TikTok’s “sick-role subculture” leads to children taking on the characteristics of rare psychiatric diagnoses, according to an article in Comprehensive Psychiatry. Kids—especially teenage girls—are presenting with self-described Tourette’s, eating disorders, autism, and dissociative identity disorder (DID)—but suddenly, and in a way that doesn’t match how these diagnoses have previously been identified.
According to the researchers, identifying with and glamorizing rare disorders has become a way for teenage girls to express extreme negative emotions in a way that, rather than stigmatizing them, makes them feel part of a community and even feel unique and special. The researchers call it “psychosomatic social contagion.”
They write that the purpose “is to seek affirmation and/or draw attention to oneself to acquire social capital in online communities while simultaneously maintaining an unconventional peri-psychiatric identity that may mask feelings of anxiety, depression, and possibly lower self-esteem.”
The authors of the paper were John D. Haltigan at the University of Toronto and the Child and Youth Psychiatry Department at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Canada; Tamara M. Pringsheim, Program Lead for the Tourette and Pediatric Movement Disorders Clinic at the University of Calgary; and Gayathiri Rajkumar at Western University.
They note that in the early 2010s, content promoting eating disorders, self-harm, and suicide became popular on social media sites like Tumblr and Instagram. But TikTok, with its short-form video content, has a more powerful impact. It has now become the most widely used social media site for children and teens.
An article by CNN shows how social media “mental illness” content can affect teens:
“The [14-year-old girl] started to self-identify with the creators, according to her mother, and became convinced she had the same diagnoses, including attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), depression, autism, mysophobia (an extreme fear of dirt and germs) and agoraphobia (a fear of leaving the house).”
“’Every week, she would come up with another diagnosis,’ Coleman told CNN. ‘If she sees a hint of herself in someone, she thinks she has it, too.’”
According to Haltigan, Pringsheim, and Rajkumar, the pattern is this: young girls watch videos by content creators who self-identify as having these “illnesses,” often videos that involve how the symptoms manifest during everyday activities and how it is an important part of the creator’s identity that makes them unique. Then, kids suddenly present with the outward symptoms, just as described by the content creator.
For instance, according to the researchers, the tic disorders that appear in kids after watching content creators’ videos are termed “functional tic-like behaviors (FTLBs).” In classic Tourette’s syndrome, tics usually appear in early childhood, develop over time, and then improve in the teenage years, with complex gestures and verbalizations (such as curse words) being rare. Much more common are small spasm-like movements and throat-clearing sounds. However, the researchers write that FTLBs have a sudden onset in the teenage years in kids who never experienced them in early childhood; they feature much larger, more noticeable, and complex movements, and they almost always include complex verbalizations like saying offensive phrases.
DID is an especially rare psychiatric diagnosis, almost unheard of in youth. Previously known as “multiple personality disorder,” it involves various personalities, known as “alters,” that are often very different—such as being different ages or genders—and the notion that some alters don’t remember actions taken when other alters are in control.
Despite being so rare, though, especially in kids, social media has exploded with a DID community, including a group called “plurals” who glamorize and sexualize the diagnosis, according to the researchers. While DID in real life is associated with the experience of significant, long-lasting trauma, DID in the social media world is not necessarily so. Instead, it seems to be a way for kids to claim uniqueness and experiment with different identities.
The researchers write that once someone self-diagnoses after viewing social media content, they can then express that “illness” as part of their identity online, receiving positive feedback from a community who romanticize it as something that makes the person—paradoxically—special, just like everyone else in that community.
“There has been a recognition of vast online ‘neurodivergence’ ecosystem in which classical mental illness symptoms and diagnoses are viewed less as mental health concerns that require professional attention, but rather as consumer identities or character traits that make individuals sharper and more interesting than others around them,” the researchers write.
Over time, despite never actually meeting the criteria for the “illness,” kids incorporate it into part of how they see themselves and express it themselves in online communities. Thus, the psychiatric diagnosis is reified and spread without even needing a psychiatrist to give the diagnosis.
