buttastic:

asahikin:

What anti self dxers don’t understand is that like

You can only be diagnosed with something is it causes “significant distress” in your personal or social life.

I know that one of my first psychs was really cool and told me a list of things that I probably had. She was talking about how she didn’t feel the need to officially diagnose me because being officially diagnosed with that stuff would probably make my life a whole lot worse than it already was at that point (for example, having an official diagnosis for my mild psychotic symptoms would put a stigma on me that she felt would make it harder for me to get jobs, etc.). She told me the list of things because she figured that it might help me to know how to explain why I do things and to be able to find resources to cope with those things.

When I brought up self diagnosis to my most recent psych, and explained what that first psych told me, she agreed and said that it is important for people to be able to understand why they do things, even if it’s not significant enough for a professional diagnosis. She said that even though I’m not officially diagnosed with trichotillomania, she knows that I have it. She didn’t bother diagnosing me with it because I’m already on an antidepressant that is used to also treat ocd symptoms. She said that it is ok for me to tell people that I have trichotillomania because otherwise they might get concerned with my picking?

When I mentioned that I have a lot of friends with self dxed bpd, her response was similar. She said it’s good that they are able to see those traits in themselves and put a name to it, and also connect with others who have similar experiences. She said that it’s especially a good idea because it helps them to learn to cope BEFORE they get to a point where they have trouble dealing with those symptoms.

So yeah I know it’s classist and racist to be against self dx, especially since medical care is extremely inaccessible to the poor and to people of color.

But it’s also just straight up incorrect to be against it. Besides the fact that people like me (who have no words to describe what happens in my brain other than the words that I’ve heard neurotypicals use to describe similar things) need a baseline to be able to explain what we are experiencing to psychs and also to open doors to diagnosis since psychs will usually go to depression and anxiety first if they do not know more, I’ve been told by two different psychs that self dx is a good and healthy practice.

(Not to mention that professional diagnoses are basically like, you tell a psych your symptoms, they compare your symptoms to their knowledge of various disorders, they pick one that seems to fit most of them, they put you on medication for it, you come back later to see if the medication is helping, if it is not they put you on different medication, if it is but not very much they increase the dosage… It’s not as streamlined as people think it is…)

r