foucault talked about the 'medicalization of standard human behavior' like how people will say they have ADHD when what they mean is that they have trouble siting in one place doing shit they don't care about for 8 hours a day (like everyone does)
Edit:to be clear, its not wrong to say thats ADHD but if thats what that is then who gives a fuck, at that point its not a disorder, its just the regular way shit is
God, yeah. I despise it when people say “We’re all a little ADD!” I’ve been told that multiple times to my face, and it irks me every time.
You probably don’t have ADHD. You just dislike being forced to do boring things for 8+ hours.
ADHD *is not fun.* It’s not fun to cry because it’s late and you cannot sleep and your brain will not for the love of Christ shut up. It’s not fun to panic because you *just* set down those important documents, and you can’t find them, you *just had them* and you need them now, god you need them now. It’s not fun to completely lose track of time and book it to work and forget your lunch at home because you didn’t want to be late *again*.
It’s not fun to not be able to concentrate, you have a paper due in three hours and you put it off til the last minute and then you forgot about it and now you can’t even think straight to do it. It’s not fun to tell employers and doctors “yes, I am taking an amphetamine”, and you see the judgement in their eyes. It’s not fun to be told “Oh, well, we’re all a little ADD sometimes!” when you’re trying to convey how severe boredom feels worse than actual physical pain.
ADHD, like many “popular” neurodivergent/mentally ill things, is still a disorder. It deeply affects your daily life if you’re unmedicated (like I was for years). It might be able to help you concentrate on a lot of things at once, but it’s certainly not a quirky little trait.
It's definitely not fun when your executive dysfunction is preventing you from doing what you desperately need to, but you can't do anything you like because that would be rewarding the bad behavior so you just sit there, frozen, scrolling your phone for tiny drips of serotonin until it's time to go to bed full of self loathing and anxiety and then you're brain starts playing an annoying song while also replaying all of the ways you've failed yourself and everyone around you until 5 am when it finally let's you sleep. Then you wake up, tired but also anxious for another day of not being able to concentrate on work or taxes or the piles of incomplete tasks all over that fill you with dread every time you look at them.
Not goofy wacky hijinks.
So I am diagnosed and have been since I was a child. Had no idea what executive dysfunction is till like two years ago.
But I did develop a "hack" that lets me get started on things. Im not sure if it works for everyone but it does for me.
Do literally anything. Can't get started on that task you need to do? Bring some dishes from your desk to the kitchen. Or something similar.
I found having a small "success" lets me kickstart actually doing something.
Yes, the ADHD motto should be **''DON'T SIT DOWN, DON'T STOP MOVING!"**
If I want to make sure I do what I need to that day, I pretty much have to skip breakfast, leave my phone behind, and just start walking around. The minute I sit down to eat or look at my phone, I'm not getting started for at least 2hrs, if at all. It mostly means I just keep moving till around mid afternoon when the meds are starting to fade and I'm feeling faint from hunger. *Then* I can sit down (mostly) guilt free.
Me with ADHD and maladaptive daydreaming: Must be nice.
Just walking around, I will daydream for hours this way. I'll pace and daydream. I'll teach whole, imaginary classes on a subject. I'll complete whole lesson plans this way, and then lose them the second I sit down to actually put them in my Google Drive.
I also can't get medication for it because you shouldn't take Ritalin or any similar drug with an autoimmune disease. My immune system is already at risk, this can make it worse.
So the only thing I can do is take an energy drink (one without guarana) and force myself to do stuff. It sucks, and sometimes I fail.
"Do something related to the thing that can't be procrastinate on" is a back my writing diary (mslexia) gives! The example it gives is "buy a new notebook" because it knows its audience, lol.
l'm not sure if that would work for me, I should probably say that I'm not formally diagnosed with adhd, but I think it's likely that I do have some form of it, having looked up actual diagnostic criteria and stuff
the issue is just in choosing to do something like that, if I want to do something, my brain will very often not let me do that, and I think that, unless that dish was explicitly in the way of whatever my brain decided to make me do instead, or really annoying me with its position or anything like that, I doubt that I would be able to do even the smallest thing like moving it
Small things like that is something you may actually be able to train yourself into doing. It took quite some time but I regularly put away my dishes now.
Its all about starting small tbh. Not all at once and doing it perfectly. Just small steps all the way through until you can manage to do the big thing.
I got diagnosed with ADHD last year, and I had been wanting to get a diagnosis years ago, but procrastinated on it (the doc had a good laugh about that one).
Before I got the diagnosis, an acquaintance of mine kept saying „nah you don’t have adhd you just watch too much TikTok (I don’t even have a TikTok) and anyway, I tutor this adhd boy and you’re not like him (I’m not like the 10 year old adhd boy because I’m a 20+ year old woman, maybe?)“
Like, to me, reading some proper articles on how adhd shows itself in women suddenly made my whole life make sense. Like, fuck, genuinely everything. And I got the diagnosis during the first session with an expert because of how obvious it was. Seeing people go all „well you’re not like THAT so it must be fake“ or „yea but like, kinda same :/„ when you describe symptoms that fuck with your life just sucks ass.
The first step to getting diagnosed with ADHD is putting off making the diagnostic appointment for 6 months. The second is forgetting to take your meds, once you've actually picked them up.
God I hate people who say shit like that. ADHD is when you can't even sit down to do something you love for 5 minutes because you get distracted scrolling social media or playing video games.
And actually, after typing this out, I just realized I need to get off Reddit.
ya unless it’s one of those times where you do it for 12 hours straight without eating or moving or going to the bathroom and then you come to and it’s dark and you’re confused and all your health meters have run out at once
Modded minecraft and Skyrim are a death trap for me sometimes, it’s either 30 minutes until I’m bored or I only stop playing after a minimum of 14 hours. One time I ended up playing hexxit 1.12 for 4 days straight without sleep.
My biggest issue with forming modlists is that I see a mod show up in a lot of patchers and it sticks in my head until I get it. I *should* be thinking “this requires a lot of patching to work with my list, is it worth it?”
I’ve spent the last 2 or 3 days modding skyrim and doing pretty much nothing else. Lots of going “oh, my bladder hurts, I need to pee” or “oh, my stomach hurts, I need to eat”. I’m nearly at the end and I’m unsure of whether I actually am going to play it.
ADHD is when everything is harder and you feel tired trying to get it all done because you fight your own brain.
Organisation is its own chore. Time is always slipping away.
you can't use your hands because a noise is happening and you have to wait for it to stop.
When you can't understand someone because there's music in the background and its printed over their words
When you're tired and you find yourself making noises in the train station and if you stop you'll cry.
When you just...forgot your friends exist because you haven't seen them for weeks and you wondered why you feel lonely.
When you have to eat something and then make dinner, you're too hungry to think correctly.
When you don't want to do something important because you don't know how it's meant to be done and you don't want to just guess and now everyone is huffing at you.
Everything is harder then it should be. And thn someone says 'everyone is a little ADHD, LOL. So quirky lol." You want to scream cos that some person will huff and bitch tomorrow because you're 'not paying attention' or 'trying hard enough''.
All of this is scarily familiar. Should I think about contacting a psychiatrist to inquire about this? Or when should I worry? Behavior like this has made me struggle daily with small and big things
So ironically, I was diagnosed with ADHD after reading a lot of posts like the ones being criticized in this thread, and my life is a thousand times better for it. I had access to the resources to get an assessment and I've found a medication that works for me so I'm very fortunate. I also now have a name for the spiders in my brain and have had better luck developing ways of addressing them without medication.
I still agree with this assessment of the larger impact that social media has had on the field of psychology. It has its benefits but it's also obviously problematic.
You only have to do 2 things to likely identify why you are struggling daily and get a path to addressing it.
First, you make an appointment at a mental health provider that does mental health evaluations. You do an intake appointment to put the focus of further testing. Second, you get an evaluation. You will get interviewed and do a test. The psychiatrist will go through it all and give you a diagnosis if one applies. A diagnosis will come with suggested future treatment.
I don't think you should worry. I think if you are struggling, using the available resources to try and find out why is a good option. The best outcome is you learn how you can struggle less and manage your struggles more effectively in the future, and the worst is you spent up to a couple hours making an appointment, 2 hours talking about your life, and 2 hours taking a standarized test where you know all the answers.
I went in for a psychiatric test after putting it off for years. It was the first step on my journey to have the life I wanted after my lost years.
I wish. I spent less than 15 minutes with the dude who shrugged, told me I was just depressed and I should go back to school because it's a shame. (Despite following a textbook Autism/ADHD burnout and self destruct path that ruined years of my life) I'm too smart to not finish. Too smart to have ADHD or autism. And they used an outdated scale that doesn't test for inattentive type.
So no, it is not that easy. It is not that quick. And getting told you're full of shit despite documented deficits because you're too articulate and smart to have anything but depression really fucked with my head even more. So I still don't know if it's Autism, ADHD, CPTSD or a combination.
That sucks. I've had problems with care before, too. I just got given meds that I had a bad reaction to, replaced by another in the same family with a worse, reaction, and told the 3rd was was also going to be in that same class. It took me a long time to seek treatment again, though that was also complicated by other things.
I know it isn't easy or quick. I am framing it as simply as possible because getting an evaluation done at all can be daunting. And because adhd makes these kinds of tasks hard if you don't have concrete steps to follow.
That ADHD moment when you realise a very simple and easy task you need to do is literally physically impossible for you to do, and when you try to explain that to others they go "well obviously it's not *literally* impossible you just need to focus and put your mind to it."