The researchers write:
“The increasingly algorithmic and audiovisually immersive social media environment is a scopic medium in which various ‘neurodivergent’ or sick role identities or personas can be claimed at will, at any given moment—with no antecedent biological basis or tether to empirical reality—with positive social and emotional reinforcement and resonance from the associated online community (e.g., via the use of hashtags; user-to-user sharing and amplification of content). This social and emotional resonance may amplify and reinforce identification with the persona and may even predict later behaviors in line with it.”
What does this mean for the notion that “mental illness” is “stigmatized,” and we need to “raise awareness” and “normalize” it?
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Haltigan, J. D., Pringsheim, T. M., & Rajkumar, G. (2023). Social media as an incubator of personality and behavioral psychopathology: Symptom and disorder authenticity or psychosomatic social contagion? Comprehensive Psychiatry, 121, 152362. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comppsych.2022.152362 (Link)
Psychiatry is a pseudo science and psychiatrist just coin new disorders to make the public drug dependent. Instead of teaching them how to cope with problems, they just make you a drug addict for life with disastrous side effects. Let people be people morons.
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Yes I’m with you on this and they won’t give a chance to patients they just force pills down them. They think they are correct and have the right to control the patients decisions on taking those pills. Therapy talking is much better with a regular therapist talking out poison . So much we talk makes people feel better.
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Dissociative Identity Disorder is not especially rare, compared, for instance to schizophrenia. Prevalence rates of DID range from 1.1-1.5, source Dr. Bethany Brand, well known specialist in the field. Rates for schizophrenia according to NIMH is .33-.75%.
Other Specified Dissociative Disorder is even more common- up to 8% (source DSM-5-tr) and during the diagnostic process, many people may get assessed for OSDD then get reassessed as DID or vice versa.
That’s higher than bipolar disorder – NAMI puts that at 2.8%.
It would be good if people writing about dissociative disorders could at least get past the extremely rare myth.
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Claiming a DSM disorder has any sort of prevalence in the population sounds illogical, invalid, unfalsifiable, unempirical, lacking objectivity, unreproducible, and bad science.
Hence the term label being more appropiate, instead of, uuugh, disorder.
Going into taxonomy of DSM fakery, like looking for specific narrower labels for DID, looks to me like obfuscation, normalization of the lack of science behind the DSM, and therefore, behind the label.
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It would be better if people could stop using psychiatric labels.
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Wrong few people if any people have this. If more n more r being found then it is exactly as the article says. Yall r just desperate to b different so u can go viral n b famous. Thata the true disease of social media. It let’s average peeps become special when ur really not at all.
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Ms. Todd, I believe what “would be good” is if Commenters who are presenting as fact-based, re-consider using the DSM 5-tr, and NIMH as credible sources…and then shoot off their OTHER foot by citing NAMI “facts”, for God’s sake-a Pharma-supported field office, posing as a patient/family ‘advocate’. Check their annual financials.
Oh, and there’s the “…well-known Dr. Bethany Brand”.
See the massively “well known” Dr. Allen Frances (“Diagnosisgate…”, Dr. Paula Caplan, Aporia) a perfect example as the psychiatric poster-boy for conflict-of-interest regarding his decision to sacrifice trusting patients for cash-on-the-barrel via leading the task-force of the notorious DSM-IV. He even wrote his Mea Culpa, “Saving Normal…” on his credibility. ALOT of excuses & finger-pointing, but VERY “well known”…
I challenge your resources & references on this topic.
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This is exactly what is happening with gender too. And also to parents who are diagnosing their own children. Ultimately, when the mental health industry is completely unhelpful, people have little choice but to go out there and try to figure it out themselves. It’s like the Wild West.
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I do not think it is the same thing.
Identifying as non binary, binary, unitary or whatever nary one identifies with does not imply a disorder. It’s an act of self-expression of self-assertion. Even an act of self definition or search.
Saying that act of self expression, like in gender identity disorder, is a disorder does look similar to me. But the difference is in the use of the word disorder, not in the act of self assertion, self expression, self definition or search.
