Maybe it wasn’t about you. Is that possible?
I don’t see how. You mentioned me by name.
eta: Hah. Carnak! my mistake. But I think he spelled his name with a K at the beginning.
Or they became that crazy hermit who lived all by himself, a hoarder who’s home was full of trash.
:rolleyes:
Self-diagnosis IS a problem, but it doesn’t mean that these things DON’T FUCKING EXIST, which is what a lot of people seem to believe.
(And yes, ADD/ADHD exists. Yes, indeed I think it’s overdosed. But it is a real disorder)
What about them? If someone comes up to me and says, “I think I have cancer. I diagnosed it myself” I’m not going to presume that they have cancer. Under what circumstances are you required to give any credence to a person’s self-diagnosis?
I also have no idea what the prevalence rate of self-diagnosis is either. Maybe people don’t share their self-diagnoses with me, given my profession, but I just don’t run into a lot of people professing to have a disorder based on their own guesstimation.
Actually, it’s supposed to be CarnaC…and I thought the same thing you did.
Really? I always thought it was a play on “Carson” so I presumed it was “Carnak”.
Perhaps I should have just gone with Kreskin. Or was that Creskin?
You got one for that?! I thought that was pretty much the universal opinion around here. (Unless you said it outside the Pit).
Well, that and he’s a dick.
If you read my post previous to the one you quoted, you’ll see that I specifically excluded OCD from my rant, stating that it is real and that it was once believed to be caused by demonic possession. I also said in my first post in this thread that I thought LM’s post in the OCD thread was “off-base” with regards to you specifically.
My complaint is primarily about SELF diagnosis, especially with regards to the host of amorphous, vaguely defined, alleged physical or personality disorders which seem to have sprung up in the last 20 years (at least some of which I suspect have been invented to sell drugs)
I just want to say that I too am available if anyone wants me to monitor their posts for potential violations and then link to what rule I think they might be about to break. I think stuff like that adds alot to the boards and I know many of you can’t wait for my services.
ARRRGHHH! What evidence do you have that ADHD is overdiagnosed? People must simply just stop pulling this assertion out of their assholes!
I did not know that.
Me too. Had to re-read it.
Exactly. Yet, in many day to day interactions a lot of us are expected to do just that. Someone doesn’t want to come into work because they’re “depressed.” Someone else didn’t get their work done on time because they’re ADD. If you call bullshit on these people, you’re being “rude,” or “insensitive.” It’s annoying.
I suspect that you’re right that people are simply more reluctant to try it with you if they know your profession.
I agree. For many years, I studied a book called Brain Lock and in one of the first chapters, there was an old adage: God helps those who help themselves. The book was very educational about the disorder of OCD and also had a bunch of steps to be able to deal with the problems without medication. I tried it and ended up in the hospital. So I decided that maybe I should take my meds, side effects and all. The side effects were a minor problem for the benefits anyway. Now, about three years later, I’m doing better, although not as well as I’d like, but I’m getting there. Hopefully soon I’ll be working full time.
I rarely tell anyone about my problems but sometimes it’s just forced out of me by the nosier people who want to know why I’m not working, etc. I’m not comfortable lying so I choose the lesser of two evils and take my chances. Most of the time, the people are understanding and even knowledgeable about the condition. What I find offensive and demeaning is the eye-roll kind of attitude. This is the kind where a person looks at you like you’re a lazy jerk for not having worked for five years and for having a reduced fare metrocard and being on disability because the disability is only a fiction. I find this attitude toxic and offensive because no one knows my troubles more than myself and how I want to be industrious more than anything else. Like I want to fail out of college and pay thousands and thousands of dollars to take interesting courses that I can’t complete so instead of doing the assigned readings, I can examine the corners of the pages more closely to make sure they haven’t been dog-eared.
I agree that many disorders are overdiagnosed and this is unfortunate for many reasons. First, because the wrongly diagnosed are not getting the help they need, if they need help in the first place. And then, those who are truly ill, may dismiss necessary aid that could change their lives.
