On Self-Diagnosis

You're viewing a single thread.

158 comments

This is why there is such a trend in misinformation these days, a breakdown of distrust in institutions. I get why there is that distrust.. institutional issues are easy to find in all fields, however that doesn’t stop them from being correct on the whole.
Look at Covid denialism, denying the results of the last election… the loss of peoples ability to believe experts in their fields. Unless people here are actual doctors no one here has the expertise to give a diagnosis. Everyone has become an expert these days and does their own research, reality doesn’t care about your intuitions on this though.
Saying this, you might be right you could be autistic based on your own feelings/observations. That still doesn’t make it a diagnosis.
I saved a pic of an article I was reading, this is a good example of being an expert and being someone that has interest in a subject but not having the training and knowledge to fully understand it, I read this a bunch of times and still don’t actually understand it as I’m sure most people here won’t either.

There is nothing wrong with being sceptical of experts as they can be wrong and wanting second opinions on things however that doesn’t make you an expert because you can google things.
- Are you an expert in psychiatric diagnosis? Neither am I, but I have spent enough years with loved ones trying to navigate the so called mental health system or industry. Scratch a little on the surface of psychiatry and you find not science, but snake-oil, pseudo science and lots of abuse.
  There is an enormous gap between a diagnosis made by a medical doctor based on medical exams, and a diagnosis made by a so called mental health professional based on talking to you for ca. 55 min. Or make it even 2 x 55min. The professional might, based on their culture or experience, diagnose you with Borderline disorder (a popular option for teenage girls), Bipolar disease (a favourite for the male midlife crisis), general anxiety and/or chronic fatigue and/or chronic pain (for women who have learned they have to function to have value, hear dearie take another pill!) or a range of other things currently in fashion or in fashion when the person learned their trade ... nobody sits out there in their psychiatric practice and actually measures people's brain functions, like with real science (although there seems to be evidence that in the case of ASD/ADHD one actually could).
  I distrust health and especially mental health institutions because I haven't gotten the support from them they claim they offer. Their medications have consistently made my loved ones and me worse. Their advice was either non-existent or trivial (I could have googled it). Their structures were all built to induce the symptoms they claim to cure (ever saw a bunch of overworked doctors and nurses smoke in the hospital entrance? Ever looked at what's inside of a hospital vending machine? How a psychiatric patient spends their day?
  (Unless you have money to spend on more agreeable mental health surroundings, like you could send your socially awkward child to a nice kind of institution.) /s
  
  Just picking out two of your arguments:
  A psychiatrist is a medical doctor.
  During my assessment for ADHD an EEG was administered and the assessment for autism in my country includes on as well.
  
  As I said there is lots to find wrong with all our institutions and I understand where it comes from, but does that mean we completely disregard everything now throw the baby out with the bath water? Should you now be able to prescribe medications for yourself now too? Because you have seen the institutional problems does that make you an expert in their field? I get being able to see problems that doesn’t take a degree or training it still doesn’t make you personally an expert (and don’t confused when I say you, I also mean me and everyone else that doesn’t work in that field) You could come to my work and see how poorly it’s run but that doesn’t mean you are gonna be able to jump on a locomotive and operate it.
  Yes you personally have experienced the gaps in the medical field how about tons of other people who haven’t, every job on this planet has people that are shit at doing the job they are in, that doesn’t mean the job is no longer viable on the whole, if you have bad experiences with doctors you try elsewhere if it’s possible and realistic obviously
  
  You still don't get it. It's not about experts in a scientific field. It's about 'experts' who literally made up the entire field out of mostly nothing. Psychiatry is not a science.
  There's more hard science in driving a locomotive than diagnosing a person with a made up mental condition.
  
  I mean, technically you're correct. Psychiatry isn't a science, because Psychiatrists are just Psychologists that can prescribe medicine.
  Psychology is a soft science, which means that yes it is constantly subject to change.
  That being said, if you think they're made up conditions then why are you still adhering to their terminology? Or are you trying to say that psychiatrists will wrongfully diagnose someone for the sake of selling drugs? Because those two things are very different and you've done nothing to show that you're aware.
  
  Made-up conditions or drug-selling motive? Why can't it be both? If I described my inner experience in my own words you might not understand me. Read again: I don't think autism is made up. I don't think ADHD is made-up. But I don't like the 'disorder' connotation of those terms. I'm not disordered, I function differently.
  I think a lot of other conditions are made up, or rather they are just descriptions of symptoms with the word 'disorder' attached to it. Recently the whole idea of the brain chemical imbalance as cause of depression has been questioned, but Psychiatrists keep medicating people all the same. Probably most don't want to sell drugs, they just try to help people the best they know and both pharma and academia tell them that's the way. But really, we have no idea what causes autism, or ADHD, or depression. The treatments offered are experimental at best and have often shown to be harmful in the long term. Between a stranger who doesn't know me and doesn't know very much, and myself who knows me and doesn't know very much - who should I trust?
  