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I agree. It’s usually not the person who is saying their gender identity is a disorder—it’s actually a billing code. In order to get gender affirming care one must be diagnosed with a disorder so insurance will pay the doctor/clinic/hospital. In fact that is a major problem in all healthcare!!! Billing codes!!! People should get care no matter what!!! Ones whole identity (health finances status credibility…) shouldn’t hinge on billing codes! We are complex creatures—we shouldn’t have QR codes attached to us, like products at CVS.
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I came here to say the very same, unpopular thing! It’s monkey see, monkey do.
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Meanwhile someone that actually has DID struggles to pay rent every month with the disability income that they recieve and constantly need assistance with everyday life sees a teen/20 something literally capitalize off having “alters” that are always conviently controlable enough to sit in front of a phone for attention. Social media has gentrified mental illness. Get me tf off of this planet.
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I agree with the suffering, but not with the reasons, the causes of the struggles.
The causality of being labeled, even diagnosed with DID and struggling with anything. How is that different from an astrological roulette?. Does the conjunction of Mars and Venus during my birth explains my insomnia?.
Churchill was notoriously ethanol abusive, and that did not make him strugle with income, responsability, achievement or fun, as far as I know.
Did he suffer from alcohol abuse disorder?. Not according to the principles of DSM diagnosis: it has to be severe enough to cause “dysfunction” or suffering, in a causal way. Which the DSM admits it’s not there: there is no causality for any disorder in the DSM.
Saying he was a high-functioning alcohol abusive disordered individual proves that lack of causality with another label. And they don’t use the “high-function” label anymore…
And the DSM admits the “symptoms” have no severity difference from normality. So, doubly lacking causality, as per the authoritative DSM.
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Been saying that for years. Yall wanna normalize mental illness so reg folks can pretend to b ill for likes. GTFOH!!!!
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Terri,
“Social media has gentrified mental illness.”
Wow, nailed it and I’ll take it further.
I think it’s a familiar, successful, long-game collaboration with & directed by PHARMA…again. (Critics will insert ‘conspiracy’, replacing collab, attempting to smear some irrationality on that statement.)
We’ve seen this movie….
It was wildly successful following the publication (1995) of the DSM-IV & it’s infamous ‘expan$ion’ of ‘new’ symptoms of bipolar disorder, formerly manic depression (Eeuw, let’s re-brand THAT name). And again, thanks, Allen France$.
Instead of (and before) social media (what’s that?) during the late 90’s-early 2000’s….”bipolar” was inserted into the American lexicon & culture under the faux-noble guise of ‘de-stigmatizing’ MI and creating an artificially sensitized awareness of the (false) ubiquity of THAT (largely BS) diagnosis. All conveniently coinciding with targeted, new drugs to market, and old off-label drugs being maximally prescribed…
with the FDA’s assistance.
People Magazine (& most print media) & TV shows-(pre-runners of social media)-used self-questionairres and storylines relentlessly, quickly ‘familiarizing’, normalizing the new diagnosis, ostensibly “de-fanging’ it (in some ways) for mass public consumption, tragically, shamefully, especially towards CHILDREN…a X- 40 explosion of pediatric diagnoses.(‘only’ X-3-adult population)…it soon became global, for obvious, economic reasons.
‘Bipolar’ became a slur (still is) to smear anyone perceived as simply expansive, excited, creative, expressive, with unconventional lives, making unconventional (not DTS/DTO) choices. Or someone who changed their minds about anything at all. Or fought thru challenges that were viewed as self-inflicted. Or was sad sometimes. Or very, very happy sometimes. Or, or, or…simply human.
It was defined SO BROADLY as to describe every.single.person…who lacked the visage of a perpetual smiley-face (thanks, Leonard Sax).
I would add, mostly middle-class and the working poor…who couldn’t afford a retreat to a ‘Spa’ for ‘exhaustion’, as the wealthy & celebrities did or self-diagnosed…as teens are doing today.