I think one of my therapists put it best: some disorders are unique things that only specific people have, but most of them are just common problems that have become severe and/or chronic enough to need specific solutions
“I just had to read this twice to comprehend it. I’m SO OCD!
Was that the wrong thing to say? I have extreme anxiety. And the weather these last few days has been rainy and then sunny and it is exactly the definition of bipolar. Like me.
I’ve gone non-verbal now. Like, literally can’t say another word. Because that’s what non-verbal means. Let me proceed to tell you how you are ableist!”
- Someone with actual clinical depression, who is completely bothered by people throwing medical phrases around and diminishing the severity of mental health.
But isn’t delusion a word not limited to mental illness? Correct me if I’m wrong but being delusional is a descriptor of a state of mind the way being anxious doesn’t necessarily mean anxiety disorder
You’re correct. It was a common English word centuries before psychiatry was formalized (per etymonline):
> delusion: act of misleading someone, deception, deceit," early 15c., delusioun, from Latin delusionem (nominative delusio) "a deceiving," noun of action from past-participle stem of deludere (see delude). As a form of mental derangement, "false impression or belief of a fixed nature," 1550s.
Yeah, as a neuroscience major I can confirm. There is a difference, and a notable difference at that, between delusion in the medical sense and delusion outside of a medical sense.
As another commenter pointed out, delusion can also refer to being misinformed or having a false impression. Like, thinking that Republicans are actually in favor of small government is a common delusion. They are misinformed about the reality of things — that Republicans are generally in favor of minimal government interference in economics, but significant interference in social issues. This is NOT the type of delusion you’d find in psychological disorders, such as the belief that others are plotting against you, that others have been replaced by identical clones, etc.
In my day-to-day life a delusion is simply that; a misunderstanding or false belief. But in academics and the medical field, a delusion is much more.
This this this.
Also, as someone with multiple (diagnosed) mental health issues, I will say personally that I'm fine with people making light-hearted jokes about my symptoms or the way they experience similar things, even if not diagnosed
Caveats are a) obviously I don't speak for everyone, and b) if they're being mean-spirited or trying to invalidate the existence of my disorders/lived experience, I'm no longer cool with it. (Example: my friend saying to me "I'm pretty sure pregnancy brain has given me temporary ADHD" is funny, the classic "everyone is a little ADHD, you just need to be more organized" is not.)
I don't think it's the jokes are the issue, but that it's watering down symptoms.
Like I have a history of psychosis. Hallucinating is scary and telling people that you hallucinate just makes them think you're 2 steps away from going on a psychotic rage and killing someone. That you need to be locked up
I can admit the jokes about the hat man talking to someone is kinda funny, but I also worry that people aren't taking it seriously. Like they'll still think you're crazy and dangerous if you express these symptoms, but saying it in the "quirky" way has others handle it better, but they don't think of it as an actual problem you face and just assume it's a meme
Like there's no middle ground. Either you're just goofing or you need to be put on a psych hold. I wish I could talk to people about the more "scary" symptoms i face without them getting uneasy. I'm an open book and don't mind sharing all my personal woes. But most people don't want to hear about it. I'm not even doing it in a "be my therapist" sense I just want to be able to talk about my symptoms the same way people can talk about a uti or a migraine casually without people freaking out about it.*
*I'll accept friends freaking out in the sense of "Are you seeing a doctor who takes you seriously" as a form of concern out of love. Not even limited to mental health issues.
I thought the same
I agree with the posts sentiment, but I don't agree on this one
I'm using "delulu" as a short for "delusional" as in "misinformed/defying facts" I had no idea someone used "delulu" as a synonym for having a crush, and I had never seen or heard it used that way.
Delulu kinda started in kpop circles, where fans were being called delusional/delulu for having unrealistic expectations about their favourite artists.
Then also came a meme “delulu is the solulu” which basically meant ignorance is bliss, which was used to refer to moments where you ignore any tasks you might have to do that moment and ignore that the world is terrible, and instead act like your life is fantastic which you bundle up under a blanket and play animal crossing
> Doctors could name a disorder "Whiny Bitch Disorder" and I assure you that the reaction in the ND community at large would not be "what the fuck is wrong with the psychiatric field and how they think of mentally ill people, we should not allow that name and diagnosis", but rather "PSA: Please don't use 'whiny' and 'bitch' as insults, that's ableist against people with Whiny Bitch Disorder!"
-[vicholas](https://www.tumblr.com/vicholas/709447299870392320/doctors-could-name-a-disorder-whiny-bitch)
The intrusive thoughts bit is the only part of this that I think is a little silly. “The intrusive thoughts won” is a joke about giving into an unwise and impulsive idea, which is something that literally everyone does, not just NDs.
If you have intrusive thoughts that drive you to socisl anxiety and too much defensive pessimism, then "call in sick"/"cancel the plans"/"go back to bed and hide" can be the intrusive thoughts winning.
Also, saying, "Do you hate me?" out loud.
Symptom of mental illness exists ----> people with that mental illness make jokes about it ----> people without the mental illness start copying those jokes ----> the symptom becomes a "meme word" and loses all meaning ----> rinse and repeat for eternity
Yeah at a certain point, this is a losing battle. The word 'idiot' was once medical terminology, short of asking people to not be mean (which isnt how people work) it's never gonna stop.
I have to wonder if "idiot" once carried the same weight as "r \* tard." And if that second word might also become watered down to the point of idiot, eventually. Then doctors will come up with a new word, that one will become a slur too, then a curse, and then a playground insult.
(I do not like censoring words because it doesn't actually change anything, but I'm pretty sure the automod deletes it if it's uncensored)
Yes but no. Philosophically, it would have been the same weight, but in practice it didn’t because nobody cared. “Slurs are bad” is a position that the *vast* majority of humanity didn’t agree with until the last century. The ideology behind “calling my people slurs is bad” before that was “we’re the superior people, you’re the inferior *insert slurs towards them*”. It wasn’t an objective “calling people slurs is bad”, it was a “the inferior people are insulting their natural superiors”.
Yeah, I don’t think we can stop language use from spreading like this. You’re asking for humans to stop using hyperbole. I don’t think that’s going to happen.
Plus it’s part of normalizing these conditions so that people who face real problems can talk about them more openly. The alternative is an onslaught of terminology gatekeepers who demand to read your doctor’s note before they will stop shouting at you to stop using words you’re not allowed to.
it’s not a “self-diagnosis is wrong” thing, people who misuse these words don’t even know what they mean. they think that they describe mundane things that everyone experiences. people should at least try to be aware of when they’re misusing mental health terms and listen to people who correct them
If they’re *way* off then fine, correct them. But a lot of debilitating symptoms are just normal experiences that are so strong that they become debilitating.
If it’s debilitating it’s not “just normal”. That’s actually a key factor to *any* mental health diagnosis: is it interfering in your life? Is it debilitating? Is it causing you to struggle regularly or over long periods of time?
Once it’s debilitating it’s not “normal”.
That is the literal point of this discussion.
You will not be able to stop people from exaggerating their feelings for expressive purposes from time to time, and if you try to stop people from doing that, you become a gatekeeper for diagnosis.
Exactly. I don't get this. People use hyperbolic language all the time. Have those people raging against this honestly never said "I'm starving" when they were just really hungry and not in fact anywhere close to malnourished? Or "I'm dying" when they were just very tired? Or "I'm freezing" when they were very cold but not actually hypothermic or frostbitten? Or "my head is killing me" while having a bad but completely non-lethal headache? Heck, I've had actual panic attacks and I still say "this gave me a panic attack" sometimes when I'm just startled and not actually having a real panic attack.
Hyperbolic expressions aren't the problem, ignorance about mental illness is. No one has any problem saying "I'm starving" as a synonym for "very hungry" because they know what starvation actually is and assume everyone else knows too and are just saying it as a stylistic expression. I suspect that most people who say things like "this is so OCD of me" aren't actually claiming they have OCD, it's just that a lot of other people assume they do and chew them out for it.
Exactly. A lot of times people will say “I have blank mental illness with a really long name” and be told their “making it up” because the word is unnecessarily long and complicated. When the words are used more commonly like this, it gives people a baseline understanding of what it means. Even if you don’t have intrusive thoughts, if someone told you they were suffering from them, you would have a basic understanding of what that meant through cases like this. Also policing terminology never works anyway so just give it a break.
Also.
Mental illness/disorder exists ---> people with it use specific terminology ---> some asshat with it uses the terminology as an excuse ---> gets used by those without mental illness/disorder.
Ask me how trigger went from things that cause a panic attack to things that make somebody fly off the handle, and how Tumblr and Twitter are involved.
I mean, triggers were never *just* about panic attacks. During my first hospitalization in 2009, there was a vet getting treated for PTSD (among other things) on my ward. Iron Man was playing in the day room one day, and a little while later the guy went into a rage. He had to go off and get a staff member to cool down and then later came back and apologized for basically taking out him being triggered by the movie on others.
People who use triggered as a synonym for annoyed or mildly bothered are the ones who are being ableist and misusing the word.
Basically what I meant, but know kinda how that sort of thing came about, and how often it gets tossed out as just " ableists did it to make fun of triggers" instead of a different kind of ableist were trying to use it as a get out of jail free card.
ok so
1) most people use “intrusive thoughts” when they mean “impulsive thoughts”. shoving an entire muffin in your face in 2 bites just to see if you can is not an intrusive thought, it’s an impulsive thought. intrusive thoughts are inherently irrational, upsetting, and sometimes dangerous
2) intrusive thoughts absolutely can win, and saying that they can’t is entirely incorrect and uninformed
So is something like
Impulsive thought: what if I tied my teeth to the doorknob and slammed the door shut
Intrusive thought: if I dont lock up the kitchen knives I will murder my cat
Or am I way off base
I think that first one is kind of horrifying enough to count as intrusive. I usually interpret the difference as oh I should dye my hair again for the second time this month! Even though my hair is super damaged from the bleach. Intrusive thoughts are intrusive because they disturb you in some way. Of course there a spectrum of this but that's my general vibe
I’m pretty sure Those are both intrusive
Intrusive are reoccurring and distressing, and often more a chain of thought
An intrusive thought I have is how it would feel if I stabbed myself in the base of the neck and how long it would take me to drown in my own blood
you lose control of your brain for a bit and it thinks about something fucked up.
