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if you live under a rock and havent heard by now, this generation has an issue with self-diagnosing themselves. especially with severe mental disorders.
what does this mean?
ill explain it simple. self-diagnosing is when you, for example, feel a bit under the weather so you go and take some medicine and carry on with your day instead of consulting a doctor. THAT is what self diagnosing is. however, people have twisted this meaning and start self diagnosing themselves with serious disorders and illnesses that require consulting a doctor for many reasons.
another quick disclaimer: english is not my first language. i apologize if i do not make sense at some times or if i do not use the correct terminology. please correct me and i will fix it! ^_^
but... why?
theres many reasons. i personally enjoy learning about psychology so im gonna be focusing more on the mental disorders and psychological side, given my knowledge about them. disclaimer: i am not a professional. im just a highschooler who took 2 psychology classes and has sociology this year + an interest in learning about psychology. PLEASE correct me if im wrong on any of this.
the reason i see it happen most is because people wanna be different. they wanna be quirky. and so what do they decide to do? they decide to come onto tiktok and talk about their self diagnosed DID system that apparently developed 2 months ago instead of like, oh, i dont know... picking up a hobby that not many people have?
and because of this, these mental disorders have been given such a stigma and bad reputation because people will not shut up about misinformation. i will be using DID as an example, however this applies to most disorders:
DID is not something easily diagnosable until adulthood. there is a reason you have to be an adult to be diagnosed. sorry, i dont mean to rain on your parade, but you are not a DID system unless you have a medical diagnosis and have been in therapy for years. most people who have DID arent even able to "map out" [using this term loosely] their system until well into their adult life because its such a difficult disorder.
if you arent aware, DID [also known as Dissociative Identity Disorder] is a mental disorder developed because of severe trauma in early childhood that causes the brain to split up into different identities to protect itself. if you are claiming to have DID and have not experienced severe childhood trauma, you do not have DID. plain and simple. that is not something 'negotiable', its a fucking mental disorder. you cant make up the rules lol.
if you claim to have a full DID system with different alters who have a decent grasp on their personality without going through years of therapy, ESPECIALLY as a minor, you do not have DID.
i know i might sound harsh, but this is the truth. if you are angry at the truth, you are part of the problem.
BUT! it is usually okay to speculate, especially if you do not have access to a medical diagnosis for one reason or another. as long as you arent claiming to 100% have it.
"WHY is self diagnosis harmful though, you never explained that!"
self diagnosis is very harmful for multiple reasons, i will go over each one of them.
1. misinformation.
- misinformation is spread like a wildfire, especially in communities with young and impressionable individuals. if someone claims that, using DID as an example again, 'DID can be developed in teenage years', people will believe that and use that information. especially if they have not done their own research themselves.
this also applies to misusing medical terms. you are not having a "manic episode" unless you have bipolar disorder. you are not "antisocial" for not liking social interaction, you are asocial. you do not have a "special interest", you just enjoy a piece of media a lot.
2. stigma.
- adding on to misinformation, it can also cause a stigma. stigma exists already for most disorders, like cluster B personality disorders. people assume that everyone with ASPD/BPD/NPD are awful people, which is a stigma. misinformation can also push more stigma but in different contexts. ESPECIALLY for DID, since a lot of people self diagnose it inaccurately, it creates a stigma that "if someone says they have DID theyre lying" even if they arent.
3. it makes it difficult for people to get help.
- also adding on to #2. this quite literally happened back around 2020. some doctors stopped evaluating people for autism because too many people were self diagnosing and insisting they had autism. people arent getting the help they need because people wont stop lying about having some disorders, which prevents people who ACTUALLY have them from getting a diagnosis and help for it.
all of these, in turn, really hurt people who genuinely have these disorders, both socially and medically.
self diagnosis being so normalized on platforms like tiktok and discord doesnt JUST hurt people with said disorders as well. it can also effect the people self diagnosing themselves. let me paint a picture: you are 13 years old and you get on tiktok for the first time. first mistake. you see a few posts about a disorder called DID, most of which are filled with misinformation unbeknownst to you. seeing these posts and believing all this misinformation causes you to think that you might have DID, and, in some cases, it can go as far as to delude you into thinking that you do in fact have a system and alters even though you dont. delusion is a crazy thing and you will never know if youre being delusional or not, because, well, youre delusional.
if you did not care enough to read all of this, basically what im saying is: self diagnosing is harmful for everyone involved. it prevents people from having access to the rescources they need, it adds unneeded stigma, and it isnt great for anyone really.