Could it be a legitimate condition? Only if “lifelong” is excised from the code…and much, much rarer than diagnosed.
Transient and definitely treatable with skilled talk therapy and compassion. Like ‘exhaustion. But who has the insurance that does that?
Pharma dictates that answer…..No one. Big Insurance concurs. They both vote for LIFETIME ‘treatment plans’ of thousands of pills.
Tik Tok & tele-health has had the same effect….supporting and growing Pharma and giving psychiatry the desperately coveted veneer of legitimacy….in a reality that points to their decades of failures; case-in-point-Mass shooters, (distressingly, commonly already taking prescriptions), scores of drug failure research & damage…that, ironically gets more readership thanks to social media.
But never enough.
The vulnerability of teen girls, especially…speaks to what a massively poor parenting job exists to prepare females for a world that targets and exploits their second-class status cavalierly, relentlessly….still.
Bipolar DIAGNOSES did, and continues to do the same.
This is just more Pharma/Psych economic expansion.
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“The vulnerability of teen girls, especially…speaks to what a massively poor job exists to prepare females for a world that targets and exploits their second class status cavalierly, relentlessly….still.”
That’s how I felt as a teenage girl — long before the internet.
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CORRECTION: “…a massively poor PARENTING job…”.
So, so true. But outsourcing that job to “therapists” can be even worse…
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I agree with all you
Said Krista!!! Except for “bad parenting” In a way that’s very accurate. But in a bigger way, very misleading and possible counter-productive. How can we blame parents when they are so busy trying to protect their children that they simply don’t have time to parent them? Nor can they compete with society, even when they do their very best. Plus, how were they themselves parented? Also, what examples or resources do they have? Dr Spock???? Give parents a break. (By the way—I have no children as I was sterilized by my mother after my psychiatrists convinced her I was unfit to be a parent. So no bias here)
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Hi Blu, I believe, broadly, parenting is about guiding & providing for a child to the age of legal adulthood.
This topic regarding teenage girls-specifically-is perhaps paralleled with ‘The Talk’ that parent(s) of color have with their children: a constant narrative, subtle or appropriately urgent…awareness/experiential sampling/safety choices/problem solving… soaking into their consciousness as they age…because RACISM is STILL relentless & everywhere…and often fatal.
THAT’S what parents can do.
GENDER BIAS & MISOGYNY is timeless & infinite. (There’s no ‘perky’ spin to apply)
Haven’t we finally learned thru study after study after study…and simply daily news reporting, that FEMALES-1/2 THE POPULATION- are STILL singled out as targets upon birth, STILL relentlessly marginalized, STILL deemed ‘less than’ by social paradigms that, ironically, span education, (!) law enforcement (!), the military (!), medicine (!) and the legal system (!!) ?
Balancing this….. reality-messaging, fatalism, an exhausted acceptance of worthlessness by girls…is increasingly tricky…but the MOST important thing.
I DO think the responsibility for this is core for parents-it can’t be legislated…..
Staying safe…alive and autonomous is fundamental for any shot at a healthy existence-body and soul….ESPECIALLY for females.
The numbers don’t lie…ADULT females own the stats for depression, assaults, rapes, murder-by-intimate/family, harassment @ job, stalking targets, cyber bullying, single parenting, & unequal compen$ation, without which we will ALWAYS be held down.
The PSYCHIATRIC INDUSTRY is historically AND CURRENTLY notorious for targeting & scapegoating females.
This generation of young girls are playing into the industry’s hands…seemingly having no options/support against the poisonous culture….
Unaware of the lifetime of victim-hood, addiction, & dependence waiting.
Men in power can change it. They don’t.
That leaves PARENTS.
If they ‘can’t’ (all those reasons you listed), females will continue to be viewed as disposable.
The ‘3rd’ rail topic among civilized Commenters.
.
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There’s no denying it: psychiatry is medicalized misogyny.
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A mother who is truly generous with a daughter is a rare and wonderful thing. Too often as the girl matures the relationship devolves into competition and the girl is left to fend for herself.