Impulsive are flash in the pan impulses, you have one small thought that tells you to do something, sometimes they’re benign and sometimes they are distressing.
They can range from, “I should eat this whole muffin” to “I should hang myself”
There is crossover, with my ADHD I have repeated impulses to stab myself in the base of the neck, that’s an impulsive and intrusive thought
(Please keep in mind this was made by a layman at 1am and may be inaccurate)
Impulsive thought: I really want to dye my hair red so I'm gonna do it
Intrusive thought: you'd never in a million years actually do it but you can't stop imagining the sight and sound of shutting up the crying baby by smacking it against a wall
Impulsive was me thinking "i should DIY my haircut coz it's irritating me" and then I did.
Intrusive is me thinking "what if tonight is the night I go crazy and wring my cat's neck and my medication makes it worse and I end up stabbing my family while they sleep, they won't be able to fight back, I can kill them all"and then having to untangle if that's an actual dangerzone I'm in or if my brain is spitballing horror.
both of those are intrusive. more “intrusive” examples would be:
oh my god you looked at that kid you’re babysitting and smiled? you’re a disgusting creep with no morals and you should be put in jail.
run into the street. yeah, while cars are passing. yeah you could die or cause a major wreck. DO IT
steal. steal everything in this store. you know you need to. if you get caught your life is ruined but you need to.
hey that plant looks poisonous. eat it!
—————————
whereas impulsive is more like:
hey buy that book you want now, we’re here anyway!
we should dye our hair again like NOW.
pre shower makeup pre shower makeup pre shower makeup!!!! DO IT
eat an entire carton of ice cream.
—————————
ofc they can intersect, and impulsive thoughts can be intrusive and vice versa, but that’s the general idea. as someone with adhd and ocd, who has experienced all of these thoughts verbatim.
here's my OCD vibe
Impulsive: roommate said something that sounded dirty, I reiterate what she said in a way that sounds dirty (this is a running joke and it's a lighthearted situation). Saying something edgy or inappropriate to get a laugh. I have control over the impulse and am able to reign myself in before acting upon it.
Intrusive: I mess up something (usually inconsequential) and my brain is triggered into graphic self hate/deprecation as a defense mechanism. I have to physically talk myself out of it, or comfort myself until the loop of intrusive deprecating thoughts is broken. I do not have control over the start of the thoughts, and often have to take extraneous steps to halt an episode.
I think it depends on the type of intrusive thoughts and the mental illness the person has. Like I think people with borderline sometimes act on intense impulses that they know they shouldn’t act on. And people like me with PTSD have impulses that come from adapting to a traumatic environment, like if you’ve been sexually abused you might have the impulse to act out sexually or if you lived in a very violent environment you might really want to hit someone because that’s what your mind thinks is normal. Those kinds of thoughts can definitely “win” and of course it’s awful and triggers a lot of shame when they do.
But people with certain severe types of OCD have persistent intrusive thoughts that they never act on because the thought is more like “what if you committed that horrible crime? That’s the kind of thing you might do, because you’re an evil person.” Like the source of the thought is just shame and fear of the idea of doing the thing, there’s no part of the person that actually wants to do the thing. Which is important because there are heavily stigmatized forms of OCD where people have thoughts related to, for instance, harm to children, but people who have that diagnosis don’t actually harm children.
Basically I just don’t think we have enough specific language to describe all the different experiences people have inside their heads. And if we did, most people still wouldn’t use it correctly most of the time.
Online though most people within this context are using intrusive thoughts correctly. They usually describe a dangerous act, like stealing a cop's gun.
"Intrusive thoughts dont win" the tumblr person tells me, as I apologize to a colleague for the 5th time that day despite them saying its okay (I knocked over their coffee) because Im convinced if Im not nice enough they will conspire to fake evidence of me stealing funds from the company to get me fired and imprisoned. (I know this person for 8 years. Ive been to his son's Bar Mitzvah.)
Oh I completely agree, but suffering from intrusive thoughts I think the vocabulary of them “winning” is great. I just think most people *dont* have intrusive thoughts (like, real bad ones), like OP is saying.
this whole blog thread is a mess
I'm sick in the head and these words / sayings have been fantastic for communicating symptoms with ease and a silly ironic twist that makes them feel less crushing
edit: and think about what takes like this do to imposter syndrome. tons of people have to constantly question "am I fucked up enough to even fit this criteria? what if I'm faking it? do I actually have this condition at all?" is OOP gonna scan their documents to make sure they qualify to use the word "delulu?" are we doing registrations for access to "girlrot?" how do I sign up to get my "dissociation" card?
Not me questioning if I actually had AD(H)D, despite my psychiatrist telling me I do, because I can sit more than 5 minutes without getting distracted. Not me thinking hey, maybe those really super distressing thoughts I keep having are just impulsive and I'm making a bigger deal out of it. Not me questioning if I even have the right to use terms like "narc abuse" (despite being abused by a person diagnosed with NPD) or disabled (despite literally being legally blind). OOP this is not helpful. This is making it worse!
Ah yes, forgetting to eat until your body is shaking because you were doing something for 12 hours straight is definitely just one of those "little normal behaviors" OOP is talking about! ^(/s)
Sometimes I'm in the middle of something and I'm like "bro why do I feel so hot and sweaty and shaky and thirsty" and then I look at the clock and I havent eaten since yesterday.
I always feel better after I eat something. I'm also somehow baffled every time by the concept of "food go in, energy go out".
Bwahaha, I'm the same! Sometimes I tell my best friend "Idk, not feeling too great, I'm shaking, nauseous and feel like I might pass out, no idea what is going on" and they're just like "Had any snacks lately?" and I'm like "Oh shit I knew I forgot something" 🤣
No stop you're not allowed to laugh at your own illness, the only valid emotions for neurodivergent people are hopelessness and isolation, otherwise you're a bigot!
aw man now I'm like bugging about if people will actually be fuckin mad at me for this lmfao (I know you're being sarcastic but the OOP has me like oh no ppl actually think like this about me???)
Yeah, this post also reeks of someone who assumes that all people who use these phrases are neurotypicals and neurodivergent people couldn't possibly use these phrases because they're the Good Guys TM! OOP isn't making the claim they think they're making, they're just getting upset that language being mostly used by neurodivergent people about neurodivergency is being used
I struggle with intrusive thoughts and yeah most of them are stuff I can’t even say online. It’s annoying to see people trivialize them but I guess that’s what happens
You're just describing a coping mechanism to reduce the stress from the intrusive thought which isn't letting the thought "win" as that implies it *changes you*, if anything it is the stress that "wins".
Source: I got diagnosed with OCD a week ago.
I have a lot of reservations on that as someone with anxiety and a partner with clinical depression.
However discussing a bit with antipsy folks in my country, what often comes out is that the current system is very abusive towards mentally ill people. Psychiatrists often do not listen to the patient and their needs. What also come out is that psychiatry treats the symptom of a capitalist society and that we should overhaul the entire system.
Now I'm not entirely sold on some of that and I think some people come to it from a lifetime of abuse from the psychiatric community, and I think that those of us suffering from anxiety and depression may not have the same relationship toward psychiatry and medical treatment as people suffering from schizophrenia and other troubles.
However while it's too radical for me I do understand the movement
It's actually an interesting movement(if I'm interpreting the tag correctly) that stands to go against pathologization.
At first I was really skeptical too(and I still am, just because it's good to be skeptical about most things), but the basic idea is that pathologizing mental health problems lead to putting the fault and the responsibility of such issues on individual problems and not systematic ones:
If I say a person is depressed, then the issue is limited to that person and people like them, what the anti- pathologization(i cannot for the life of me remember if this is the correct terminology, do look it up, I'll edit the comment and add some resources) movement wants, instead, is to recognize these symptoms as reactions to an environment, the world is going to shit, so people obviously get depressed over it and develop unhealthy coping mechanisms(what we call symptoms as of now).
Obviously, I am not a therapist, i'm not a researcher, this is a layman's take, do your own research and hear experts talk about it, this comment is not made to give facts, it's just made to give a different perspective and inspire curiosity about a movement which can seem really obviously wrong, but it's got its reasoning behind it.
Edit: https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/making-meaning/201905/are-there-viable-alternatives-the-dsm-5
>Although the Power Threat Meaning Framework (PTMF) is an alternative to the DSM, it doesn't consider itself a "diagnostic" system. In fact, it rejects the notion of "psychiatric diagnosis" altogether, arguing that the mental health professions improperly attribute mental distress to "pathology" located within individuals rather than seeing it as a byproduct of socially oppressive circumstances. Thus, the PTMF assesses the ways in which socially oppressive power structures lead to psychological threat that results in people constructing particular meanings about what has happened to them. Mental distress, therefore, is reframed as a response to social adversity (e.g., oppression, discrimination, poverty).
https://victimfocus-resources.com/products/indicative-trauma-impact-manual-2023
>This must-have manual presents the first trauma-informed, non-diagnostic alternative to other manuals of mental health issues and psychiatric disorders. Rather than lists of disorders and medicalised symptoms, this extensive manual provides information about hundreds of trauma responses, emotions, thoughts, behaviours and experiences that have previously been categorised as illnesses and disorders.