if you are one of these people who self diagnose like this or support people who do, i urge you to rethink your choices. its not too late to remove the "i have BPD" sentence from your about me or replace it with "i might have BPD, not diagnosed yet".
if you have anything you want to add, please do so. also, like i mentioned before, if i got anything wrong then please do correct me. i am not looking to argue with anyone about this and if you come into my comments in an argumentive tone, i will delete your comment.
kudos are appreciated, thanks for reading! <3
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fckinlazyy
i do think you make a valid point. although, self-diagnosing is not inherently bad. it depends on the way it's done, and how it is dealt with. if one 'self-diagnoses' through a tiktok video, yeah, that can definitely be harmful, but there are more ways of self-diagnosing. the dsm-5 is available on the internet, if someone is made aware of a certain disorder, and think they have that disorder, they can look up the symptoms. based on this info, they can then go to a psychologist to get properly diagnosed. a lot of diagnoses in the field come from self-diagnosing individuals who want a proper diagnosis. i think the most harmful part of this is the tiktokification of disorders, making it into a trend, and the misinformation, which CAN come from mistakenly self-diagnosing. but i dont think that makes the entirety of self-diagnosing a bad thing. the only reason i got my adhd diagnosis, is because i self-diagnosed before seeking out a professional.
self-diagnosing also doesn't have to be loud (ex. on social media). someone can think they have a disorder, based on their life and behavioural patterns, and not necessarily speak out about it. the reason we are seeing self-diagnosing as this huge, misinformed situation, is because people on social media try to get clout from it. they are just trying to go viral (a lot of the times, not always). it's a skewed sample we're looking at, which paints self-diagnosis in an undeserving negative light (in my opinion)
THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I WANTED To SAY! i just didnt know how to explain it so i left it out, ur getting pinned
by nikolai ♱; ; Report
𐙚⋆. 𝓡𝓪𝓫𝓲𝓮𝓼 𝓚𝓲𝓼𝓼 ✧.*
so glad someone said this. it can be really frustrating seeing people i love make a self diagnosis and then just do nothing about it. if you think you might be struggling with symptoms of a mental health disorder, try to seek help for it. ive heard "its too difficult to get support for mental health nowadays" from everyone i know who has self diagnosed, and although this is true depending on where a person lives, where i live it is actually pretty accessible and people just regurgitate this idea because its what they've heard online, or because a single avenue of support fell through, or the process is long, or the process is "too much of a hassle", etc. as someone who is in a dual social work/psych major, i def have a lot of interest in this topic, and its frustrating to see people misuse self-diagnosis. i see my friends suffer from certain symptoms and then go "well ive diagnosed myself with *insert thing*, so thats why im like this" and then do absolutely nothing to help themselves or seek help once they've decided that they've found the explanation. i think that investigating your symptoms and trying to learn about yourself is a positive thing, but please for the love of god dont self diagnose and then shrug it off. if you think you have DID, BPD, etc, seek support T~T i hate seeing these labels used in the name of "finding yourself" rather than something that is serious and requires theraputic/medical support...
mOnsTArrr
Mi mamá de autodiagnóstico después de que se enteró de que yo mi tía y mi hermana politica teníamos algún problema de esta índole
Mi psicólogo dijo que a los menores de edad no se les puede diagnosticar en si solo dar algo similar dijo que podría estar serca de ser una persona con TLP lo cual suena a con sentido pero igual dijo que podría ser algo de las hormonas de la adolescencia, luego a una tía política le diagnosticaron TDH creo y a mí hermana politica tuvo un lapso de depresión ( está medicada ) .
El último " diagnóstico " fue el mío y de ahí mi mamá empezó a decir cosas como que tenia toc o alguna otra cosa para justificar cada cosa que hacía mal si decía algo hiriente decía que era por eso , supongo que se sintió excluida o algo así, llegó al punto en el que yo llore y le dije que ella no entendería lo difícil que es vivir con algo así y que no lo podía usar a la ligera, al día de hoy va a terapia y su psicóloga no a dicho nada con respecto a un transtorno...
FleetCore
Considering the fact that my mother went through (to term it loosely) "severe situations, people, and acts of violence" throughout her childhood and teenage years and growing up with the roughness of her own mother (my Oma/German grandma.)
My mother was (to term it loosely, again) "extremely mistreated" by her mother and her brother + many others.
This lead her to get DID, although she didn't really realize what it actually was after it began developing in her early adult life. She's very open about it due to having actually recovered from the stuff she's suffered through with therapy and NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness).