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“What does this mean for the notion that ‘mental illness is ‘stigmatized,’ and we need to ‘raise awareness’ and ‘normalize’ it?”
Probably that the psychiatric industry, and their big Pharma partners, have too well “normalized” the scientific fraud based theology of “mental illness?”
https://psychrights.org/2013/130429NIMHTransformingDiagnosis.htm
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A lot of these conditions aren’t even treated with medication nor can kids buy medication OTC. If they don’t meet criteria, they don’t get a formal dx. No formal dx, no meds. This article is about kids self diagnosing who do not meet criteria and won’t get medicine. Your rant is tertiary at best.
That said, teens have been exposed the promotion of eating disorders since the early days of social media. That in particular is not a new trend. Pro Ana has been a problem since the beginning.
Some of the others mentioned are defined as neurological disorders not mental illness. The real problem in psychiatry was making a distinction between mental and physical in the first place. It’s all physical. The neurological system doesn’t possess a magical immunity from disease and dysfunction. You’d have to be, well, crazy to think otherwise.
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But maybe it’s “just” illogical to equivocate and/or confabulate mental illness or symptoms attributed to them with neurological diseases.
Mental is not physical. The claim that mental is physical requires proof, it’s a claim, either true or false. Arguments would have to be provided, and there is none fully convincing, predicting, generalizable, falsifiable and empirical. None…
As it stands the mental, the mind, normal or “disordered” is a black box, and it could very well be a Chinese Room.
Just because the mind can’t “live” without the brain does not grant the claim of mind being physical with the requirements I mentioned.
“That said, teens have been exposed the promotion of eating disorders since the early days of social media.” before that, in 80s and 90s eating disorders were fashionable.
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How many of these self-diagnosed children then go see a doctor and the doctor just adopts the kids own “diagnosis” and medicates them???? Doctors diagnose complex mental “Disorders” in initial less than hour consults everyday from just self-reports. And especially if you say a previous doctor said it first-that works like a charm. You need not provide any previous records. That’s a very lazy but also very (financially) efficient way to get a lifelong customer.
Social media has been a gold mine for psychiatry and big pharma.
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Hmm….this is sooo different than all the sexual identities such as trans, pan, demi, asexual isn’t it? Isn’t it? I mean isn’t it? Reallynow let’s review…isnt it?
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No one has proved that same gender attraction is a disorder.
Same as DID, and whatever, with caveats. But, same gender attraction is a form of self expression that it can’t be labeled as sick or disordered, not legaly and not scientifically in the “western” world.
So, it is way different in that sense, putting the label is dang wrong, and it’s accepted universally enough for same gender attraction. One label is wrong, forbidden, the other is bad luck, disease or sometimes “cool”.
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Gender identity and sexual identity are not the same thing. Pan, demi, asexual are terms describing how people experience sexual desire. Pan people don’t have a gender preference – does that seem terribly novel or frightening? Trans describes a person’s gender identity as incongruous with the gender people assigned them at birth based on their genitalia, which btw is literally done in the most unscientific fashion ever by measuring the infant’s clitoris. There are 16 possible “biological sex” possibilities based on chromosomes btw. Transgender people have existed in every culture and society throughout human history and are in no way a modern phenomenon.
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Yah, I think I saw this same TikTok.
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And those kind of labels, those stigmata do have a protective character, not only fakely explanatory.
Noticeable when comparing saying I love free markets and everyone should have one on social media. Or arguing “for harsher penalties for parole violators, Stan”, from the movie Miss Congeniality.
And if social media is full of attacks, particularly from teenager women against teenager women, then it can provide a sense of identification safer, more protective than being pro-choice, pro-life, pro-gun, pro-palestinian, pro-israeli, etc.
Particularly in the nowadays way too polarized world, that was not like that 10yrs ago…
But it does seems distracting from “figuring” the issues teenagers are going to have to face, justifiable because not even adults can argue without getting vitriolized all over the social media. Even a bot could blindly censor a sentence with both pro-palestinian and pro-israeli…
So, I can imagine a female teenager trying to assert herself on social media, receiving vitriol and thinking “perhaps I am too dang sensitive”, “maybe I have some mental illness!”.