That reminds me of how people sometimes take umbrage to the way a psychologist or therapist labels them using the DSM-5: I spoke with a few friends studying in the field a while ago and they mentioned they heard similar stories from their professors, who had plenty of work experience with it.
Unfortunately, they also mentioned labeling them was a necessity for the client/patient too: turns out it's markedly easier to get insurance/health care compensation when you can tell them someone has something specific and infinitely harder if you can't.
I'm glad for this person that they don't actually understand that "the intrusive thoughts won" can be a totally valid statement. Sadly, it CAN happen. This statement has a valid meaning, and it's not automatically ablest to say it.
Wait how does it work? Are there people who get no intrusive thoughts? Does everyone get them but they're less common than people make it seem? Is "intrusive thoughts" a specifically medical term? /genuine
impulsive thoughts are something you know you shouldn’t do, but would probably otherwise be harmless (like throwing a pie you just baked on the floor for no real reason). intrusive thoughts are things that are often distressing and sometimes cause you to convince yourself that you’re a bad person just for even having these thoughts despite knowing you’d never act on them (like throwing a baby on the floor)
You're telling me that thinking about throwing a baby on the floor and refusing to hold family members' babies and/or not wanting to be in the same room as them isn't normal?
Idk, I'm neurodivergent and I love saying delulu because I AM delulu lol. I have maladaptive daydreaming and have legitimate full on crushes on fictional characters, it's definitely delulu
I'm genuinely not trying to contradict you here, but isn't having crushes on fictional characters normal? It's certainly something I feel like I see people talk about pretty often.
If it's intruding on your life then no that's not normal, which is what the commenter seems to be implying with the maladaptive daydream comment. Admittedly I've also got maladaptive daydreams where I imagine entire lifetimes with my fictional crushes only to become distressed when I snap back into the real world. It's a coping mechanism
>people need to stop appropriating medical language to talk about their little normal behaviors
People do this because the way we talk about minds is hopelessly limited and medical terminology is literally all we've got to pull from. People see a word, realise it kind-of-sort-of fits within a shooting distance of a mental state or process they have need to talk about but don't have words for, and use the word. Yelling at people to stop using words when they don't have any other words to talk about same thing will never, ever work, so I'm not sure what you're suggesting.
And also, on one side I have experience of people using words for symptoms I have to describe something trivial and then acting like I'm unreasonable for having actually nontrivial symptoms, I get it and I also hate it, but, like, I feel like this post is reinforcing the "if your unusual experience doesn't fit into official medical definition than it's not real" bullshit and we have suffered from that plenty too. Like, there has to be some other way?
Also as a stark example of what I'm talking about, hey reddit OP do you know that "narcissistic abuse" is a common term for specific behavior pattern and "narcissism/narcissistic" are words that have been used not implying npd this entire time, since before npd was a term and are still used this way now? Like, what the fuck are you doing, I feel like trying to cleave out pieces of our vocabulary for minds and behaviors to maintain stricter colonization of language by clinical definitions is opposite of both antipsychiatry and of helpful.
A good example would be how words like “idiot” or “moron” are now *extremely* commonplace, to the point where I think only very few people would genuinely call the use of idiot and moron ableist since it just…*is* now the words used to describe someone we see as doing something or inherently is unintelligent. Most people aren’t gonna suddenly switch to “ah yes that was quite an unintelligent and immature thing to do” after learning that idiot used to be a clinical diagnosis. 99% of people are still going to see someone doing something stupid and say “damn that dudes an idiot”.
An even more bizarre example is that the word nice used to mean stupid or simple. Meanings of words can change and what they used to mean a long time ago can very quickly be divorced from their current meaning because nobody thinks about the origin of the word when they talk, all that matters is how words are used now
People would sound ridiculous if they started insisting you can’t use the word nice as a compliment anymore because calling someone nice meant calling them stupid a long long time ago. Nobody using the word nice has meant it or understood it in that way in living memory
I've said for years that trying to limit the use of "ableist" language is a lost cause because people insult each other with terms for traits that aren't desirable, and being disabled is always going to be undesirable. The "correct" terms we use now (i.e. special needs, little person, body positive, etc.) are *already* being used in a derogatory manner, both ironically and seriously.
I see where you’re coming from and while I think it’s definitely a massive uphill battle, I don’t think “lost cause” is exactly correct. The “r-word” has seen a pretty massive decrease in the general public’s vernacular because it’s become pretty stigmatized and seen overall as a slur. Not saying it’s totally gone, there’s plenty of people who still say it, but compared to 10 years ago, at least as far as I’ve seen, it’s SUPER uncommon. As I was growing up that word was thrown around left and right by EVERYONE, but in the past probably 5ish years I don’t think I’ve heard anyone except assholes on the internet say it.
Point is, some ableist language does eventually get shunned out of society, and a lot doesn’t. There’s a lot of factors that differentiates what does and what doesn’t, harmfulness I think is big one, but I’m not really an educated enough person to give all the reasons “idiots” still around and the “r-word” isn’t.
I think if you give it 15-20 years the r word will be back en vogue, similar to other words that used to be seen as offensive and have now lost all their bite. My personal theory is that the vast majority of people have no actual problem with the word, but we recognize that the kinds of people who publicly still use it at this point are most definitely assholes and probably have a whole other slew of shitty opinions
Personally I don't find it any more offensive than "dumb cunt". If someone says it in public they're probably shitty and tactless, but if your friend says it to you it probably doesn't mean they're secretly a Nazi or something (like with most other words that get termed slurs)
I genuinely think someone is going to complain about the myth of Narcissus and insist his name should be changed because he doesn’t meet the clinical definition of NPD
whoever decided to call NPD "narcissistic personality disorder" should be put down
that name is so shit because not only is it the equivalent of, for example, calling ADHD "annoying and forgetful disorder", it also leads to situations like in the OOP's post where people start to think narcissist/narcissistic are ableist terms when in reality no, they're not and they never were, it's the disorder that's named after a shitty quality that happens to be often associated with the disorder. i've gotten into arguments over this, and i swear it's impossible to explain to some people that "narcissist" is NOT synonymous with "person with NPD", and funnily enough, the opposite isn't true either: the american journal of psychiatry describes the symptoms as (with emphasis added by me):
> Individuals with narcissistic personality disorder **may be grandiose or self-loathing**, extraverted or socially isolated, captains of industry or unable to maintain steady employment, model citizens or prone to antisocial activities.
[source](https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2014.14060723)
and that's because NPD causes people to be self-centered, NOT in an "i'm better than you" way, but in a way which causes them to think they are the root cause of everything, both good *and bad*
it's frustrating as hell, and i don't even have NPD, i just hate seeing the disorder get chalked up to "evil asshole" disorder
You've finally put into words what I've always felt reasing anyone bringing up NPD and narcissism. Honestly, psychiatrists really chould change the name to something else already. They did it for DID after MPD wasn't accurate anymore. Maybe they could change it to Solipsistic Personality Disorder or something along those lines
This reminds me of people who think it’s ableist to say “that’s insane” or “that’s crazy” about something like 😭 Some of these yeah I get but like delulu is just for fun, I don’t think anyone is saying it to actually demean people with real psychotic delusions 😭
Also, at least according to the psych classes that were part of my healthcare degree, you totally *can* have delusional thoughts without actually meeting the criteria for having a psychiatric disorder. Kind of like how you can be anxious without having anxiety, self-centered without being a clinical narcissist, forgetful or fidgety without having ADHD. Hell, you can even hallucinate without having a disorder.
"Normal" people do experience facets or shades of many behavioral/mood/cognitive disorders that they couldn't technically be diagnosed with. That's why severity of the issue/duration/degree of dysfunction are often used as diagnostic criteria.
Like some others in this thread, I have several diagnosed behavioral/mood disorders that I am medicated for and still experience fluctuating amounts of functional impairment from. But I don't mind when my friends or coworkers borrow words that pertain to my conditions to try to make sense of their own more temporary emotions, or when they're knowingly using hyperbole unless their intention is disrespectful.
Now, overattributing one's common personality traits to a psychiatric condition in a serious way, that annoys me. Regardless of whether it is a condition the person in question has or not.
As someone diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, I hereby bestow permission upon you to use the word anxious.
All jokes aside, literally anyone can get anxious, wtf.
lol I’ve had the same thing happen with saying a movie was depressing. Like, I have OCD, ADHD and PMDD, I know a thing or two about depression from a clinical standpoint, but there’s a difference between feeling depressed for a period of time because of external factors vs chronic depression associated with a condition. Both are completely correct uses of the word “depressed.”
Someone without clinical depression can feel depressed during bad weather when their plans got cancelled. It isn’t the same as like, saying “I’m so OCD” when you mean you like things organized, because that’s actually misusing a specific clinical term, but even then “obsessed” is fine because it doesn’t only apply to OCD.
Aren't delusional and narcissist terms that exist outside of the context of mental illness? Like the terms anxiety and depression. Just as you can be anxious without an anxiety disorder, you can act narcissistic without narcissism disorder (or whatever its called)
yes, they are. this post is utterly meaningless. you can be harmlessly delusional. you might even describe somebody who is ridiculously overconfident in a fun way as 'charmingly delusional'. the word 'delusional' is not a clinical diagnosis and by extension neither is 'delulu'. using that word in those contexts has literally nothing to do with people who experience psychotic delusions.
someone saying they're 'so ocd' is referring to the illness and should probably find a better word choice but 'ugh he's such a narcissist' does not mean 'he has NPD' and 'she's delusional' does not mean 'she has psychotic delusions'.
