# People selecting what mental illnesses are real or made up. Why? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 2, 2018, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-selecting-what-mental-illnesses-are-real-or-made-up-why/817165 "2018-07-02T16:09:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![DavidwithanR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@DavidwithanR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidwithanR)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2018, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-selecting-what-mental-illnesses-are-real-or-made-up-why/817165/21 "2018-07-03T03:01:42Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > First off, _ALL_ diagnoses of mental illness are political. Every. Single. One. They aren’t all necessarily political in the ways that most people _think_ of political, but let me spell it out for you: it is a designation of a person’s thought processes as being due to brain static, meaningless gibberish generated by neurochemical or neuroelectrical misbehaviors. Now think about that. Keep on thinking about that. Got it? Yeah, it’s even more dismissive than your typical political _ad hominem_ that categorizes your opponent’s thinking as the thinking of an immature jerk or a zealot or a foaming-at-the-mouth loon, even. Let’s grab that last one for particular comparisons. Even when we conceptualize a foaming-at-the-mouth loon, we still sort of attribute the thoughts to the batshit-insane drooling person who voices them. They get to own their thoughts, such as they are. But the clinical def of mental illness essentially says there’s no human author there. They can’t help it – their brain has been hijacked by a _mental illness_ and this is the verbal effluent spilling out, not making any sense to the author let alone the audience. > > Second, _since_ it is political, you should not be surprised to see it used politically. The allegation of mental illness works both as an excuse for not expecting the same things of a person that would be expected of the “default citizen” (responsibility) and as a mechanism for depriving a person of adult rights as far as acting and behaving and then being held liable only for those things that are violations of law (authority). > > (Authority and responsibility are the same thing, by the way. So is freedom). > > Conservatives do not like people evading responsibility so they do not like the idea that someone can plead mentally ill as a way to say “expect less of me”. But they’re more often onboard with stripping people of the authority to make disruptive social statements. Really? ADHD is robbing me of the ability to think, and every last thing I say or do is verbal effluent? ---
**Author:** ![Tee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@Tee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tee)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2018, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-selecting-what-mental-illnesses-are-real-or-made-up-why/817165/22 "2018-07-03T03:12:52Z")
> [@DavidwithanR](#): > > Really? ADHD is robbing me of the ability to think, and every last thing I say or do is verbal effluent? No, he’s saying that’s the thought process in some corners, and he has a point, but I would put that in the realm of psychiatry. The closer you work with people, the more you see actual life problems and not walking symptoms of disease. ---
**Author:** ![DavidwithanR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@DavidwithanR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidwithanR)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2018, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-selecting-what-mental-illnesses-are-real-or-made-up-why/817165/23 "2018-07-03T03:42:06Z")
> [@Tee](#): > > No, he’s saying that’s the thought process in some corners, and he has a point, but I would put that in the realm of psychiatry. The closer you work with people, the more you see actual life problems and not walking symptoms of disease. Do you think the people “in some corners” sincerely believe that someone with ADHD couldn’t possibly make an intelligible comment? ---
**Author:** ![Tee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@Tee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tee)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2018, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-selecting-what-mental-illnesses-are-real-or-made-up-why/817165/24 "2018-07-03T04:14:01Z")
> [@DavidwithanR](#): > > Do you think the people “in some corners” sincerely believe that someone with ADHD couldn’t possibly make an intelligible comment? No idea. Do you think that’s really pertinent to anything he said? ---
**Author:** ![DavidwithanR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@DavidwithanR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidwithanR)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2018, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-selecting-what-mental-illnesses-are-real-or-made-up-why/817165/25 "2018-07-03T05:13:12Z")
> [@DavidwithanR](#): > > Do you think the people “in some corners” sincerely believe that someone with ADHD couldn’t possibly make an intelligible comment? > [@Tee](#): > > No idea. Do you think that’s really pertinent to anything he said? Either “Yes, obviously it’s centrally pertinent” or “No, it doesn’t matter”, depending on his definition of mental illness. ---