When in fact it is the social media violence against teenagers disguised as freedom of speech by the platforms, their editorial discretion with hidden algorithms and human censors for a profit motive that encourages polarization and agression against teenagers male and female…and they run for cover and comfort into psychiatic labels…
And then there is the evewrywhere almost anytime paparazzi effect… even in one’s home if one has syblings or parents with a cell phone…everything can be easily embarrassable…
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Sorry we need less hsnd holding n more women to stand up for themselves without help from men. DO UR OWN WORK LADIES!!!
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How, then, about collaboration instead of help and holding hands?.
Like in wrok together to achieve the same goal regardless of how one defines, receives, changes or identifies gender?.
Across the board!. Without splitting in purpouse across gender lines?.
But, it’s ok, if I am excluded, I have issues, I admit. Just, maybe I can’t see them…
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And it’s not suprising teenagers run to mental labels when considering this:
Even actors and actresses that are “charismatic”, wealthy, famous, etc., when they do something that in my days was considered poor taste, bad manners, not being a team member, that kind of thing, get badly burned, flamed in social media.
And unable to address the multiple verbal aggressions, not even with a top publicist expert in social media crisis. And a carefully crafted background scenery.
So, what chance does a teenager have in that social media environment for some “minor” whatever?. Particularly when it is a form, even an attempt at self assertion?. An statement of who the teenager is? or even think he or she is?.
It’s not that suprising that they have to find a way to say who they are that is not as dangerous, and mental illness labels might provide that…saddly, since for most teenagers it is damn right false labeling.
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The dsm will go down in history as one of the most destructive books ever written. Those supporting it accomplices to criminal negligence and harm
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I sure hope so.
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What I think is more descrtructive is people use it and apparently don’t really get what it means, most folks might use it as a laundry list rather than a medical book.
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The DSM makes a good doorstop! Maybe in the bathroom, so it can double as backup toilet paper!
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WTF is “medical” about the DSM???
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The key here is that these young people lack the basics in life. What do I mean? They lack a sense of connection with others that is organic and natural because their parents, school culture, and popular culture do not provide nurturing that gives them a sense of belonging and a sense of being ok just as they are so they don’t have to constantly prove their worth. Americans, in particular, tend to live without a strong sense of meaning beyond shopping and competing for attention and money. The teen years are all about finding meaning–we don’t (collectively) care about any of that.
What makes it all worse is that we live in a world that is mainly fantasy. Fantasy/propaganda/PR/advertising and general unreality are valued way more than a sense of reality–which can only come from having meaning in ones’ life.
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Maybe if women were not killed or close to it by expressing even a low level of anger and dissatisfaction (with basically anything from the service at Starbucks to being serially raped in the military) they would not have to identify with a “medical disorder” to have their negative thoughts (MAYBE) heard and validated. Well, they are hearing and validating each other on social media. The misogyny that remains in our cultures is disgusting. You aren’t allowed to be angry, and maybe you even need an alter identity to express it. Good lord. And, as someone else mentioned, alters that are always conveniently controllable are obviously not real. Most of these kids will never know what someone who actually splits apart goes through, though not all of us are on a pittance of a disability. Some of us have learned to funciton and even rely on our different parts for the support we never got (and likely never will) from the communities of anyone reading this comment. We don’t sit in front of social media all day and complain about how non-functional we are.
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My empathy. How did you figure it out (functionality)? –from a “lucky” SSI recipient
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Probably also explains the explosion of teenaged girls claiming to suffer gender dysphoria.
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This is a terribly condescending, misogynistic article. Some disorders look different in girls because females were not included in a lot of historical psychological studies unless they had a personality and thought for themselves, in which case they were unfairly labeled hysterical. Simons is demonstrating a new way to label women as hysterical: “tHey thiNk They hAve evErythiNg.” Maybe listen to young women’s experiences?!? Sure, maybe a few just want to be “trendy.” But I don’t think that describes the majority. It is a cry for help and a cry for accommodations.