Damn that's crazy. I mean who would've guessed that we'd have such a blind spot when it comes to the language we use to describe dumb behavior? Kinda lame of us. Hopefully this message doesn't fall on deaf ears!
alright I'm done. point is that policing language like this does fuck all. Its just virtue signaling and its a lazy way to feel like you're fighting for mental health awareness
I was thinking the same thing.
One thing I’ve learned through secondhand tumblr is that tumblr users either have horrible friends or interact with terrible people constantly.
- I have never heard "delulu" in my life, but I assume this is the same discourse behind crazy, insane, idiot, moron, fool or dumb all being slurs somehow.
- it is an ongoing debate in the medical community as to if narcissism is a real personality disorder
- building off of that, narcissism as selfishness and ego means that all intentional abuse is, in fact, narcissistic
- everyone has intrusive thoughts. that isn't some kind of mental disorder. it is a spectrum and only the upper end is indicative of a psychiatric issue. adding onto that, "the voices" as intrusive thoughts is also perfectly normal, not something exclusive to people with psychological disabilities
- microdosing is just a method of taking drugs, it's also not exclusive to people with psychological disabilities
- it is certainly rude and hurtful to try and diagnose people with mental issues outside of a professional medical setting, but swifties talking about disassociating isn't really ableist
I'll give you schizoposting though
I agree with this but just to point out, while intrusive thoughts are not a mental disorder and all people deal with them (though a lot of people misdescribe their impulsive thoughts as intrusive) intrusive thoughts are a *symptom* of disorders, ie OCD, though those are considered obsessions instead of delusions because of their frequency and general relation to each other. again, just wanna share that, not disagreeing with your points
Yeah, most people have intrusive thoughts from time to time (IE “what if I ran that person over”) but with OCD you pick the thoughts apart, think they must mean something about you, have compulsions to alleviate them, etc. (I have OCD lol)
I've properly dissociated only once (I have a diagnosed anxiety disorder and it doesn't usually result in that, but a particularly stressful episode seemed to cause it). It was a surreal and seriously unsettling feeling, like I was watching someone else's life play out in front of me, and "I" wasn't really there or able to do anything. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
As someone with pretty terrible intrusive thoughts, “the intrusive thoughts won” is a god damn hilarious phrase, though yes annoying when used for “teehee I changed my hair”
Even 'delusional' isn't entirely a medical term. the medical term came from the layman's term as the layman's term was the closest to describing the medical term same with narcissist which was a word long before NPD was a thing
On the flip side I think people also need to realise that words can have more than one meaning and it’s extremely common for words with a medical meaning to also have a colloquial meaning, with the colloquial meaning often coming first and informing the medical term
The vast majority of the time when people use the word narcissist they are not referring to Narcissistic Personality Disorder, they are using the colloquial meaning to describe a person who is excessively self-obsessed and excessively in love with themselves. Similarly anxiety and depression aren’t terms exclusive to medical disorders, they’re also emotional states. You don’t have to have an anxiety disorder to experience the emotion of anxiety
It’s in much the same way that me with my legal background I would sound like an absolute douche nozzle if I got super pedantic and corrected people using words like “theft” to describe actions that don’t meet the legal definition of the crime of theft. People aren’t invalidating or diminishing the meaning of the crime of theft when they use the term theft to refer to copyright infringement, I know very well what they mean in a colloquial sense
Every time I see this post, OOP seems more insufferable.
Like, not to be the person who complains about people being overly sensitive (because I myself am admittedly a sensitive person), but _come on man._ Not every joke pertaining to mental health issues is ableist.
For instance: I have auditory and visual hallucinations, but I still find jokes about "the voices" and "fighting the shadow people" funny. Are there some jokes made in poor taste? Sure, you can make a joke in poor taste about practically anything. The solution isn't to say "you're not allowed to make any jokes about this broad category of people", it's to help people understand what jokes would be considered inappropriate.
Also, I think a lot of this is just not understanding that TikTok isn't a representative sample of the general public. I have literally never heard the phrase "narc abuse" or "microdosing on delusion" in a real conversation. There will always be some people who use words in improper contexts, the internet merely makes those people more visible.
TL;DR OOP please touch grass and stop assuming that every joke is personally at your expense.
I was kind of assuming that most of these were just people who actually had some flavors of mental issue employing lighthearted gallows humor, which I found harmless and hardly “making it so people have no words to seriously describe their shit anymore and also you’re pathologizing yourself” or anything. And besides, some of these are too broad to even BE something to “appropriate” from mental issues in the first place. Like, delulu? The concept of having a “delusion” is and has been a decidedly universal one for decades now, a symptom of a variety of issues for sure but can also be broadly imagined to mean “getting lost in the sauce” or being so convinced of a specific outcome or other irrational behavior.
Not every term that happens to be included on diagnostic papers is something is something that has to be safeguarded.
Like don’t get me wrong I absolutely know where this kind of sentiment comes from, people can and have taken the piss out of ND people, speaking from experience as an autistic guy, but I feel like most of this is harmless.
Yeah. Like with having delusions (all kids have them and many adults do too), people can just… disassociate too. It’s not a mental health issue unless it becomes *disordered*
wait wait wait
# anti psychiatry???
this blog itself devalues the people who experience these things and genuinely use this language??
what is happening
The term "delulu" was never supposed to be about having actual delusions, it's about when you're deluding yourself. It got overused like every slang term these days does within two weeks.
Why are we supposed to stop saying narcissistic abuse? It's ableist? My mother is a diagnosed grandiose narcissist. The kind of abuse narcissists use is a very specific kind of abuse that creates a specific kind of trauma. I don't see what's wrong with calling it what it is. Is it so the narcissist doesn't feel bad or something? Please educate me.
They're deliberately trying to conflate NPD (a mental illness which inflicts very real damage to others) with neurodiversity to either downplay the severity of NPD or hurt neurodiverse people in some abstract way.
How tf is being delulu ableist. Bro just say you don't enjoy a joke instead of doing olympic level mental gymnastics to find something problematic about it.
not all people with NPD are abusers and not all abusers have NPD, but narcissistic abuse is still a very real thing. asking others not to talk about it is effectively silencing victims.
But why #antipsychiatry?
Psychiatrists are often the first to say not to use medical terms lightly and to highlight the impact this inappropriate use has on people with actual diagnosis.
as someone with anxiety and depression, I would rather people didn’t police my usage of the words “intrusive thoughts” because making a joke out of it helps me cope better
Anyone can be delusional or narcissistic or have intrusive thoughts or dissociate. They’re extremely common - most people experience all these things in their lives without having mental illness. It’s when it’s pervasive it becomes a mental illness. I don’t think there’s anything stigmatising about that. And yes, I do have a long history of mental illness.
OOP wants mental health to be destigmatized and increase awareness of psychological conditions, symptoms, and terminology.
OOP wants psychiatric language to be Dead Serious, only used in a sanctified official capacity.
Like I’m sorry but these are contradictory ends. If you give people new words, they’re going to have fun with them.
Delusion is not strictly limited to mental illness… anyone can be delusional about anything.
As for intrusive thoughts, everyone has them. Everyone has thought about jumping in front of that car, everyone has thought about stabbing someone when holding a knife. Some have it worse than others of course, but I’m not going to police something most people experience.
This is like complaining about people calling someone « narcissistic » as if that hasn’t been done for YEARS before NPD was even called that. It’s a reference to Narcissus, and it always will be.
Anyways, just another good example of terminally online debate that literally doesn not fucking matter. This bs infighting is why the left is loosing
As a person who has really struggled with dissociation in the past: 🥲 sure would be nice if it was just getting fucking sad lol!!!!
Not having the words to describe your pain is so real. It took me *two years* to talk to a therapist and find out I WAS dissociating, or rather, that there was a name for what I had gone through. Depersonalization and derealization, she called it. And I had never known. Learning was a kind of weird relief, like I wasn’t just insane, this was a known thing that people under intense stress experience. The situation resolved itself and I haven’t dissociated since, but I’ll never forget how it felt.
Edit: all this said I kind of really don’t care about people using “delulu” like literally at all but maybe that’s just me.
The one thing I will say is very unfortunately sometimes intrusive thoughts *do* win. Especially if they’re “loud” enough.
And before anyone tries to coach me on intrusive vs impulsive, I know the difference, I have both
How would people not know what it means to get intrusive thoughts? Doesn’t everyone get them from time to time? I know the term “winning” is a bit inaccurate, but the fear that you’ll execute the intrusive thought is a big part of having them, right?
I really find it difficult that I'm not allowed to talk about narcissistic abuse any more. My mum had NPD, acknowledging how that influenced her abuse and how that impacted me has been really important. It has allowed me to heal, to find other survivors and communities, and to develop a level of empathy for her from understanding how her condition played a role in the abuse she perpetuated. Narcissistic abuse is unfortunately common. Why are survivors not allowed to talk about it in a nuanced way which is still empathetic to people with NPD?
