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this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2024
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Yeah, I agree. This isn't to say that everyone who self-diagnosis is wrong, but it feels like everyone today needs to have some mental illness or disorder. I don't think it's healthy. Every person is different. Being different doesn't mean you have an actual disorder that would need treatment or special care. It really only serves to diminish the response to real disorders.
I think we're going to find that neurodivergence is a lot more prevalent than we ever assumed.
Traditionally ND numbers are based on those who are dysfunctional. The ones that get 'seen'. Those of us who are just 'a bit odd' and skate by? Yeah there's a reason why so many of my generation are getting diagnosed in their 30's, 40's, 50's. Because when we were kids if you weren't in a soft helmet and nonverbal you were classified NT. Millenials and genz are paying a lot more attention to their mental health and trashing the stigmas around it and it's a good thing.
What's the worst thing that's gonna happen if we have a higher rate of perceived NDs anyway? Society becomes more accomodating? Oh noooooo
The worst thing that can happen is people who need assistance don't get it, because everyone claims they need it. I don't think that's the most likely outcome, but it is possible.
Everyone is different to some extent, so just being "atypical" doesn't mean you're neuro divergent. I don't have an issue with it in general, but I do have an issue when it starts becoming a personality trait. I saw that happening on Tumblr at least. Teenagers in particular have a hard time fitting in, and they can see this as a way to have an identity that makes them feel like a member of a group. It's a similar appeal to smoking or anything else teenagers tend to do just for the social appeal. Is it unhealthy? Only time will tell.
Extremely unlikely. Assistance isn't handed out like candy, it's notoriously hard to gain.
I mean, everyone gets the flu. Autism is more permanent, but the term "mental disorder" refers to one of many differe disease states, some of which are temporary.
Autism, psychopathy, cluster B personality disorders, these are sort of permanent things.
Depression, anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, addiction these sorts of things can be induced by life conditions crossed with mental resources, and later cured completely by changing those two inputs.
(I may sound drawing a very binary line here; my intention is less of a clean division between "permanent" and "temporary" mental illness. I think for example autism can decrease in severity over time, making some of its aspects temporary while other aspects are lifelong)
as someone in a position to offer professional diagnoses, here's my perspective - diagnostic labels can be useful, and i view them mostly as tools. their utility to me might be to communicate to another professional a cluster of traits, behaviors, indicators i'm seeing in short-hand. it might be helpful in determining which approaches could bring relief.
it can also be helpful in validating an individual's subjective experiences, like "oh, everything is hard right now because i am dealing with depression, i'm not actually a worthless piece of shit.'" it's also helpful to me when someone shares a self-diagnosis - i can explore what they think that means, and sometimes they're right on the money. sometimes it means "i don't feel i am coping effectively."
sometimes they're not right, but the label they have adopted can offer hints as to what's not working. a word like autism can mean "i have a hard time connecting to others or communicating," and maybe a another label is more appropriate or maybe the issue is their social environment.
some diagnostic labels can be verified objectively and scientifically, but in practice many are based on self-report/informant-report/observation and best fit. the fact is that diagnosis is often as much art as science when it comes to mental health, and the best diagnosis is the one that leads to improved well-being.
of course, some folks don't like labels at all. "i'm just myself." if they are generally happy, healthy, and functioning well, i don't mind that either.
tldr - diagnostic labels are helpful tools that can be useful in a variety of ways.
caveat - diagnostic labels can be dangerous when they interfere with well-being or efforts toward well-being, or when they are used to harm, control, or oppress.
Thanks for this statement. I read it as "diagnostic labels are a tool supposed to be used in professional communication but it may be harmful when used otherwise".
IMO, much of that harm could be avoided by just not pathologizing and labeling personal caracteristics as "disorders", though, which are characteristics certain societies could greatly benefit from if such people would just be given the right respect and task.
What causes this impression?
Many things. I'm not on TikTok, but my impression go that is there's a lot of self-diagnosis things on there. I know on YouTube I've been recommended self-diagnosis related things for ADHD and ASD. ime pretty confident I don't have ASD and I don't think I have ADHD, but I do have many symptoms of both because most people do.
I know Tumblr had it's own massive mental disorder as a personality trait thing. I never used it, but it always seemed potentially harmful to me. No one should want a mental disorder. They should just have one if they do and handle things as best a possible for them, whatever they have or don't have. It shouldn't really be a point of identification to fit into some in-group.
I think there are a few factors that could create that impression even without the numbers being that high.
On the Internet there are lots of people. Something that affects 20% of the population or even 2% is going to have tons of people available to talk about it.
There has been a push for mental health awareness and understanding for many years now. People are open about it and about relating to others with similar experiences.
The world has been insane lately, especially for young people, and folks are used to complaining online and collectively blowing off steam about all the bullshit.
Plus between everything from income inequality to Covid, mental health issues could actually be on the rise recently.
Also just the culture of lying which can grow or shink in any society, if it grows, will lead to everyone having more anxiety as a result of not being able to trust the information they're getting. People being unreliable, breaking promises, it can all feed on itself. Other's mental illness makes them less predictable, less conducive to support and healthy interaction. So it can spread. There can be epidemics of mental illness too.
Any kind of stress increase can degrade and eventually break a person's mental health. Complexity is a source of stress, and as our own mental health breaks down, and our own ability to be there for others consistently breaks down, we add complexity to their lives.
When others can trust us, we save them mental energy. They can make one plan instead of having to make two -- one for if we fulfill our promises and one for if we don't. And when we can trust others, they save us mental energy in the same way.
So culture and even overall levels of mental illness themselves are inputs into the question "how stressful is it to live in X society?"
I think the inequality feeds into this with a lack of respect. When you have to big groups of people who aren't mixed socially, ie distinct social classes, it can lead to contempt and distrust. That contempt and distrust means we're all surrounded daily by people we can't count on. Situations we can't count on. Jobs that we don't know will be there next month, because what if they break their promise not to lay people off, or they break their promise that "These are your duties: X, Y, Z" and try to add "A, B, and C" to our duties.
Poverty itself is bearable, if the systems one is interacting with are reliable enough that one can know exactly what the relationship between effort and output is going to be. But when those systems change all the time, and the same paycheck could require more and more work to the point we can't keep up, or whole divisions are being shut down or bought out or whatever, or the value of the dollar keeps dropping so the same grocery budget suddenly isn't enough, or the electricity goes off and you can't get your work done, or they suddenly don't have hours for you, those kinds of things are the real source of stress in poverty.
The level of disrespect, manifested in a constantly-changing environment one has to adapt to when poor, in order to keep from getting drastically more poor, the constant changing of thee rules, these are poison for people living on little.