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I spent a lot of time wrestling with labels during my latest bout with Bipolar II disorder. They can be exhausting! Between diagnoses, personality types, and even the roles we take on, each feels like a tidy box that rarely fits the full mess of being human.

Here’s an out-of-body example of what I’m talking about. A friend of mine shares my obsession with old courthouses. Like me, he’s visited every single one in Indiana and quite a few in neighboring states. Every now and then, he’ll shoot me a message. “Hey,” he starts. “The Adams County Courthouse- would you call that Italianate or Second Empire?”

As it turns out, that’s not such an easy question to answer. Like many of Indiana’s courthouses, the one in Adams County is a blend of architectural styles. Sure, it has the hallmarks of Second Empire, like a mansard roof, dormers, and ornate cresting, but it also flaunts Italianate features: wide eaves, slender arched windows, and even a central balcony. Add in those heavy cornices and prominent quoins, and you’ve got something that defies an easy label. Simply calling it Second Empire or Italianate sells it short! The Adams County Courthouse is an exuberant fusion that deserves to stand on its own.

That said, I’ve been guilty of the same kind of architectural tunnel vision. Take Ohio’s Champaign County Courthouse. There’s a hint of Art Deco and a touch of Streamline Moderne, but none of it quite lines up with anything you’ll find in Indiana. Just when I thought I’d hit a dead end in putting a name to a face, I saw someone on Wikipedia label the building as “International style.” Intrigued, I reached out to another courthouse-hopping friend, and he agreed. I guess I see it, but I think the most important takeaway is that the building is unique among its peers. Shouldn’t that be enough? 

I’ve noticed the same thing when it comes to schoolhouses. A handful of the 250 or so I’ve been to feature obvious architectural flourishes that could be ascribed to some singular mode, but I’ve long since given up on trying to label them. The majority are vernacular- in other words, they were designed based on local needs and materials rather than to be tied to any formal style. 

Some people can’t handle a lack of labels like that. For me, though, what makes most schoolhouses interesting has less to do with how they were designed and more to do with where they are and what’s become of them. One might have a tree growing straight through the roof. Another may be little more than a crumbling wall in a forest. A third could have been swallowed up by additions so it can masquerade as someone’s home. Each one tells a story through its context.

Increasingly, I’m finding out that I’m the same. Just like those old courthouses and schools, I don’t fall neatly into one category. I’m a patchwork of experiences, shaped by the people I’ve met, the places I’ve been, and the seasons I’ve survived. Some parts of me still stand tall; others have weathered and worn. A few have been rebuilt altogether. Labels might define parts of me, but I do my best to defy them.

This most recent season of Bipolar depression made me think more deeply about how we assign labels to buildings, to people, and to ourselves. We’re quick to name what we don’t fully understand when we try to force things into neat little boxes.

Does intricate tracery suddenly make an old barn Gothic Revival? Does throwing a mansard roof on an Italianate courthouse automatically land it in the Second Empire camp? What about me? Does having Bipolar Disorder mean I’m crazy? Does a flare-up of psoriasis, the kind my cheap insurance won’t touch, somehow define who I am?

Yes and no, of course, but we’re just so quick to slap labels on things. It makes the messiness more manageable, but the truth is that quirks and contradictions don’t make a place or a person any less real. Unfortunately, just like architecture, identity isn’t always so clear-cut. That gray area is where things start to get interesting.

During the darkest stretches of Bipolar depression, I didn’t care about tomorrow. There were existential questions everywhere I looked. Among other things, I no longer cared if the Pacers won the finals; if my beloved cats lived long, happy lives; or whether or not Wendy’s would ever bring back the Cajun Crunch chicken sandwich. All the while, I kept asking myself: Am I really this diagnosis? Is this just the illness talking? Or is this actually who I am now?

That kind of thinking spirals fast. The labels start to shape you, even when you’re fighting to remember who you were before the symptoms intruded. Trying to define myself based on labels I could apply was exhausting. I’m glad the feeling has ended. I’m finally on the mend.

That said, I try my best to take something meaningful from each of my bipolar lows. This time, I came away with a reminder that labels are tools, not definitions. They can help make sense of what I’m going through and put words to something that feels overwhelming, but they’ll never tell the whole story. That’s okay, I think! Maybe what matters most is allowing space for complexity. In accepting that, I can be many things at once. 

Here’s where I’ve landed: the most honest stories -whether they’re about buildings or people- rarely fit on a tidy label. The Adams County Courthouse isn’t just Second Empire. The Champaign County Courthouse doesn’t follow a stylistic blueprint. Likewise, I’m not just a diagnosis, or a personality type, or even a list of the things I’ve survived. I’m a work in progress. I’m adapting.

Living with Bipolar II means learning to navigate extremes, but it also means learning not to get stuck in any one version of myself. Over the years, I’ve been the crumbling schoolhouse. I’ve been that old courthouse. I’ve been rebuilt, again and again. Through all of it, I’m learning that it’s okay not to match some textbook definition.

In the end, maybe that’s the real takeaway: we’re all a bit vernacular like an old schoolhouse. We’re built from what we’ve got, shaped by where we are, and meaningful in ways some simple label could never capture.