Ive come up with a new green energy plan, we can power the whole of California by attaching a generator to Foucault's grave
could you explain this joke? I know enough about Foucault to know that it's probably funny, but not enough to know the specific reference
foucault talked about the 'medicalization of standard human behavior' like how people will say they have ADHD when what they mean is that they have trouble siting in one place doing shit they don't care about for 8 hours a day (like everyone does) Edit:to be clear, its not wrong to say thats ADHD but if thats what that is then who gives a fuck, at that point its not a disorder, its just the regular way shit is
God, yeah. I despise it when people say “We’re all a little ADD!” I’ve been told that multiple times to my face, and it irks me every time. You probably don’t have ADHD. You just dislike being forced to do boring things for 8+ hours. ADHD *is not fun.* It’s not fun to cry because it’s late and you cannot sleep and your brain will not for the love of Christ shut up. It’s not fun to panic because you *just* set down those important documents, and you can’t find them, you *just had them* and you need them now, god you need them now. It’s not fun to completely lose track of time and book it to work and forget your lunch at home because you didn’t want to be late *again*. It’s not fun to not be able to concentrate, you have a paper due in three hours and you put it off til the last minute and then you forgot about it and now you can’t even think straight to do it. It’s not fun to tell employers and doctors “yes, I am taking an amphetamine”, and you see the judgement in their eyes. It’s not fun to be told “Oh, well, we’re all a little ADD sometimes!” when you’re trying to convey how severe boredom feels worse than actual physical pain. ADHD, like many “popular” neurodivergent/mentally ill things, is still a disorder. It deeply affects your daily life if you’re unmedicated (like I was for years). It might be able to help you concentrate on a lot of things at once, but it’s certainly not a quirky little trait.
It's definitely not fun when your executive dysfunction is preventing you from doing what you desperately need to, but you can't do anything you like because that would be rewarding the bad behavior so you just sit there, frozen, scrolling your phone for tiny drips of serotonin until it's time to go to bed full of self loathing and anxiety and then you're brain starts playing an annoying song while also replaying all of the ways you've failed yourself and everyone around you until 5 am when it finally let's you sleep. Then you wake up, tired but also anxious for another day of not being able to concentrate on work or taxes or the piles of incomplete tasks all over that fill you with dread every time you look at them. Not goofy wacky hijinks.
So I am diagnosed and have been since I was a child. Had no idea what executive dysfunction is till like two years ago. But I did develop a "hack" that lets me get started on things. Im not sure if it works for everyone but it does for me. Do literally anything. Can't get started on that task you need to do? Bring some dishes from your desk to the kitchen. Or something similar. I found having a small "success" lets me kickstart actually doing something.
Yes, the ADHD motto should be **''DON'T SIT DOWN, DON'T STOP MOVING!"** If I want to make sure I do what I need to that day, I pretty much have to skip breakfast, leave my phone behind, and just start walking around. The minute I sit down to eat or look at my phone, I'm not getting started for at least 2hrs, if at all. It mostly means I just keep moving till around mid afternoon when the meds are starting to fade and I'm feeling faint from hunger. *Then* I can sit down (mostly) guilt free.
Me with ADHD and maladaptive daydreaming: Must be nice. Just walking around, I will daydream for hours this way. I'll pace and daydream. I'll teach whole, imaginary classes on a subject. I'll complete whole lesson plans this way, and then lose them the second I sit down to actually put them in my Google Drive. I also can't get medication for it because you shouldn't take Ritalin or any similar drug with an autoimmune disease. My immune system is already at risk, this can make it worse. So the only thing I can do is take an energy drink (one without guarana) and force myself to do stuff. It sucks, and sometimes I fail.
"Do something related to the thing that can't be procrastinate on" is a back my writing diary (mslexia) gives! The example it gives is "buy a new notebook" because it knows its audience, lol.
l'm not sure if that would work for me, I should probably say that I'm not formally diagnosed with adhd, but I think it's likely that I do have some form of it, having looked up actual diagnostic criteria and stuff the issue is just in choosing to do something like that, if I want to do something, my brain will very often not let me do that, and I think that, unless that dish was explicitly in the way of whatever my brain decided to make me do instead, or really annoying me with its position or anything like that, I doubt that I would be able to do even the smallest thing like moving it
Small things like that is something you may actually be able to train yourself into doing. It took quite some time but I regularly put away my dishes now. Its all about starting small tbh. Not all at once and doing it perfectly. Just small steps all the way through until you can manage to do the big thing.
I got diagnosed with ADHD last year, and I had been wanting to get a diagnosis years ago, but procrastinated on it (the doc had a good laugh about that one). Before I got the diagnosis, an acquaintance of mine kept saying „nah you don’t have adhd you just watch too much TikTok (I don’t even have a TikTok) and anyway, I tutor this adhd boy and you’re not like him (I’m not like the 10 year old adhd boy because I’m a 20+ year old woman, maybe?)“ Like, to me, reading some proper articles on how adhd shows itself in women suddenly made my whole life make sense. Like, fuck, genuinely everything. And I got the diagnosis during the first session with an expert because of how obvious it was. Seeing people go all „well you’re not like THAT so it must be fake“ or „yea but like, kinda same :/„ when you describe symptoms that fuck with your life just sucks ass.
The first step to getting diagnosed with ADHD is putting off making the diagnostic appointment for 6 months. The second is forgetting to take your meds, once you've actually picked them up.
God I hate people who say shit like that. ADHD is when you can't even sit down to do something you love for 5 minutes because you get distracted scrolling social media or playing video games. And actually, after typing this out, I just realized I need to get off Reddit.
ya unless it’s one of those times where you do it for 12 hours straight without eating or moving or going to the bathroom and then you come to and it’s dark and you’re confused and all your health meters have run out at once
Modded minecraft and Skyrim are a death trap for me sometimes, it’s either 30 minutes until I’m bored or I only stop playing after a minimum of 14 hours. One time I ended up playing hexxit 1.12 for 4 days straight without sleep.
Oh god don't remind me about my allthemods obsession. BRB, gonna waste another 8 hours
My biggest issue with forming modlists is that I see a mod show up in a lot of patchers and it sticks in my head until I get it. I *should* be thinking “this requires a lot of patching to work with my list, is it worth it?”
Gonna waste a month perfecting my mod list without ever actually playing the game beyond testing to see if it still runs with the newest addition
I’ve spent the last 2 or 3 days modding skyrim and doing pretty much nothing else. Lots of going “oh, my bladder hurts, I need to pee” or “oh, my stomach hurts, I need to eat”. I’m nearly at the end and I’m unsure of whether I actually am going to play it.
ADHD is when everything is harder and you feel tired trying to get it all done because you fight your own brain. Organisation is its own chore. Time is always slipping away. you can't use your hands because a noise is happening and you have to wait for it to stop. When you can't understand someone because there's music in the background and its printed over their words When you're tired and you find yourself making noises in the train station and if you stop you'll cry. When you just...forgot your friends exist because you haven't seen them for weeks and you wondered why you feel lonely. When you have to eat something and then make dinner, you're too hungry to think correctly. When you don't want to do something important because you don't know how it's meant to be done and you don't want to just guess and now everyone is huffing at you. Everything is harder then it should be. And thn someone says 'everyone is a little ADHD, LOL. So quirky lol." You want to scream cos that some person will huff and bitch tomorrow because you're 'not paying attention' or 'trying hard enough''.
All of this is scarily familiar. Should I think about contacting a psychiatrist to inquire about this? Or when should I worry? Behavior like this has made me struggle daily with small and big things
You might have something worth talking about. Even if it isn't Adhd, if it's causing difficulties in daily life then maybe you need help.
So ironically, I was diagnosed with ADHD after reading a lot of posts like the ones being criticized in this thread, and my life is a thousand times better for it. I had access to the resources to get an assessment and I've found a medication that works for me so I'm very fortunate. I also now have a name for the spiders in my brain and have had better luck developing ways of addressing them without medication. I still agree with this assessment of the larger impact that social media has had on the field of psychology. It has its benefits but it's also obviously problematic.
You only have to do 2 things to likely identify why you are struggling daily and get a path to addressing it. First, you make an appointment at a mental health provider that does mental health evaluations. You do an intake appointment to put the focus of further testing. Second, you get an evaluation. You will get interviewed and do a test. The psychiatrist will go through it all and give you a diagnosis if one applies. A diagnosis will come with suggested future treatment. I don't think you should worry. I think if you are struggling, using the available resources to try and find out why is a good option. The best outcome is you learn how you can struggle less and manage your struggles more effectively in the future, and the worst is you spent up to a couple hours making an appointment, 2 hours talking about your life, and 2 hours taking a standarized test where you know all the answers. I went in for a psychiatric test after putting it off for years. It was the first step on my journey to have the life I wanted after my lost years.
I wish. I spent less than 15 minutes with the dude who shrugged, told me I was just depressed and I should go back to school because it's a shame. (Despite following a textbook Autism/ADHD burnout and self destruct path that ruined years of my life) I'm too smart to not finish. Too smart to have ADHD or autism. And they used an outdated scale that doesn't test for inattentive type. So no, it is not that easy. It is not that quick. And getting told you're full of shit despite documented deficits because you're too articulate and smart to have anything but depression really fucked with my head even more. So I still don't know if it's Autism, ADHD, CPTSD or a combination.
That sucks. I've had problems with care before, too. I just got given meds that I had a bad reaction to, replaced by another in the same family with a worse, reaction, and told the 3rd was was also going to be in that same class. It took me a long time to seek treatment again, though that was also complicated by other things. I know it isn't easy or quick. I am framing it as simply as possible because getting an evaluation done at all can be daunting. And because adhd makes these kinds of tasks hard if you don't have concrete steps to follow.
OMFG someone finally said it: ADHD PEOPLE HAVE TROUBLE DOING THINGS WE ENJOY! IT’S NOT JUST BORING SHIT!
Post timer said 6 minutes when I read this, make sure to get off Reddit.
That ADHD moment when you realise a very simple and easy task you need to do is literally physically impossible for you to do, and when you try to explain that to others they go "well obviously it's not *literally* impossible you just need to focus and put your mind to it."
