Anyone think the labeling of psychological diseases makes people more comfortable with it and form their identity around it, whereas the tough luck approach of the past while creating some uncomfortable situations forced people to overcome these situations and excel? I don't want to tell any kid they have anxiety or depression lest they believe it. South Park also has a good episode on this, where Eric is told he has anxiety. S22E8.
Knowing your enemy is the first step to defeating it.
Let's take ADHD. A set of traits that are often found clustered together. These traits come with a common set of negative side effects. For a person in our society, these negative traits often make it extremely difficult to participate in the labor market the same way everyone else does. It can be extremely frustrating for them and everyone around them.
Now what is worse, having a very real work disability that significantly reduces your work capacity, or having that same disability but everyone thinks you are just lazy and need a stern talking to about it? Imagine if every single responsible person you know gives you a stern talking to several times a week. And you still can't do the task. Your brain simply will not do it. You cry with frustration, angry at yourself for being so "lazy". Oh, here's another talking to from another well meaning person who suggests getting more exercise and cutting out sugar. But you can't make yourself exercise any more than you can do this work task. You desperately want to but are trapped in your own mind.
For this situation, no, identifying that this is a real issue shared by millions of other people does not cause more harm than good. Now the person can start to understand the issue and get scientifically proven strategies for improving the situation.
Do they run the risk of always seeing themselves as the victim, sure, but _they have a real disability_. So does anyone else with a real disability. Of course it can be healthy to not think of one's self as a victim. But sometimes it's needed while processing the trauma of a life lived without knowing why you were different.
Some people, freshly aware of their condition, spend more time thinking about it, talking about it, and learning about it. But then many figure it all out, learn what coping strategies work for them, and then it's just a part of who they are as much as their height and eye color.
> Do they run the risk of always seeing themselves as the victim, sure, but _they have a real disability_.
ADHD is NOT a disability. I strongly disagree with this stance. ADHD is a difference for sure but ADHD people have their own set of strengths that neurotypicals people don’t excel at.
I’m ADHD and in my workplace, I’m more “abled” than the neurotypical people I work with. I work quicker, and smarter than anyone else. I also get a lot of respect from my colleagues about how good I am at my job, especially in a crisis or an emergency. Watching Neurotypical people do things slowly and overthink shit to the point of absurdity drives me nuts and they appear to have their own limitations as well.
"Real" disability, a.k.a. defined by the DSM, an agreement between psychiatrists and the insurance industry. These checklists are laughable. They diagnose based on surface criteria. There is no underlying cause or understanding. There is a set of behavioral traits. You can't assume these are intrinsic to someone. You have to at least consider that they are learned, and if they are learned, it's not helpful to tell people that's who they are. It's cementing the whole they are in.
> whereas the tough luck approach of the past while creating some uncomfortable situations forced people to overcome these situations and excel?
IME the historical approach is more about denial and ignorance, where most of my friends find out there are solutions to their problems decades later by accident on the internet or by therapy after their first job-with-benefits.
The cartman-style I-identity-as-my-desease is an obvious strawman. Random annoying person on tiktok should not be used as an argument to keep the world in a state of denial and ignorance.
No, it really isn't a good idea to base your theories of psychiatric medicine on a satirical half-hour cartoon show about swearing construction-paper children.
It is true that there are some corners of the internet where probably-healthy people meet to discuss what it's like to have disorders that they probably don't have, or in some cases disorders that might not even exist.
But you really ought to talk to some actual doctors and patients before you conclude that their problems aren't real, or can be overcome by pretending they don't exist.
South Park is poking fun at the industry, but it's humor. It doesn't tell you what the problem is. I only mentioned it because it's a good related episode :)
My point is not about pretending problems don't exist. It's about focusing on encouraging people rather than focusing on claiming who they are.
One of the things that's likely affecting male mental health is the loss of the traditional male identity. For better or worse, "being a man" was something men chose to do and as a result they overcame whatever they needed to.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who was somehow very smart in most things so school was boring, and the things I'm not intrinsically good at are very very hard to learn and practice. So it made for an attitude of quickly judging whether something was worth my time or not, and led me to a lot of laziness and escapism.
Pile on childhood trauma stuff and the escapism was all that kept me going at times. I still have an "ignore it and it will go away" reflex for any negative emotion, so it was a survival mechanism that served me when I was young, but is no longer needed.
Some people can't or won't grow out of their mental crutches and just barely get by for much of their lives. The prevalence of rising mental health issues in general bodes poorly for society, and if people aren't trying to do hard things because they can't this will only get worse.
