjustments put into place to help him, I don't know about other conditions.

How is he described on his GP records and hospital records? Often they are headed with a main dx, then a couple of others.

Anything with traits is not a dx.

It's often the case for women that their autism is overlooked and one or more MH conditions are dxd before the autism, but the autism "cancels those out" when there's an overview, so they are just described as autistic. However, it's quite rare for autism to be dxd solely on its own, it's common to have autism and co-morbids.

Does he claim PIP? If so the more diagnoses which are medical evidence the better for that.

I'd advise him to see his GP and ask what they'd advise he should say is medically correct when describing himself.

Bpd and bipolar is often a misdiagnosis for autism and ocd often goes alongside autism (comorbid) if it was me I would lead with the autism which would umbrella quite a lot of these other conditions and give him a brief explanation for any accommodations needed. Living in a neurotypical world when you're not unsurprisingly might cause or exacerbate these other conditions, they don't however, have to define him because he sounds like he has worked very hard on his mental health and is coping well.

It is tough OP. I think professionals cross over and lots of these things cross over. My DD has similar issues with a few letters involved.
Bpd and bipolar is often a misdiagnosis for autism
I'd have bet my life my 4 yo DS was autistic but no he has been diagnosed with DMDD childhood BPD.

It seems quite plausible to me that he has all of those issues. Possibly the OCD is part of autism, but everything else could happen concurrently.

My mum used to get so upset by her borderline personality disorder label. She’s a lot more happy in herself now it’s labelled complex/severe PTSD. I’d tell him to ignore the OCD label, lots of people have OCD traits, it doesn’t need a label.

Label's are shit unfortunately we have to seek them to get help it is awful.

Labels are for jars of jam.

Medical diagnoses are something entirely different.

My DD1 has a very similar list (barring psychosis)
ASD
OCD
Bipolar
Anorexia
Depression
Anxiety
Ehlers Danlos Syndrome

But they aren't HER they are a list of the issues/problems she has faced and needs medication and support to manage.

It hasn't held her back... even with a tube fed stay in hospital last year to help her anorexia, and a stay in a psych unit. She's a junior doctor and the labels have ensured a decent amount of support within her profession... and despite all of the above she is a fabulous, committed doctor who has such empathy and skills with her patients because, well her life has been, and will always be, more difficult.

Her labels do not define her!

He has EDS to actually, His mental helath team lists all these diagnoses to. He tried to challenge the BPD but was told it had to stay in paper by the mental helath team. If people need to know or DS wants to disclose we say he has autism/ptsd as we believe that Nicky explains evreything.