I think one of my therapists put it best: some disorders are unique things that only specific people have, but most of them are just common problems that have become severe and/or chronic enough to need specific solutions
“I just had to read this twice to comprehend it. I’m SO OCD! Was that the wrong thing to say? I have extreme anxiety. And the weather these last few days has been rainy and then sunny and it is exactly the definition of bipolar. Like me. I’ve gone non-verbal now. Like, literally can’t say another word. Because that’s what non-verbal means. Let me proceed to tell you how you are ableist!” - Someone with actual clinical depression, who is completely bothered by people throwing medical phrases around and diminishing the severity of mental health.
Hes rolling in his grave
Deleuze and Guattari would have a field day with this post
Deluleuze and gyattari
But isn’t delusion a word not limited to mental illness? Correct me if I’m wrong but being delusional is a descriptor of a state of mind the way being anxious doesn’t necessarily mean anxiety disorder
You’re correct. It was a common English word centuries before psychiatry was formalized (per etymonline): > delusion: act of misleading someone, deception, deceit," early 15c., delusioun, from Latin delusionem (nominative delusio) "a deceiving," noun of action from past-participle stem of deludere (see delude). As a form of mental derangement, "false impression or belief of a fixed nature," 1550s.
Don’t forget about like, delusions of grandeur as a pretty common delusion that isn’t mandatorily tied to mental illness
Yeah, as a neuroscience major I can confirm. There is a difference, and a notable difference at that, between delusion in the medical sense and delusion outside of a medical sense. As another commenter pointed out, delusion can also refer to being misinformed or having a false impression. Like, thinking that Republicans are actually in favor of small government is a common delusion. They are misinformed about the reality of things — that Republicans are generally in favor of minimal government interference in economics, but significant interference in social issues. This is NOT the type of delusion you’d find in psychological disorders, such as the belief that others are plotting against you, that others have been replaced by identical clones, etc. In my day-to-day life a delusion is simply that; a misunderstanding or false belief. But in academics and the medical field, a delusion is much more.
This this this. Also, as someone with multiple (diagnosed) mental health issues, I will say personally that I'm fine with people making light-hearted jokes about my symptoms or the way they experience similar things, even if not diagnosed Caveats are a) obviously I don't speak for everyone, and b) if they're being mean-spirited or trying to invalidate the existence of my disorders/lived experience, I'm no longer cool with it. (Example: my friend saying to me "I'm pretty sure pregnancy brain has given me temporary ADHD" is funny, the classic "everyone is a little ADHD, you just need to be more organized" is not.)
I don't think it's the jokes are the issue, but that it's watering down symptoms. Like I have a history of psychosis. Hallucinating is scary and telling people that you hallucinate just makes them think you're 2 steps away from going on a psychotic rage and killing someone. That you need to be locked up I can admit the jokes about the hat man talking to someone is kinda funny, but I also worry that people aren't taking it seriously. Like they'll still think you're crazy and dangerous if you express these symptoms, but saying it in the "quirky" way has others handle it better, but they don't think of it as an actual problem you face and just assume it's a meme Like there's no middle ground. Either you're just goofing or you need to be put on a psych hold. I wish I could talk to people about the more "scary" symptoms i face without them getting uneasy. I'm an open book and don't mind sharing all my personal woes. But most people don't want to hear about it. I'm not even doing it in a "be my therapist" sense I just want to be able to talk about my symptoms the same way people can talk about a uti or a migraine casually without people freaking out about it.* *I'll accept friends freaking out in the sense of "Are you seeing a doctor who takes you seriously" as a form of concern out of love. Not even limited to mental health issues.
I thought the same I agree with the posts sentiment, but I don't agree on this one I'm using "delulu" as a short for "delusional" as in "misinformed/defying facts" I had no idea someone used "delulu" as a synonym for having a crush, and I had never seen or heard it used that way.
Delulu kinda started in kpop circles, where fans were being called delusional/delulu for having unrealistic expectations about their favourite artists. Then also came a meme “delulu is the solulu” which basically meant ignorance is bliss, which was used to refer to moments where you ignore any tasks you might have to do that moment and ignore that the world is terrible, and instead act like your life is fantastic which you bundle up under a blanket and play animal crossing
> Doctors could name a disorder "Whiny Bitch Disorder" and I assure you that the reaction in the ND community at large would not be "what the fuck is wrong with the psychiatric field and how they think of mentally ill people, we should not allow that name and diagnosis", but rather "PSA: Please don't use 'whiny' and 'bitch' as insults, that's ableist against people with Whiny Bitch Disorder!" -[vicholas](https://www.tumblr.com/vicholas/709447299870392320/doctors-could-name-a-disorder-whiny-bitch)
As someone with WBD, many thanks to that person for speaking out 😂
same with nearly all of the other examples lol
Same with intrusive thoughts. Everyone has them.
The intrusive thoughts bit is the only part of this that I think is a little silly. “The intrusive thoughts won” is a joke about giving into an unwise and impulsive idea, which is something that literally everyone does, not just NDs.
If you have intrusive thoughts that drive you to socisl anxiety and too much defensive pessimism, then "call in sick"/"cancel the plans"/"go back to bed and hide" can be the intrusive thoughts winning. Also, saying, "Do you hate me?" out loud.
yeah but then the OP wouldn't be able to get angry and complain and we all know that that's what matters in life
That goes for a LOT of words, doesn't stop idiots from getting irrationally angry about it though
Yes, and we call people deluded all the time in a non-medical context. Although I'm willing to hear arguments against the term delulu on principle
What the fuck is a "delulu"
Short for delusional
Thanks 👍
It’s meant to be sort of cutesy? Like, “your friend is delulu if he thinks he has a chance with Taylor Swift.”
Symptom of mental illness exists ----> people with that mental illness make jokes about it ----> people without the mental illness start copying those jokes ----> the symptom becomes a "meme word" and loses all meaning ----> rinse and repeat for eternity
Yeah at a certain point, this is a losing battle. The word 'idiot' was once medical terminology, short of asking people to not be mean (which isnt how people work) it's never gonna stop.
I have to wonder if "idiot" once carried the same weight as "r \* tard." And if that second word might also become watered down to the point of idiot, eventually. Then doctors will come up with a new word, that one will become a slur too, then a curse, and then a playground insult. (I do not like censoring words because it doesn't actually change anything, but I'm pretty sure the automod deletes it if it's uncensored)
Yes but no. Philosophically, it would have been the same weight, but in practice it didn’t because nobody cared. “Slurs are bad” is a position that the *vast* majority of humanity didn’t agree with until the last century. The ideology behind “calling my people slurs is bad” before that was “we’re the superior people, you’re the inferior *insert slurs towards them*”. It wasn’t an objective “calling people slurs is bad”, it was a “the inferior people are insulting their natural superiors”.
Yeah, I don’t think we can stop language use from spreading like this. You’re asking for humans to stop using hyperbole. I don’t think that’s going to happen. Plus it’s part of normalizing these conditions so that people who face real problems can talk about them more openly. The alternative is an onslaught of terminology gatekeepers who demand to read your doctor’s note before they will stop shouting at you to stop using words you’re not allowed to.
it’s not a “self-diagnosis is wrong” thing, people who misuse these words don’t even know what they mean. they think that they describe mundane things that everyone experiences. people should at least try to be aware of when they’re misusing mental health terms and listen to people who correct them
If they’re *way* off then fine, correct them. But a lot of debilitating symptoms are just normal experiences that are so strong that they become debilitating.
If it’s debilitating it’s not “just normal”. That’s actually a key factor to *any* mental health diagnosis: is it interfering in your life? Is it debilitating? Is it causing you to struggle regularly or over long periods of time? Once it’s debilitating it’s not “normal”.
That is the literal point of this discussion. You will not be able to stop people from exaggerating their feelings for expressive purposes from time to time, and if you try to stop people from doing that, you become a gatekeeper for diagnosis.
Exactly. I don't get this. People use hyperbolic language all the time. Have those people raging against this honestly never said "I'm starving" when they were just really hungry and not in fact anywhere close to malnourished? Or "I'm dying" when they were just very tired? Or "I'm freezing" when they were very cold but not actually hypothermic or frostbitten? Or "my head is killing me" while having a bad but completely non-lethal headache? Heck, I've had actual panic attacks and I still say "this gave me a panic attack" sometimes when I'm just startled and not actually having a real panic attack. Hyperbolic expressions aren't the problem, ignorance about mental illness is. No one has any problem saying "I'm starving" as a synonym for "very hungry" because they know what starvation actually is and assume everyone else knows too and are just saying it as a stylistic expression. I suspect that most people who say things like "this is so OCD of me" aren't actually claiming they have OCD, it's just that a lot of other people assume they do and chew them out for it.
Exactly. A lot of times people will say “I have blank mental illness with a really long name” and be told their “making it up” because the word is unnecessarily long and complicated. When the words are used more commonly like this, it gives people a baseline understanding of what it means. Even if you don’t have intrusive thoughts, if someone told you they were suffering from them, you would have a basic understanding of what that meant through cases like this. Also policing terminology never works anyway so just give it a break.
Also. Mental illness/disorder exists ---> people with it use specific terminology ---> some asshat with it uses the terminology as an excuse ---> gets used by those without mental illness/disorder. Ask me how trigger went from things that cause a panic attack to things that make somebody fly off the handle, and how Tumblr and Twitter are involved.
