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newsflash re: self diagnosis by Jive
dumping scorn and condescension on someone for not having a "professional diagnosis" for a mental illness is going to do nothing but shame that person into avoiding seeking help because you're basically telling them that they can't possibly know what's wrong with their own mental health but some random psych totally will after meeting with them for 30 mins at a time for a few weeks and doesn't that sound an awful lot like "what do you know/nobody will believe you/?"
if you honestly believe people who are trying to figure out what's wrong so they can self-treat are doing so "for attention" or somehow damage the credibility of people who "really have" these illnesses, you've probably never had to go through the utter powerlessness and frustration of not being able to afford mental health care... in which case, you have no room to fucking judge and should keep your goddamn mouth shut
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I agree with this, even though I've never been in the situation of self-diagnosis.
Usually, since I've been diagnosed with so many things and have experience in such, I try to HELP the person get the professional diagnosis they need. A diagnosis can help with getting appropriate treatment, and well, getting people to believe you (grrr). Like, I know with certain health insurances, you can get a neuropsych evaluation for free (my brother got one). Problem is the health insurance, in the first place. Should be free and everyone should have it, like Canada. (Talking about the US).
I could rant on about this for hours. Anyways, enjoy your day, and I'm glad others are compassionate too.
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I am incredibly lucky to live in Canada, because free healthcare. But I was misdiagnosed with ADHD as a child and put on medications for it which kind of fucked me up so a professional diagnosis isn't always right either. I eventually got a correct diagnosis of conduct disorder, and then later on Borderline Personality Disorder and PTSD, both of which I had already suspected I had. I diagnosed my codependency on my own and sought help for it by myself too.
My boyfriend lives in the States where healthcare is treated like a business and we've had to attempt DIY-diagnosing because he can't afford to see an actual medical health practitioner. And it's allowed us to look up ways to help him cope until we can get him up here and make him a Canadian citizen so he can get proper help.
TL;DR Self-diagnosing is a way of trying to get BETTER, not trying to get attention. If anything these people are looking for comfort from others suffering as they are.
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I have half a psych degree. While working on that, I told my doc that I was pretty sure I had OCD and Dysthymia and that's what I was diagnosed with. My doc was my psych prof's partner, btw. That was years and years ago. I think at this point its OCD, Dysthymia, possibly ADD or some other attention problem and probably a lesser stress disorder than PTSD but I am not entirely sure it isn't PTSD and I am just very good at avoiding the really bad triggers. Knock on wood. It also seems like the OCD and the stress disorder have combined. Anyone that tells me not to self diagnose can cram it up theirs because I was right the first time and when I get my medical insurance, I'll see if I'm right this time. Further more the /name/ of the disorder is less important than the individual symptoms and their interplay, and their severity. There is also some hypersensitivity issue that /interestingly/, now that I have been back home talking to my dad's extended family, they also have some of my issues regarding that. My aunt /seems/ to have the problem where she can't hear the tv is there is other ambient noise around. My family are so neuroatypical it's amazing, all the little things I am noticing.
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I also used to read the DSM-IV-TR for fun. A newer version is out now.
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Then there are the many people that talk with me about their issues.
I don't feel like I am stable enough to complete that degree yet, but in the meanwhile, there /are/ other ways to learn and practice.
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I really relate to this. I wish more people were aware that the important thing is what's actually happening in the brain and the person's experiences, not so much an arbitrary name for all that. also, I'm one of those who have great hearing (great tonal distinction too, even) but a shit time of distinguishing words in speech. I always have to ask "what? what??" looking forward to being old, for sure...
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I hear the slightest noise, which makes it hard to sleep or to focus, and was a big reason I moved back here to this mostly underground room, but even in here I wake up and have to put ear plugs in when my grandma gets up in the morning, right above me. back in Pitt I had o sleep in earplugs /most/ of the time. I hear everything. But it is hard to make out distinctions or words or something, when there i other noise, and I am not sure why. I think it might be an attention issue because when there is other stuff going on my mind might be switching back and forth rapidly or something idk. But if it's anything like with my sense of smell, which is also hypersensitive and I smell everything (and so does my dad/ has to be genetic), it seems that I will smell something, recognize what it is, try to move on, then smell it again and this cycles repeats over and over and over rapidly and I think my attention is just all over the place anytime another stimulus happens.
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The smell thing is so bad. My laundry is done in baking soda and vinegar as I hate soap smells and mom dries them in the same dryer that handles her /extremely fragrant/ detergent'd laundry. And like, when she does that I stuff wet shirts into my vent in here as it fumigates the basement, coming though the furnace into my room. And so she just washed my bed sheets and just from being in the same dryer they picked up the smell of /her/ detergent and fucking A. Every time laundry happens I never know how it i going to turn out and its stressful. They are probably going to have to be hung up to dry from now on an I have no idea if she is going to get mad about that or not and that kind of thing makes this problem even better :D However she had been accommodating all this well but gets frustrated.
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I could not have put it better myself. Not everyone has the option of seeing a professional, and when that's the case, trying to understand what is going on for yourself and come up with ways to help can be your only option. I also think, when confronted with people who say those kinds of things, that perhaps they have never experienced the frustrations of being misdiagnosed by a professional. It is actually quite healthy to pay attention to what is going on in your mind and body and think deeply on what you observe. There are conditions that are not well known by professionals, and in those cases if the person does not take the initiative to do some serious introspection and research and self-diagnosing, they may never come to the conclusion that ultimately leads to them better understanding what's going on and finding the things that help them. Taking the initiative in your own care is always a good thing and the whole "they're doing it for attention" concept does nothing more than shame people who are genuinely trying to understand their experiences— which is complete doepiss.
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Fulgens
There's a persistent myth that a person can't educate themselves on these topics. That's only true for the gullible and the lazy. It's not easy, but if done well it can really pay off.