Personally, I don’t appreciate the attitude described by eleanorrigby either, but in my experiences, I think this is a minimum among the mental health community. In my experiences, in the hospital, in the follow-up in treatment programs, I was surrounded by people who wanted to succeed and one of the last things they wanted to do was to reveal their health problems to the outside world. I certainly don’t care to tell anyone about having OCD or ABC or whatever. On the other hand, if someone is close to me, and I trust the person, it would be fine to make mention of it.
Whose responsibility is it for the person with issues to have them treated? This is a message board where people offer their (sometimes unvarnished) opinions. If you offer your sob story, people are going to offer their take on it. Sometimes, that opinion is going to be that you are a whiny bitch who wants to complain but not get help. Maybe you don’t want to get help because that’s part of your illness; maybe it’s because you are lazy and using illness as an excuse; maybe something else entirely. But you can’t mandate that you should ONLY get the response you want. DocCathode’s rather paradoxical dilemma, to wit, must have clean dishes, therefore has zero clean dishes, does provoke a bit of a :dubious: , you have to admit.
Bottom line, f you think you need treatment, GET IT. It’s not lobstermobster’s responsibility. She’s calling it like she sees it, in her own unique (but IMO not actively malicious) way. Maybe she’s ignorant about mental illness; if so, fight her ignorance. But also, get off your ass and get treatment; you’ll be the object of mockery and derision a lot less often if you talk about it less and act on it more. And no, Pitting someone who offends you is not “taking action.” Pretty much nothing about sitting in front of the computer is going to help you whatsoever.
Yeah, that must’ve been it because “racist dick” is usually the NICEST thing he’s called. I’ve stopped opening his threads, though I’d never mention if he’s on my ignore list. Assuming the mods see any difference between saying I ignore a poster and saying he’s on a list I don’t have.
Here’s the thing. I actually think you’re right but people get the impression that it’s over-diagnosed because a lot of parents say their kids have it without really having a formal diagnoosis. I used to work with LD kids in public schools (as well as some regular classrooms) and I constantly heard parents saying that their kids’ behavior was because of their ADHD which further questioning would reveal had been diagnosed by the parents themselves half the time. People usually take parents at their word, so i think that gives them a false impression about how many kids actually get formally diagnosed vs. how many simply get labled that way by their parents.
There’s no set number, but it’s not that many, particularly if you get a bunch in a short period of time. So take it seriously, if for no other reason than you seem somewhat interesting and it would be nice to have you stick around for a while. If you feel the urge to mock someone outside of the Pit, just start a Pit thread with a link to the post or thread in question. Accompany it with a crappy MSPaint and everyone will be extra happy.
There is so much too this issue.
- No one in my family of my parents generation or my generation would go for psychiatric help or if they did talk about it.
- My father did beat the sense into us at times and it did seem to work, though oddly enough it took the longest for my brother to get his shit together and it was long after the beatings were done. (small dig at my brother’s advice)
- I was diagnosed in the Navy as possibly suicidal. I did not like the sessions or group or whatever I was in for a while and I found ways to “just get over it” myself and it really worked in my case. So, I am suspicious of what sure looks like drugs being handed out like candy.
- We had scare stories of school official either recommending ritalin or actually telling parent to get their kids on something or be kicked out of school. These were probably overblown and small, rare occurrences, but I think it would be understandable for some parents to overreact to such stories.
Jim
:dubious: yourself.
That’s how OCD works, sometimes. It’s not fucking rational. That’s why it’s called a disorder. How many times does that have to be drilled into your skull? Do you think it was rational that Howard Hughes never cut his hair or his toenails? No, but that’s the nature of the disease.
eleanorigby, I do like you, but I don’t want to “I wish I could disappear into a bottle or container of pills or a closet and suck my thumb”. Taking meds sucks, but I’d a million times rather do that than not be able to sleep because of this or that obsession.
(I also have to take anti-seizure meds, so it’s not just mental ailments)
crappy? how dare you. Now who is being offensive. In the future I promise to be on my big girl behavior