  I have always said that seeing Psychiatrists is a mistake, and that if you want real help you should seek a psychologist first. However, like with cases of people who have bi-polar disorder, (which absolutely is real, you wouldn't even think to claim otherwise if you'd experienced someone on a manic high) they need the drugs because otherwise they will destroy themselves.
  I gave up on trying to seek help from those types a long time ago, mainly because I decided that I couldn't find answers from people who couldn't even tell that I was lying.
  However I also stopped using their words on myself. If you conflate "self diagnosis" with "soul searching" then yes self diagnosis is ok.
  Not everyone does. Some people see it as an easy ticket to manipulate others. As far as who to trust is concerned, regarding doctors, the line for me has always been "do they try to get me to take drugs?".
  If yes, fuck off, if no: I'll probably find another reason to stop seeing them.
  
  Okay well here’s where I have no idea what you are going on about then, if that’s how you see them then why did you go to them for mental health advice and why did you take medications they prescribed? Makes zero sense
  
  I see them like this after experiencing their service. Are you sealioning or was that a real question?
  
  I had to look up sealioning since I had no idea what it meant, no I’m not, and since you decided to frame your question that way maybe you just need a thicker skin, you engaged me in the convo, not everyone is going to automatically agree with you in life
  So you personally had a bad run in and you did believe in them but no longer do.. okay I guess you are right then may as well invalidate the entire profession cuz schmorpel got bad service.. that is some flat earth type reasoning
- The example you bring speaks much about your non-understanding of what "self diagnosis" means, imo. Seems you think about it as solely applying academic knowledge. From what i read so far, and from own experience, it is first rather an assessment of self perception as questions arise at some point, such as "why do i feel so alien", or "why am I exhausted seemingly out of nowhere". Only then, one may discover that there is a "spectrum" of traits of which one shares a more-or-less large number. So this is about self-knowledge and discovering that so many difficulties one has are apparently atypical. No one external can do that for you. And frankly, i wouldn't trust a neurotypical person who just goes by the clinical book with "diagnosing" autism in someone who for decades trained "adult".
  Btw. I have a degree in Biology, therefore i do understand in principle what the cited abstract is about, and why it may be difficult to accurately map highly repetitive sequences. Of course i have little knowledge in the field of genome sequencing, so the codes therein tell me exactly nothing.
  
  And frankly, i wouldn’t trust a neurotypical person
  This is the main thrust of what I'm seeing out of this subreddit. It's concerning.
  
  There's a pretty significant difference between "I don't trust neurotypicals" and "I don't trust a specific neurotypical person who diagnoses without extensive hands-on experience in the relevant target population, particularly when the population in question tends to intentionally learn to hide their defining characteristics as they get older."
  
  In what way? That people here aren't trusting NTs or that NTs are giving reason to not be trusted?
  
  The first one.
  
  I understand that it might be an uncomfortable feeling that if difficult to put into words, but can you elaborate on that?
  From my perspective, the differences in experiences make it very difficult for NTs and non-NTs to relate to each others' mental experiences. In the past, it's had some very violent and abusive results, and while things have very much improved from then, that gap between experiences still exists and won't likely ever go away. So I guess my real question here is why should non-NTs trust NTs in this specific area?
  I can understand being concerning if you're just talking about a lack of trust in general, which I do think is the case, too.
  
  I am in fact referring to the general space, not any particular topic. There is a lot of othering and tribalism that I've observed. It's a dangerous precedent for a community to set, regardless of what the community is focused around.
  
  H e x b e a r
  
  If leaving away the main context of what i typed is concerning you, then yeah ...
  Or do you want to say that ND people are disentitled from knowing themselves best?
  Just to make sure you "concerned" people know what i am talking about (and i speak for this whole community, for they are diverse): I'm talking about people with special sensitivities and special abilities which are very much needed in this kind of "civilisation". Such people used to fulfill special tasks within their tribes, back in the times when humans were still living in more natural societies. I'm talking of a low percentage of human populations (well, it's >15% if we count all HSPs) that evolved having certain qualities which turned out to beneficial for those populations -- not of people who have some kind of "disorder" that would require clinical attention or what would naturally get selected out in the course of evolution. What constitutes a disorder/disability is IMO the consequence of all the trauma which such people receive by not being properly recognised and given their special tasks within today's society. No doubt many of them are suffering from it, but it's also very understandable if they were to say that they wouldn't want to be clinically handled by the methods said society usually has to offer.
  
