so much of the problem with psychology and diagnostic labels to me is the fact that symptoms are often defined through outsiders and what they see from you, not what you experience internally. sure, NPD has symptoms that are like "you're entitled" and "you exploit people," but these are things that would be hard to be introspective about if you have a disorder that is literally known for making that difficult. all these symptoms come from what a doctor would potentially see from you, which makes it even more subject to personal bias and interpretation of what you must be feeling rather than what you actually are. hence why a woman might be more likely to get diagnosed with BPD or HPD but the man right next to her gets diagnosed with NPD or ASPD, despite both often having the same symptoms. or white people are more likely to be diagnosed with major depression or GAD, where a black person with the same symptoms will get diagnosed with OCD or bipolar. because it's all subject to bias and assumption from the outside, not internal experience from the actual person with the disorder
not to mention, the fact we even have disorders like NPD, ASPD, ODD, HPD, and the way that we describe the symptoms of them, etc... is pretty fucked up. histrionic comes from female hysteria. narcissism is self-obsession and vanity when NPD is a lot more complex than that. "anti-social" basically just means antagonistic and unacceptable behavior. ODD is "we're going to label you as a psychopath: child edition." like. while i do understand wanting to rehabilitate these labels and to some degree i support it (if this is the label that the system is going to put onto you, ie NPD etc, then we should be accurate and informative about what it actually is instead of letting people treat it like Evil Demon Disorder), at the same time i can't help but hope that people really do understand that the perception of these disorders as Bad Person Disorder goes all the way back to its diagnostic label and the people who gave it that name and those symptoms to begin with. its not just that people are mean about it when it's applied. the entire system and categorization of these terms is fucked up. why did we name a disorder after narcissism. why did we name a disorder after female hysteria. why did we name a disorder "oppositional defiant disorder" and start applying it to children, especially black children. simply accepting the labels and making them not have a terrible meaning in our own spaces is one thing, but on its own it is not enough. we need to change the whole fabric of how this type of shit even works and is defined in the first place.
