Hi everyone! This is my first ever post, so please bear with me.

I (20F) have had crippling depression and been suicidal since I was 14 and when I joined college, I was finally able to get help for it (thank god for student health insurance). I've been seeing my therapist for two or three months now, and lately we've been diving into my childhood trauma and stuff. I've also started getting recommended more memes about mental illness on instagram lol. I saw one meme about high functioning Borderline Personality Disorder, and I know I shouldn't self diagnose based on a meme, but when I googled the symptoms, a lot of them were exactly what I was experiencing and discussing with my therapist. 

I spoke to my therapist about it, and she said that my symptoms fell under the categories of BPD and PTSD but that she was reluctant to diagnose me with these disorders because of the history behind them (especially BPD being used as a blanket term for women's mental illness in the past). She also said that by giving me a diagnosis, I might see the disorders as something which I'll be stuck with for life, and not something I can cure or heal from. She said something similar when I spoke about my depression as a disability and an illness -- she said that she prefers to call depression a mental health issue since it's something which I can recover from, and not necessarily something I'll have for life. 

I see where she's coming from, but I can't help but think that if a doctor didn't diagnose a physical illness, the consequences would be extremely different. I'm currently on antidepressants (Bupropion) and I am working towards healing, but I feel like having a concrete diagnosis would help me better understand my symptoms and help me not feel so broken (which I often do). I was wondering if this is normal in therapy or if any of you have had similar experiences? Thanks! &lt;3