  Yes, you're very special and important.
  
  sigh
  
  fwiw, here is an essay that speaks about exactly this same thing but it does take some more words and referances to get a message against pathologising across. It's a whole series of essays.
  I agree 100% with it, would just have chosen a somewhat different language.
  post in this forum: https://lemmy.world/post/4802441
  direct link to the essay: Autistic people – The cultural immune system of human societies
  if you like that one, I suggest to continue with this one, as it plays well into the context here (at least that's what I read next): Autistic people are not for sale
  
  You have a degree in biology which is exactly what I’m talking about, so you actually do understand things in this field.. you have expertise, training and knowledge in biology as opposed to someone who takes an interest in it and googles/TikTok’s all their information about it
  I did say you may feel this way and that’s fine but that doesn’t automatically make you autistic you need a diagnosis otherwise what’s the point of doctors and science?
  Simply apply this logic to a physical ailment.. this is a made up scenario for you, recently I have been having continuously bad headaches… okay there is the self discovery/self diagnosis part done perhaps it’s just a headache, now you need to go to a doctor to actually get a diagnosis pretty sure you can’t self diagnose a brain tumour
  Something I could diagnose is cars, I was a Mechanic for 17 years, what do you do if your car doesn’t start, yes you can check the internet and look for possible answers, sometimes they are correct too and you can even get the basic idea of why it caused the problem, the difference between me and finding info on the internet is I know why your starter isn’t working I know the difference between a starter contact and a plunger I also know how the starter works when you turn the key, I know how the magnetic field is working I know how it physically makes contact thus giving you a car that starts, and on top of that I also know what else out of the myriad of other things it could be to check if YouTube is wrong and it’s not the starter
  
  It's about knowing myself and how i experience myself in relation to others and seeing the difference. It's not about putting a label on me because of a set of behaviourisms. I don't even want that "disorder" label. Or be seen as defective somehow. Perhaps i should just find it funny that others want to deny me the expertise in knowing my self-experience. This community used to be quite nice and understanding until recently.
  
  Except every single person on this planet feels differently than others do we aren’t a mass lump of sameness, being different doesn’t automatically mean you aren’t normal or have a condition, which is the entire purpose of adding labels to things especially in relation to needing it for any type of medical care or assistance of some kind.
  If you personally don’t require a diagnosis or label then good for you, you don’t want or need the label of autistic so you don’t need a diagnosis so you are arguing for what exactly? The ability to self diagnose yourself with a label you don’t even want?
  I re-read the replies I made and anyone else that replied and I don’t see anyone being not nice, people can disagree with your opinions that doesn’t make them unkind, if you get upset that others disagree with your viewpoint don’t worry about it just move on with your day
  Me disagreeing with you didn’t deny you your own self experience, just like you disagreeing with me didn’t deny me anything either
  
  I think I never claimed "I am autistic". I'm just trying to explain (that's not an opinion but it's trying to clarify indisputable things), that i'm obviously my own authority in seeing that my human being here has an above-average share of neurodivergent traits. I make a distinction between ND and autism, btw. If that would be assessed "autistic", I don't know (but it would be interesting anyway). The more I'm around in places like this the more relatable stuff pops up, and having it all labeled a disability is devastating. There are traits that rather handicap me within my society (but wouldn't elsewhere), and there are certainly abilities that have me stand out. Having strangers who know nothing about how i live and about my path in life want me to get labeled a "disorder" is ridiculous at best and offending actually.
  The general vibe of this comment section smacks a lot of hexbearian-style brigading, sorry if you're not part of such a thing.
  
  Having a disorder isn’t offensive at all, you seeing it that way is your own problem, it’s a word, we use words to describe things, if something deviates from the norm then it’s a disorder, no one chooses to have a disorder and having a disorder doesn’t make you any less of a human. You are getting hung up on a word and you personally don’t like the word is all this is.
  You saying this place smacks of brigading is also funny, once again just because other people don’t automatically agree with you doesn’t mean there is something going on.. it could just mean people disagree with you. Not like the actual instance matters but I’m from the same one as you..
  You disagree with me, I don’t think you are “brigading” or trolling I just think you have a different opinion
  
  Late reply but for those who read this later: careful when wanting to know what is "the norm". It's social ideals, mostly. (And if it were statistics, where would we draw the line and why ... homosexual ... disorder?) -- Yet luckily, "disorder" means illness, while a non-valueing statistical out of the ordinary would rather be called "divergent".
  Relevant quote from the article:
  Whilst [neurodivergent] traits were celebrated in the modernist era, they increasingly began to show up as problems in the Britain during the 1980s – meaning that something had changed in British social normativity. Interestingly, according to critical psychiatrist Sam Timimi and colleagues, this largely happened in light of the rise of the neo-liberal market system, and in particular the services economy. In particular, this economic shift began to alter the notion of the ideal male: rather than being fixed in focus and obsessive, men increasingly now had to forever shift into new roles and to constantly sell one’s “self” in order to fit in. Members of the workforce, in other words, now had to become increasingly agile, flexed, narcissistic, and hyper-social in order to succeed and be valued – and this economic drive became reflected in social normativity at all levels of society.
  
  So you took all this time to find an article that you liked and this is what proves that it shouldn’t be called a disorder? It’s some guys blog…
  Find something in a peer reviewed journal and then maybe you will have something of substance
  
  I'm learning. Do you? This implies it takes time. Glad we can end this breathtaking conversation with a win-win.
  I truely have no intention to beat anyone in the domineering game. I'm being snarky, tho.

158 comments