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And what about teenage boys? Some data would be helpful here.
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I agree, teenage boys have tough time trying to fiddle in the middle of the gender wars, and being stigmatized by never living up to the standard of the “new” masculinity.
Regardless if there is such a thing that is not another “construct”, or possible to attain.
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I did not read PS review as labeling as you mentioned.
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Women and girls were systematically excluded from much psychological research because the researchers (males) though their menses would mess with their data.
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Maybe I should be a boy? Social media says if I love competition, never liked dresses or the color pink, played with boys more than girls, I’m better at math than writing, I have short hair, then I’m probably a boy trapped in a girl’s body!.. Everyone will love me and tell me I’m so stunning, handsome & brave. Yes, I am a boy!
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So funny. Because the BOYS are also doing this behavior online. Especially on tiktok. But it’s great when “men” get to weight in on an opinion piece about teen girls (gross). Why are grown men obsessed with teen girls? BOYs are doing this behavior too …. But y’all leave that out in order to keep women/girls disenfranchised and infantalised because sexism is a system that upholds whatever man had the mancasity to publish his monologue on the Internet. Useless. As was a lot of the info he provided about DD, I am a 50yo adult that has DDNOS (diagnosed long before social media cashed in on it but and actual psychologist). It’s hilarious grown men’s obsession with the psyche of teen girls. Imagine the good work men could accomplish if they focused on their own house, which is men and boys. Amazing. Garbage article by some quack pot man.
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It means we need to remove the stigma and normalize it. Your kids are your problem. Whay are parents letting their children use a social media platform meant for adults that is known to be radicalizing and harmful to young minds? Its just like the wave of psychosomatic hysteria that kicked off the witch hunt. Parents need to get their kids in line and if they need attention so badly, maybe give it to them themselves.
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You do NOT have a comprehensive understanding of even the narrow subject
of the “Salem Witch Trials”.
“Psychosomatic hysteria” was the vehicle for the witch hunts, not the origins of it….
Most of the alleged “witches” who were hanged at Salem, were elderly widows who owned property & money left to them by their deceased husbands…. Look for the book:
“Devil in the Shape of a Woman”, for a good description of what really happened….
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Good question. Maybe more awareness and education, like this article, providing distinctions and definitions will help. If we have to choose, let’s go for clarity, not less info.
Another difficulty is the individual, teenager or adult, seeing existing (not sudden onset) symptoms of ADHD, CPTSD, DID, etcetera in themselves trying to parse out whether they have a disorder and mostly what to do about the problematic symptoms (behavioral, emotional, bodily, or mental), diagnosable or not. If therapeutic assessment is not easily available or not sought, online communities can provide a measure of comfort and education. If some in the community are not authentically members, more education should, one hopes, help them self-deselect.
Also, are there studies showing how many of the sudden-onset teenagers also have longer-term symptoms, how long they stick to their self-diagnosis, how many seek help, what can alleviate them of their false beliefs, etcetera?
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I guess one problem not clearly stated is that not even professionals can diagnose anyone, not accurately, not scientifically, not empirically, not logically and certainly not consistently.
Just the several narratives at MIA about individuals being labeled serially, sometimes, I think, with opposite diagnosis speaks volumes of the reiterated inability even of professionals to “diagnose” anyone…
Maybe if teenagers where enough aware that psychiatric labels have the hiddeous notorious tendency to be substituted for another, then another, then another, they might be more skeptical.
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Could study beyond teen girls because i dont think this knows age limits. Far too many DSM generalizations on tic tok much of it by tic tok therapists! Theres a whole channel for Narcs on tic tok i mean that’s ridiculous. App users think everyone has it. And the NC culture is also insane. So very unhealthy. So much misinformation and the psychology community should do better honestly to police itself.
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Haven’t we witnessed this phenomenon to a large degree over the last few years in all demographics? Leading to one of the biggest own-goals ever.