**Author:** ![CelticKnot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/celticknot/32/3392_2.png) [@CelticKnot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CelticKnot)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2018, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-selecting-what-mental-illnesses-are-real-or-made-up-why/817165/26 "2018-07-03T17:35:12Z")
> [@Ashtura](#): > > I don’t know a single person that thinks depression or ADHD are not real. > > Now, I do know people that conflate ADHD with hyperactivity and think ritalin is overprescribed to kids, which I agree to some extent, but non-existent? Nah. My father is very intelligent, and I love him dearly, but he’s wrong on ADD/ADHD. He believes they are just kids being kids. I don’t think my father ever met a kid that could not look you in the eye because his eyes were constantly darting around. They are over-diagnosed (by schools and parents more than doctors), and Ritalin is over-prescribed, but they are real. I think people who reject these two have no experience with them, or have only been in situations in which the problem was self-diagnosed. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2018, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-selecting-what-mental-illnesses-are-real-or-made-up-why/817165/27 "2018-07-03T21:21:30Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > Cites? Since you describe it as “very common,” just one won’t do. [Cites](https://twitter.com/search?q=%22Liberalism%20is%20a%20mental%20disorder%22&src=typd) ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2018, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-selecting-what-mental-illnesses-are-real-or-made-up-why/817165/28 "2018-07-03T21:37:52Z")
What is the debate? I daresay a lot of “people on the internet” are not trained psychiatrists or mental health professionals and are not able to make meaningful statements on what constitutes a “real” mental illness. People do work hard to compile authoritative indices such as the [_Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders_](https://www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/practice/dsm). These are not perfect, but they do represent a genuine best effort and are constantly revised and updated. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2018, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-selecting-what-mental-illnesses-are-real-or-made-up-why/817165/29 "2018-07-03T21:54:25Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > [Cites](https://twitter.com/search?q=%22Liberalism%20is%20a%20mental%20disorder%22&src=typd) Thanks ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2018, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-selecting-what-mental-illnesses-are-real-or-made-up-why/817165/30 "2018-07-03T23:38:02Z")
I don’t think it is so much that people deny that these conditions exist, but believe that they are overdiagnosed or improperly diagnosed. It is sort of like how some people call everyone they do not like a “narcissist.” There is such a thing, but if one looks at the symptoms, he or she could easily say that fits the definition of most people. See also “borderline personality disorder.” Also, some people do indeed use the disorder as a crutch. Some parents are too lazy to discipline their children and make them pay attention in school so they simply declare that they have ADHD and its not their fault that little Johnny is an asshole. Maybe he does have ADHD, but it seems like we should try “parenting” before ritalin. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2018, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-selecting-what-mental-illnesses-are-real-or-made-up-why/817165/31 "2018-07-07T20:44:26Z")
My brothers and I joke that our late mother had an uncanny ability to distinguish between actual conditions (things \*she \*suffered from) and psychosomatic ones (things _others_ suffered from). ---
**Author:** ![pohjonen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pohjonen/32/423_2.png) [@pohjonen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pohjonen)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2018, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-selecting-what-mental-illnesses-are-real-or-made-up-why/817165/32 "2018-07-07T21:43:16Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > It was very common to hear on this board at one time, from one of our [dearly](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18730149&postcount=35) [departed](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20377534&postcount=49), [fondly](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20211470&postcount=10561) [cherished](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20486563&postcount=6224) members. I wasn’t aware of that development. That’s the best news I’ve heard in months. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2018, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-selecting-what-mental-illnesses-are-real-or-made-up-why/817165/33 "2018-07-07T22:00:56Z")
Once in a while, a person may be so severely affected with a mental condition that it’s immediately obvious that something is wrong with them the instant you meet them. Flat affect, refusal to talk about anything other than what they want to talk about, speech that makes no sense, etc. ---
**Author:** ![DavidwithanR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@DavidwithanR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidwithanR)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-selecting-what-mental-illnesses-are-real-or-made-up-why/817165/34 "2018-07-08T00:56:09Z")
> [@CelticKnot](#): > > My father is very intelligent, and I love him dearly, but he’s wrong on ADD/ADHD. He believes they are just kids being kids. I don’t think my father ever met a kid that could not look you in the eye because his eyes were constantly darting around. I’m a 50-year-old man who similarly can’t look you in the eye. It doesn’t magically disappear. ---
**Author:** ![DavidwithanR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@DavidwithanR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidwithanR)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-selecting-what-mental-illnesses-are-real-or-made-up-why/817165/35 "2018-07-08T01:00:05Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > It is sort of like how some people call everyone they do not like a “narcissist.” There is such a thing, but if one looks at the symptoms, he or she could easily say that fits the definition of most people. See also “borderline personality disorder.” In fact, this statement is nearly pure bullshit. It’s trivially easy to tell the difference between Narcissistic Personality Disorder and normal. Sure everyone has a narcissistic trait or two, but it’s not vaguely similar. Same goes for BPD. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-selecting-what-mental-illnesses-are-real-or-made-up-why/817165.md?page=1)