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People ask all the time if you believe in self diagnosis. I wonder what happens if you tell people you don’t believe in mental illness?
My parents had, and have an extreme distrust of psychiatry- they believe that therapy and pharmacological drugs were part of an oppressive government regime to control and brainwash problematic personalities into docile passive sheep. They believe that a diagnosis of a ‘mental illness’ was essentially a brand to mark a persona as ‘non-compliant’, and that people who took medication were drugging away their personalities.
Of course as an adult person who can evaluate reality for himself rationally, its obvious that there are a lot of people who benefit from therapy and psych meds, and who wouldn’t be able to function without them. I certainly don’t believe that mental illness is some kind of government conspiracy, and I certainly DO believe that people should seek help and treatment when they can’t handle their mental state.
But whenever the subject comes up, there’s this little hitch in my brain, especially with things like autism and personality disorders. This little hitch in my brain that insists there’s no such thing as a personality “disorder”, just a personality that’s different from other people’s. That argues that a lot of the things we call mental disorders stem completely from social constructs relating to expected and accepted behaviors. That homosexuality and being transgender were once considered disorders until society changed. That diagnosing people’s personalities unfairly labels and stigmatizes them for life.
I don’t know what to do about this voice because mental illnesses and disorders so very clearly negatively impact the lives of a lot of people, and treatment clearly helps a lot of these people. But whenever I read up about the subject its also so clear that treatment now is so hit and miss I still end up wondering if we’re sometimes doing the 21st century version of trepanning and lobotomy to some people.
So basically, my thoughts on mental illness are all messed up and I’m not qualified to give an opinion on it in general, let alone an opinion on professional diagnosis versus self diagnosis.
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