idek: OKAY TUMBLR, LET ME TELL YOU A THING

twigwise:

psilentasincjelli:

• there is a difference between people who self diagnose so they can cite a mental condition they do not have as an excuse for being a dick, and people who self diagnose because it’s their only fucking option
• not everyone can afford a medical or psychiatric professional
• a lot of those professionals make mistakes and some of them lie
• the older you get, the more difficult it becomes to get a solid diagnosis from a professional, especially if you’re seeking a yes or no answer about things pertaining to the autism spectrum (most of those tests are aimed at children and the doctor I was going to basically ended up asking me if I thought I was on the spectrum)
• I fucking diagnosed myself with OCD when I was eleven years old after watching a few episodes of Monk, and several doctors have confirmed that I was right. if an eleven year old can figure that shit out from a fucking tv show, a teenager or adult with the whole fucking internet at their disposal probably stands a pretty good chance
• there are a lot of good sources for information online as far as symptoms and criteria go, and people who suspect they have a disorder generally do all they can to find out for sure whether they do or not. Someone saying “I have self-diagnosed depression” does not automatically mean “I matched two of the symptoms of depression on a quizilla quiz.”
• don’t automatically invalidate someone’s condition just because they’re self diagnosed
• don’t
• do
• that
• ever
• please
• just
• fucking
• stop

Another reason to not judge someone for self-diagnosing, expanding on your “professionals make mistakes:”

I was 7 when 9/11 happened. I’ve mentioned that that was a traumatic experience to me before, I won’t go over that in-depth. Several months after that happened, a demonstration at my school involving a controlled explosion sent me screaming and crying out in the hallway, begging for the building to not come crashing down. I was withdrawn and shy and had severe social anxiety and hated going to school because of the trauma I had gone through. I have severe memory loss surrounding the time of 9/11 (I can’t remember my sisters being born a month later, for example) as well.

At the time, I was diagnosed with autism.

No adult bothered to ask my parents if I’d always been like that- which I hadn’t, of course. No adult bothered to as me about anything. So I was given the diagnosis of autism, had that written in my file, and for six years was treated with kid gloves at school, like any moderately autistic child in normal classes would be. Later on, I found out that I had been diagnosed with autism and spent a few more years second-guessing every little thing I did- is this autism? Do people notice this? Am I “broken” like my mom says?? Why does it feel like that diagnosis is wrong??

It wasn’t until this year that I found out that people all across America, especially sensitive people or precocious children that watched the live footage of 9/11 (as I was forced to), were showing signs of moderate to severe PTSD after the attacks. That it was like a PTSD epidemic. And lo, I went and researched the symptoms of PTSD, and I matched symptom-for-symptom, whereas I’d never matched the diagnosis of autism. It also explained why I was getting better so slowly, why I had such feelings of guilt related to 9/11, why I had flashbacks and triggers with certain things, why I’ve been struggling with mild signs of depression since I was a kid.

I self-diagnosed myself with PTSD, which is a very serious condition. I couldn’t go to the doctors’ for this; my parents- specifically my father- didn’t see the reason to. But now that I’ve diagnosed myself after extreme research and study, I can look into holistic treatments and self-therapy to treat my condition. And it’s worked, I’m no longer scared of people, I don’t automatically assume I’m going to be killed in a crowd, etcetera… 

Anyways, TL;DR, there’s a huge difference between someone saying they’ve got ADHD because they’re energetic or that they’ve got OCD because they’d rather something neat and tidy or whatever other “mental illness” is “stylish” at the time, and a proper self-diagnosis for a reason, that might be true. But nobody should judge you for self-diagnosing, especially when for many people, it’s their only option.