[gonegoneblah-deactivated2024042]

i probably love getting random texts the most. complete strangers who message me my nudes n taunt me abt how much of an online exposure slut have my entire heart

[alienated-alienist]

I’m seeing a lot of discourse about that McLean Hospital DID seminar, but no one is talking about how… bad it was. It was just poorly done. A lot of the arguments seemed poorly thought out, the presentation was scattered, it was just not good.

And harmful. That too.

[kerink]

i know we're all sick of self-care being a marketing tactic now, but i don't think a lot of us have any other concept of self-care beyond what companies have tried to sell us, so i thought i'd share my favorite self-care hand out

brought to you by how mad i just got at a Target ad

[fagsystem]

I am just on a roll today with these posts, aren't I? Anyway, friendly reminder that the DSM is a diagnostic manual and exists specifically for the purpose of diagnosing disorders. It does not exist to help understand disorders and is not a reliable source of information on disorders. Just because the DSM said something, does not mean it is true.

In particular, the DSM not mentioning trauma as a part of the diagnostic criteria for DID does not mean that DID is able to occur without trauma. It just means that the presence of known trauma is irrelevant to the diagnostic process.

Not to mention that the DSM itself is literally such a basic look at disorders and cannot actually be used by just anyone to diagnose willy nilly. There's a lot more to a disorder than whatever your non-expert opinion on what each piece of criteria means. For example, we at first thought we had OSDD and not DID because we thought we needed 100% black out amnesia between every single alter at all times. Super not the case! We just didn't know what we were talking about!

Edit: Forgot to say it, but here I am saying it now. That especially goes for the "The person must be distressed by the disorder or have trouble functioning in one or more major life areas because of the disorder." criteria! I see that get misquoted a lot. What you think it means in your non-expert opinion isn't what it actually means. I also have a non-expert opinion, but that doesn't make you any less wrong when you parade yours around like its true when its based on literally nothing but your interpretation of the words in the DSM.

[alienated-alienist]

According to the DSM-5, "A mental disorder is a syndrome characterized by clinically significant disturbance in an individual's cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior that reflects a dysfunction in the psychological, biological, or developmental processes underlying mental functioning. Mental disorders are usually associated with significant distress in social, occupational, or other important activities. An expectable or culturally approved response to a common stressor or loss, such as the death of a loved one, is not a mental disorder. Socially deviant behavior (e.g., political, religious, or sexual) and conflicts that are primarily between the individual and society are not mental disorders unless the deviance or conflict results from a dysfunction in the individual, as described above."

Many MUDs fit this description. This is not because MUDs are accurate, valid, reliable, or even safe. This is because the definition is bullshit.

[alienated-alienist]

#sigmund freud has 3k followers. #emil kraepelin has one.

this is an atrocity. respect Psychiatry Daddy.

[alienated-alienist]

"Medically Unrecognized Disorder" posts keep going around psychiatric tumblr, and -- while harmful -- they're incredibly conceptually interesting. Do people really feel so estranged and unrepresented from existing diagnoses and categories that they're driven to create their own? Or is this all just an absurd nescience of what disorders actually are and mean? Perhaps someone who is inclined to build-your-own-disorder is also inclined to have an infantile understanding of the artificial, constructed frameworks of modern psychiatry. And that's where things really get interesting. While it's easy to dismiss MUDs, they raise an interesting point about psychiatry itself. Sure, they're really harmful -- they drive people away from seeking professional help, encourage a culture around self-diagnosis that doesn't benefit anyone, and turn distressing and concerning mental and behavioural issues into ✨uwu headcanons✨ in a way that is disturbingly warped. And they should cause genuine concern. MUDs might sound absurd, but as John Stuart Mill wrote in 1869, "The tendency [is] always strong to believe that whatever recieves a name must be an entity or being, having an independant existence of its own." But MUDs have unnerving conceptual similarities to DSM and ICD disorders. Just look at P-DID -- the disorder was deemed valid from two case studies. It has no empirical research, no neurobiological foundation, no difference from a MUD except it was condoned by a panel of professionals who, statistically, misdiagnose at grotesque levels! Traditional psychiatric disorders are so nosologically flawed, many refer to them only as "fictive placeholders" and "useful constructs". As it is, psychiatry cannot definitively say what disorders belong and why, that they objectively do more good than harm, nor why the medicines prescribed work. In some disturbing cases, there is little evidence they work at all. Psychiatry cannot even scientifically prove whether mental illness is theirs to claim dominion over. Allen Francis, chair of the DSM-IV, called the DSM's definition of mental disorder "bullshit", saying "you can't define it". MUDs have no neurobiological mechanisms. Neither do most psychiatric disorders. MUDs have no empirical research. Neither do some psychiatric disorders. MUDs pose significant harm because identifying with them has dangerous connotations and can drive you away from seeking better-proven help. So do many psychiatric disorders.

My opinion? MUDs suck. So does psychiatry.

But though psychiatry needs a major nosological reworking, it has saved lives. It is a system that can be saved. Many of the trained doctors working in it genuinely care, and will help you. MUDs will only harm. Please stop 💕