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A milennial thief, hippocratic drug addict here, I got a view.
The only thing that’s helped somewhat in the past to deal with insecurity and pain is to talk about it with people who care or a professional. I’m 36 bipolar played video games 10 hours a day, had multiple relationships, was addicted to movies, TV shows and am still unfulfilled. It helped for awhile, but was unsustainable and I’m alone.
If I could go back would’ve not tried so hard to be the way I thought others wanted. If I could’ve let go of that obsession, may I would’ve had a chance.
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All the more reason to dump the DSM.
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Firstly, it is imperative to exercise caution and clarify that our observations are not intended to categorize all TikTok users as children, despite this article focusing on young girls. A significant demographic of individuals aged 40 and above is actively engaging in self-diagnosis and adopting parenting approaches based on self-identified behavioral patterns. Consequently, my focus extends beyond the realm of children.
Secondly, there exists a noteworthy discrepancy in the field of psychiatry, where millions of individuals are seemingly surpassing the efficacy of psychiatric research, often conducted with limited sample sizes (e.g., n=120 or 200). This widespread phenomenon of self-diagnosis across the globe prompts a critical question: what role does psychiatry play in light of such grassroots initiatives?
**sarcasm to help the other side*
If I were to advocate for the preservation of psychiatry as a profession, a strategic measure would involve a radical shift.
Specifically, psychiatric entities should consider dissolving mental conditions unless there is tangible physical evidence supporting their existence (no meds should be taken unless one can prove it bodily impact and prognosis). In instances where such evidence is lacking, a reclassification could be undertaken, designating these conditions as cultural phenomena. This would acknowledge the variability in their prevalence across cultures, similar to how certain activities like raking leaves are exclusive to the Northern Hemisphere and not universally applicable.
So we have anxiety of economic inequality here but in Nepal, a person may have anxiety of living with family at 30yrs old. Same anxiety different cultural context.
One can take medications but the underlying issues are still present (we stop blaming people for having reactions to reality).
It is acknowledged that such a paradigm shift may have profound implications for the pharmaceutical industry, potentially leading to a significant downturn. By aligning mental health conditions with physical provability and acknowledging cultural nuances, psychiatry can adapt to the evolving dynamics of self-diagnosis and redefine its role in the context of global perspectives on mental well-being not just on rhetoric and identification indoctrination they created themselves!
And this will free up people from the shackles of psychiatry abuse! Not to mention increasing empathy that we are not alone and others are dealing with the same but different realities (which is precisely what we use therapy for)….let people develop their resilience! rather than numbing them into bleak situations calling it fake sounding name of mental condition!
It is human condition. Everybody has pain more or less depending on their cycle!
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I love the grassroot initiative rhetoric, I almost fell from my chair…”See I am a tree! and I seeteth one in thee!”…
Sad, it apparently only has been used to sell adds and personal information from social media.
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The DSM has tainted the basic human need for an identity.
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DSM jargon has successfully contaminated the innately human search for an identity.
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Real DID is not fun. It’s not just about different aspects of a personality. It’s hard to remember things through switches, it’s real fear based reactions much like ptsd flashbacks, sometimes without a memory of the events that caused them. It’s dysphoria of all sorts. It makes being an adult about things really hard at times, especially as a parent. Trust is just not part of the living experience without massive amounts of effort. Fugue state is really scary because no one remembers what happens then.
Ffs how can these kids think a debilitating coping mechanism developed from severe childhood trauma and abuse be fun.
It’s not
STOP IT!
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“….with no antecedent biological basis or tether to empirical reality—”….
-FROM THE ARTICLE ABOVE….
Well, that pretty much sums up all of psychiatry, doesn’t it!?….LOL….
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100000%
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Regardless of diagnosis, these young folks are trying to communicate that they’re hurting and need support. Let’s not dismiss that.
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Let’s not herd them into a psychiatrist’s office.
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Absolutely. It speaks to a culture of devaluing voices unless there is a medical reason to stop working.
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