Why I need a label

My name is Mary.
I have schizoaffective disorder, anxiety disorder, and ptsd.

I can't begin to tell you the number of people that have asked me "Why do you need a label?"
Well, to me it's not just a label. Its an answer to questions I've asked my entire life. A reason why I feel so different. Its that someone recognizes my struggle. More importantly, if I know my "label" I can know my symptoms. When I don't know my label I don't have a name for what I'm fighting and I don't have insight. If I don't know my symptoms I don't know when I'm symptomatic. So if a song comes on the radio, and I just know they wrote it specifically about me, and my mind starts to wander into grandiose delusional thinking I can ground myself. I can say, this is a symptom. If I refuse to have a label, I might think I'm not ill, and if I think I'm not ill, I may cave in when the epiphany that I must be the virgin Mary comes worming it's way into my thoughts and causes me to buy a pregnancy test just to see if I'm with child, even if I haven't "been" with anyone. Yes, it's happened. So before you ask someone "Why do you need a label"? Remember, a label is stability, it is a grounding force in a world where reality has to be fought for. It is not just a label. It's a life line.