I applaud this generation for their advances in mental health advocacy and awareness. I think there has been amazing growth in the past few years and a great conversation has been started.
It’s not as taboo to talk about mental health, therapy, and symptoms. With people feeling open enough to share what their therapists have told them or symptoms of their mental illnesses, others have started to self diagnose.
This has been seen on Tumblr but self diagnosing has taken TikTok by storm and in a much larger fashion. People have been making TikToks in which they unpack certain actions they carry out or traits they have that therapists, presumably, have explained to them are a symptom of their mental illness. There is also a newer trend where people blatantly share, mostly common every day, traits and say that people have a certain mental illness. This all results in people thinking that they have certain mental illnesses when they may not. Traits like listening to songs on repeat being affiliated with hyperfixation and then claiming it is a sign of ADHD or needing to have a clean room being affiliated with OCD.
Videos like this cause people to believe that they have a mental illness and that can impact the way that people live their life. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that not everyone has the means to get a diagnosis from a medical professional, which is the only way to get a valid diagnosis, but self diagnosis has a heavy chance of misdiagnosis. I also understand that this brings awareness and people who may actually have the illness can then go ask a medical professional for a diagnosis but this loose diagnosis impacts the day to day.
While people who are diagnosed can use their illnesses as an explanation of the way they act, someone who doesn’t have the illness saying things like “I’m so depressed. I’m so OCD. This is giving me anxiety” is inappropriate—but it happens more often than not. Making claims that you have illnesses or using them interchangeably with adjectives is harmful to mental health awareness.
Remember that sadness is not the same as depression; caring for a neat space is not the same as OCD; and stress is not the same as anxiety (also being anxious is not the same either). Using mental illnesses in a casual setting diminishes their severity. It is important to recognize that while awareness is important and bringing up the conversation is essential but that the conversation shouldn’t be misconstrued.
Awareness is great. It’s so important. However, we need to be aware of the language that we use in our day to day. We shouldn’t be afraid to bring up mental health but it shouldn’t be brought up so casually or incorrectly.
Remember to only take medical advice from a medical professional and that they are the only ones who can diagnose you. As your favorite crypto scammers say, “this is not financial advice” and by that I mean do not take medical advice from a random TikTok, they very well may not have any medical basis backing them up. We must continue the mental illness conversation but make sure not to stray from the end goal by not minding our language.