If we aren’t careful, medical and scientific language can obscure or replace the very thing it’s supposed to be treating. It can draw our attention away from the conscious, moment-by-moment responsibility of living by reducing the difficulty of that responsibility to a label. With a diagnosis we try to objectify our suffering, and we hope to place our despair in a nice tidy, medical box. We can set it on a table, examine it, and communicate it to others: I am not depressed. I have depression. It is over there and I am over here. My experience has a listing in DSM-5. I can name it. So, maybe
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