a while ago i attended this lecture on autism. guy in the audience said he had many of the symptoms that were presented and asked what should he do to get treatment and possibly a diagnosis. instead of answering his question the psychologist went on a tangent about how “the clinic reigns all powerful over guesswork”, and how actually it has become a trend amongst little children on the internet to claim that they are autistic for cool points, and that this hurts real autistic people. no she didn’t tell him how to get his symptoms looked into, she just made it very clear that to her, aknowledging your own symptoms is bad and evil and hurts the poor real mentally ill people.
an ex-friend of mine, then a psychology major and by now probably a full psychologist, once lectured me on how horrible and bad it was that i told her “i probably have some sort of neurodivergency”, and that if i were her patient she would never give me a diagnosis because “you aren’t like this now, but i know that if you get a diagnosis you’ll use it as an excuse to start treating people badly. that’s just how mentally ill people are.”
same ex-friend was extremely disgusted when she found out that fans sometimes make neurodivergency headcanons for characters that have the same symptoms as they do, and that authors sometimes write books with neurodivergent protagonists in stories that don’t focus on that (ex: she seemed horrified that percy jackson has adhd?)
multiple psychologists i’ve seen on facebook agree that they should refuse to treat patients that say “i’m here because i have symptoms of a disorder and wonder if i have it”, and that a patient should arrive to a psychologist as a blank slate.
school psychologist asked me how i was feeling about my trauma situation and i told him i thought my friends would leave me. instead of addressing the issue he said that that no i didn’t, that i was lying, that i had searched “bpd symptoms” online and now i was faking symptoms because i wanted to have bpd, that he shouldn’t have told me he suspected i had a personality disorder because now look what was happening. no, i didn’t search bpd symptoms online. yes, my friends left me, it was a completely founded belief and not a symptom, let alone a faked symptom.
so the next time you hear someone saying they’re “anti self-diagnosis” i want you to understand what they’re saying. what they’re saying is:
- i don’t want people to be aware of their own symptoms
- i don’t think my patients should have access to any information that doesn’t come from me
- i don’t think neurodivergent people should learn how to cope with their symptoms and live “normal” lives
- i think neurodivergent people should be denied a diagnosis because the moment they get one they will become evil and dangerous
- i don’t think people who don’t look like a stereotype could possibly be neurodivergent, even if they have all the symptoms, so i think they are faking it for attention and should be denied treatment
whenever people complain about teenagers or others “pretending to be mentally ill for attention”, no matter on what platform online or in real life, I can’t help but think that being that desperate for validation by strangers is a sign of mental health problems in and of itself.
like, they may not be neurodiverse in the way they say or think they are, but that doesn’t mean they’re not deserving or in need of support. and bullying them won’t help anyone :/