However, while she was actually having all those symptoms develop (this would've been mid-90s or so), she actually went into the Navy due to the fact that her uncle was a major inspiration to her due to him being a veteran. She never went out to sea or anything nor was stationed in a conflict, but she was a photographer (which is why I'm always in awe at her photography skills.)
Anyways, basically, she put herself into treatments centers & the like and, after being diagnosed and confused on what it was (after I was born), she decided to get therapy and learn about what she had.
And after a good decade and a half or so, I came downstairs one morning to see her sitting out in the backyard.
I remember this vividly.
She was crying, with some confusion on her face. Apparently half of her alters had just seemingly "vanished" from her head in one go. One thing however was that she was also very happy despite the loss of her alters, and that's because it was a sign she was healing.
I do remember that it took some time for the rest to go, as she has documented most of such stuff through journaling (as a way to vent stress and the like).
However, one thing that popped up in the last few years that might be of interest is that she now has Functional Neurological Disorder and, despite not much research on the subject as far as I'm aware, I have seen online that FND can be related to DID and other mental disorders. I'm not certain about this, and my mother has done plenty of research too.
Just an interesting tidbit.
mads_the_bat 🦇🏚🕸
you deserve a follow for this. I've seen so many people with "systems" with different names and pronouns for each. That means you like to make OCs, not that you have DID. I've also seen a bunch of people saying "you don't owe anyone a diagnosis!!" WHEN YES, YOU DO. YOU OWE YEARS OF RESEARCH AND DISCRIMINATED COMMUNITIES YOUR DIAGNOSIS.
you do know that it is 100% normal for systems to have alters of all different ages, genders, sexualities, and even species, right? source: i have DID
by ♡ jovi 🐹; ; Report
(real source: https://did-research.org/did/alters/)
by ♡ jovi 🐹; ; Report
thats true, but i think theyre referring to the people who obviously dont have it are probably just genderfluid and something else if they *genuinely* sometimes feel like different "people"[/genders]
by nikolai ♱; ; Report
nobody has any business armchair (un)diagnosing complete strangers on the internet
by ♡ jovi 🐹; ; Report
Emo_Girl:3
Real. Beacause of people who selfdiagnose I'm to scared to even think that I might have something, just because I feel like this way I would be one of those people. I'm still too young to get diagnosed so I can have only assumptions. Plus prop I won't go to get a diagnose EVER in my life bc I'm thinking abt joining military. I don't want to feel my whole life like someone who tries to be different by claiming something they don't have. So I hope people will see how harmful is self diagnosing
Reallll!!! I only mention that I might have ASPD because it's something that effects my ability to socialize with people and make friends, and so it is important to know that I have these issues even if I am not diagnosed for them yet
by nikolai ♱; ; Report
wetware.angel
You're right but also like, children won't listen to this and continue doing it anyway. My ex had something like it going on and he was incredibly terrified to tell me and he was like well into his 20s and we had been together for several years. I find it almost offensive to be honest.
im aware children wont listen to it, but i know some children will read it and possibly rethink their behavior.
talking about it and making more people aware can push more people to look at these things negatively can help prevent the issue at least a little bit. i mainly wrote this because ive thought about it for a while and i finally figured out the words to explain how i feel.
by nikolai ♱; ; Report
nikolai ♱
eheh i also apologize if i over formatted the text. i like making stuff bold and italic andwhatnot i think it makes it look cool.
it is nearly illegible! please tone it down next time!
by Alyssa; ; Report
illegible is a stretch
by nikolai ♱; ; Report
do you think i made a reply just to make shit up? i couldn't read the dang post without copying it into notepad first
by Alyssa; ; Report
girl i think you need glasses if you needed to do all of that... nobody forced you to read it + why are you getting so aggressive wtf
by nikolai ♱; ; Report
well, sorry for wanting to read what you wrote? if you're gonna ask for criticism, the least you can do is acknowledge it without starting a fight... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
by Alyssa; ; Report
MJ
tbh an overall great blog. maybe DID wasnt the best example though, cause even as an adult it's hard to 1. get a diagnosis 2. find a qualified therapist for it (also for some disorders and in some countries, it's actually better for some individuals to not get an official diagnosis because it can hinder already difficult administrative processes or even employement and have "branded" as "mentally ill") speaking from one of those place, as one of those "mentally ill" individual.
but the rest is pretty spot on, good job!
yes! i thought about mentioning the last part, but it was already getting long. i personally have considered getting diagnosed for some issues i have but i dont want it to ruin any job opportunities and whatnot for me in the future, so as of right now im just thugging it out lol. i appreciate your comment!
by nikolai ♱; ; Report