My name is Andrew, and like you I have experienced severe cognitive and emotional distress in my life. This distress was sufficient that I once received a psychiatric diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder and Generalized Anxiety Disorder, though I imagine other diagnosis could have easily been applied as well.

I know what panic attacks feel like. I know what it feels to experience a "dissociative episode" from the inside out. I know what it feels like to believe that you are going crazy. I know what it feels like to convulse in sobs so intensely that you tear muscles. I know what it feels like to want to die.

I remember that in the midst of my terror and confusion there came a point where I desperately wanted a label - a diagnosis. I wanted someone to tell me, in explicit terms, what was wrong with me and how to fix it. I can recall scouring the internet through tears trying to find a diagnosis that described my symptoms. I needed to believe that I was ill, just like if I had a virus, so that I would have hope of a "cure." It felt like the only thread of hope I had.

I have been on (admittedly mild) psychiatric medications, and those did help to some degree, especially in the short term. I was also blessed to find a therapist who practiced compassionately and genuinely listened to my voice as I expressed my needs. Many of you were never so lucky, and many others across the world are also less fortunate.

While I felt that I needed the label of mental illness to give me hope that I could be "treated," my therapist and my medical doctor - surprisingly - were less eager to give me what I wanted. They managed to express deep and genuine empathy for my distress and show their willingness to partner with me on a path to healing, but they did so without ever willingly giving me a diagnosis. It was only at my strong insistence that they finally conceded.

I was never told that I had a disease that was "just like diabetes." I was never told that I would likely have this "illness" for the rest of my life. I was never told that I would need to take psychiatric medications for the rest of my life and should never stop them. But every day, thousands and thousands of people are told exactly that.

Today I can share the good news with you that I have experienced full recovery from even these most extreme of cognitive and emotional states. My pathway to this recovery was not drugs (though I understand that medications might be an helpful and important part of your own healing.) Instead, the primary source of my recovery was the genuine empathy expressed by those partnering in my recovery.

My path was also not through the intervention of behavioral therapies (though I understand that CBT and other forms of behavioral therapy may be very helpful to you.) Rather, I was lucky enough to find a therapist who altered her plans for a cognitive-behavioral intervention after truly listening to me express my own sense of what I needed. We engaged in the now out of favor psychotherapy, or "talk" therapy.

I've shared my background story, because I wish to persuade you not to hold the label of "mental illness" too tightly. Again, I've lived the experience of feeling a desperate need for a psychiatric diagnosis. I understand the feeling. I only ask that you keep an open mind and consider what I have to say.

If you've spend any time at Mad in America, you've noticed a strong critique of a medical model of mental illness. In fact you've probably noticed a strong critique of the term "mental illness" itself. You may have read persons arguing that mental illness is a mere social construct, or that mental illness is a myth. I worry that this may feel frightening, or possibly even create a sense of powerful loss. I could even see how hearing such things, depending on what you presently experience, might even feel like it threatens to take all your hope away. I would like to try to ease those fears.

I feel confident in saying that there are few (if any) people arguing against the medical model or label of "mental illness" who deny the absolute reality of your real experience of severe distress. I certainly do not. I've lived the experience, and while not identical to your own, I feel its fair to say we have some common ground. I believe that anyone, given the right context and circumstances, can experience even the most severe forms of cognitive and emotional distress. Hallucinations, suicidal thoughts, deep depression, panic and all the like - these are not experiences that you must accept as "just the way things are" without any hope of easing your suffering.

However, treating the term "mental illness" as a literal truth does more to harm that hope of recovery than it does to help it. You see, along with the popular claim that mental illness is a literal organic brain disease "just like diabetes" are a set of other dogmas unproven and unsupported by evidence. These include, being regularly told that not only do you have a disease, but that this disease has no cure and that you will struggle with it for your entire life. I have trouble imagining anything more hopeless than that.

It also includes being told that you must take psychiatric medications, and often many different psychiatric medications for the rest of your life, and you should never ever consider stopping them. This despite what we know about the limited efficacy of these medications (anti-depressants are barely more effective that placebo in clinical trials; anti-psychotics have a short term effectiveness but increase susceptibility to psychosis, have major medical side effects and decrease brain size - essentially cause brain damage - over the long term.) Where is the hope in this?

Professionals that subscribe to the belief that mental illness is a literal thing, also by and large subscribe to the belief that genuine recovery is impossible. Instead, recovery is redefined to mean "effective symptom management" and persons labeled as mentally ill are encouraged to have "realistic expectations and goals" related to their lives that appreciate the limitations of their "illness." This is not hopeful at all. It is false-hopelessness.

Those of us challenging the evidence-absent medical model and the objective "mental illness" label that goes with it are not trying to take away something hopeful and healing from you. Instead, we wish to counter the false-hopelessness of a system that sees you as second-class people who will never be "normal."

I am not here to minimize your real experiences of deep suffering. I know they are real, and my heart aches for those of you who experience that pain. But I am here to tell you that people can and do recover from even the most extreme forms of distress! You are not "ill" in any objective or literal sense. The term "mental illness" is at best a metaphor. You are a fellow human being whose experiences have led to intense and distressing mental and emotional experiences. Any one of us could experience the same.

Those of us challenging the mental disease model are the ones emphatically declaring that there is hope! You can fully recover from even the most difficult distresses. I know this because of my own recovery, and because persons who have experienced even more intense distress than I have also experience such recovery. You can be free to make the decisions that feel right to you, including whether or to take or not take, continue or discontinue, any medication whatsoever. You can experience the support of a community, not married to a medical model, that sincerely believes in you and honors your voice above all others when it comes to your personal experiences and needs.

So as you continue to hear from people who challenge convention - namely the evidence-absent claim that "mental illness" is an objective thing, that there are literal mental illness diseases with clear biological causes, that people who have these "diseases" can never fully recover and must take powerful and dangerous medications for the rest of their lives whether they want to or not - remember that we also fully validate the reality of your lived experience of severe distress.

We know that mental and emotional suffering is a real experience that many, many people face. We also know that nothing good comes form convincing people that they have a biological disease when no evidence supports that. Questioning the legitimacy of "mental illness" doesn't make the reality of the pain any different. But it does help people avoid the pitfalls of misinformation and powerlessness in their own recovery and wellness.

I am not saying that you are not hurting. I am saying that you are not broken. I am saying that there is hope.  Love and best wishes to you.