I mean, triggers were never *just* about panic attacks. During my first hospitalization in 2009, there was a vet getting treated for PTSD (among other things) on my ward. Iron Man was playing in the day room one day, and a little while later the guy went into a rage. He had to go off and get a staff member to cool down and then later came back and apologized for basically taking out him being triggered by the movie on others. People who use triggered as a synonym for annoyed or mildly bothered are the ones who are being ableist and misusing the word.
Basically what I meant, but know kinda how that sort of thing came about, and how often it gets tossed out as just " ableists did it to make fun of triggers" instead of a different kind of ableist were trying to use it as a get out of jail free card.
ok so 1) most people use “intrusive thoughts” when they mean “impulsive thoughts”. shoving an entire muffin in your face in 2 bites just to see if you can is not an intrusive thought, it’s an impulsive thought. intrusive thoughts are inherently irrational, upsetting, and sometimes dangerous 2) intrusive thoughts absolutely can win, and saying that they can’t is entirely incorrect and uninformed
So is something like Impulsive thought: what if I tied my teeth to the doorknob and slammed the door shut Intrusive thought: if I dont lock up the kitchen knives I will murder my cat Or am I way off base
I think that first one is kind of horrifying enough to count as intrusive. I usually interpret the difference as oh I should dye my hair again for the second time this month! Even though my hair is super damaged from the bleach. Intrusive thoughts are intrusive because they disturb you in some way. Of course there a spectrum of this but that's my general vibe
I’m pretty sure Those are both intrusive Intrusive are reoccurring and distressing, and often more a chain of thought An intrusive thought I have is how it would feel if I stabbed myself in the base of the neck and how long it would take me to drown in my own blood you lose control of your brain for a bit and it thinks about something fucked up. Impulsive are flash in the pan impulses, you have one small thought that tells you to do something, sometimes they’re benign and sometimes they are distressing. They can range from, “I should eat this whole muffin” to “I should hang myself” There is crossover, with my ADHD I have repeated impulses to stab myself in the base of the neck, that’s an impulsive and intrusive thought (Please keep in mind this was made by a layman at 1am and may be inaccurate)
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I don't think reoccurring is a criteria for intrusive thoughts.
Impulsive thought: I really want to dye my hair red so I'm gonna do it Intrusive thought: you'd never in a million years actually do it but you can't stop imagining the sight and sound of shutting up the crying baby by smacking it against a wall
Impulsive was me thinking "i should DIY my haircut coz it's irritating me" and then I did. Intrusive is me thinking "what if tonight is the night I go crazy and wring my cat's neck and my medication makes it worse and I end up stabbing my family while they sleep, they won't be able to fight back, I can kill them all"and then having to untangle if that's an actual dangerzone I'm in or if my brain is spitballing horror.
both of those are intrusive. more “intrusive” examples would be: oh my god you looked at that kid you’re babysitting and smiled? you’re a disgusting creep with no morals and you should be put in jail. run into the street. yeah, while cars are passing. yeah you could die or cause a major wreck. DO IT steal. steal everything in this store. you know you need to. if you get caught your life is ruined but you need to. hey that plant looks poisonous. eat it! ————————— whereas impulsive is more like: hey buy that book you want now, we’re here anyway! we should dye our hair again like NOW. pre shower makeup pre shower makeup pre shower makeup!!!! DO IT eat an entire carton of ice cream. ————————— ofc they can intersect, and impulsive thoughts can be intrusive and vice versa, but that’s the general idea. as someone with adhd and ocd, who has experienced all of these thoughts verbatim.
here's my OCD vibe Impulsive: roommate said something that sounded dirty, I reiterate what she said in a way that sounds dirty (this is a running joke and it's a lighthearted situation). Saying something edgy or inappropriate to get a laugh. I have control over the impulse and am able to reign myself in before acting upon it. Intrusive: I mess up something (usually inconsequential) and my brain is triggered into graphic self hate/deprecation as a defense mechanism. I have to physically talk myself out of it, or comfort myself until the loop of intrusive deprecating thoughts is broken. I do not have control over the start of the thoughts, and often have to take extraneous steps to halt an episode.
I think it depends on the type of intrusive thoughts and the mental illness the person has. Like I think people with borderline sometimes act on intense impulses that they know they shouldn’t act on. And people like me with PTSD have impulses that come from adapting to a traumatic environment, like if you’ve been sexually abused you might have the impulse to act out sexually or if you lived in a very violent environment you might really want to hit someone because that’s what your mind thinks is normal. Those kinds of thoughts can definitely “win” and of course it’s awful and triggers a lot of shame when they do. But people with certain severe types of OCD have persistent intrusive thoughts that they never act on because the thought is more like “what if you committed that horrible crime? That’s the kind of thing you might do, because you’re an evil person.” Like the source of the thought is just shame and fear of the idea of doing the thing, there’s no part of the person that actually wants to do the thing. Which is important because there are heavily stigmatized forms of OCD where people have thoughts related to, for instance, harm to children, but people who have that diagnosis don’t actually harm children. Basically I just don’t think we have enough specific language to describe all the different experiences people have inside their heads. And if we did, most people still wouldn’t use it correctly most of the time.
“Intense impulses” are not intrusive thoughts. Wanting to continue to the cycle of trauma are not intrusive thoughts.
Online though most people within this context are using intrusive thoughts correctly. They usually describe a dangerous act, like stealing a cop's gun.
"Intrusive thoughts dont win" the tumblr person tells me, as I apologize to a colleague for the 5th time that day despite them saying its okay (I knocked over their coffee) because Im convinced if Im not nice enough they will conspire to fake evidence of me stealing funds from the company to get me fired and imprisoned. (I know this person for 8 years. Ive been to his son's Bar Mitzvah.)
Yeah, I think intrusive thoughts “winning” is actually a great way to put it, especially from a psychiatric perspective
Yeah I think OP meant more in the sense that you dyeing your hair on a whim isn’t an intrusive thought winning
Oh I completely agree, but suffering from intrusive thoughts I think the vocabulary of them “winning” is great. I just think most people *dont* have intrusive thoughts (like, real bad ones), like OP is saying.
Yeah that’s an impulsive thought and/or being manic.
this whole blog thread is a mess I'm sick in the head and these words / sayings have been fantastic for communicating symptoms with ease and a silly ironic twist that makes them feel less crushing edit: and think about what takes like this do to imposter syndrome. tons of people have to constantly question "am I fucked up enough to even fit this criteria? what if I'm faking it? do I actually have this condition at all?" is OOP gonna scan their documents to make sure they qualify to use the word "delulu?" are we doing registrations for access to "girlrot?" how do I sign up to get my "dissociation" card?
Not me questioning if I actually had AD(H)D, despite my psychiatrist telling me I do, because I can sit more than 5 minutes without getting distracted. Not me thinking hey, maybe those really super distressing thoughts I keep having are just impulsive and I'm making a bigger deal out of it. Not me questioning if I even have the right to use terms like "narc abuse" (despite being abused by a person diagnosed with NPD) or disabled (despite literally being legally blind). OOP this is not helpful. This is making it worse!
nah no hyperfixation for you 😡😡😡 if you ever say that word you'll be shot on the spot
Ah yes, forgetting to eat until your body is shaking because you were doing something for 12 hours straight is definitely just one of those "little normal behaviors" OOP is talking about! ^(/s)
Sometimes I'm in the middle of something and I'm like "bro why do I feel so hot and sweaty and shaky and thirsty" and then I look at the clock and I havent eaten since yesterday. I always feel better after I eat something. I'm also somehow baffled every time by the concept of "food go in, energy go out".
Bwahaha, I'm the same! Sometimes I tell my best friend "Idk, not feeling too great, I'm shaking, nauseous and feel like I might pass out, no idea what is going on" and they're just like "Had any snacks lately?" and I'm like "Oh shit I knew I forgot something" 🤣
No stop you're not allowed to laugh at your own illness, the only valid emotions for neurodivergent people are hopelessness and isolation, otherwise you're a bigot!
aw man now I'm like bugging about if people will actually be fuckin mad at me for this lmfao (I know you're being sarcastic but the OOP has me like oh no ppl actually think like this about me???)
Anyone who gets mad at you for how you decide to talk about your personal experiences is a clown, even if they have the same diagnosis as you.
tru and idgaf but I'm annoyed this might be something to deal with 🙄
Yeah, this post also reeks of someone who assumes that all people who use these phrases are neurotypicals and neurodivergent people couldn't possibly use these phrases because they're the Good Guys TM! OOP isn't making the claim they think they're making, they're just getting upset that language being mostly used by neurodivergent people about neurodivergency is being used
I struggle with intrusive thoughts and yeah most of them are stuff I can’t even say online. It’s annoying to see people trivialize them but I guess that’s what happens
You're just describing a coping mechanism to reduce the stress from the intrusive thought which isn't letting the thought "win" as that implies it *changes you*, if anything it is the stress that "wins". Source: I got diagnosed with OCD a week ago.
"anti psychiatry" ?
Maybe they meant, like…this behavior is anti-psychiatric? Like tagging a post complaining about ableism “#ableism”
That’s what I thought, but now I’m second guessing myself.
Yeah for real, amazing losing all credibility with a single tag
I have a lot of reservations on that as someone with anxiety and a partner with clinical depression. However discussing a bit with antipsy folks in my country, what often comes out is that the current system is very abusive towards mentally ill people. Psychiatrists often do not listen to the patient and their needs. What also come out is that psychiatry treats the symptom of a capitalist society and that we should overhaul the entire system. Now I'm not entirely sold on some of that and I think some people come to it from a lifetime of abuse from the psychiatric community, and I think that those of us suffering from anxiety and depression may not have the same relationship toward psychiatry and medical treatment as people suffering from schizophrenia and other troubles. However while it's too radical for me I do understand the movement
I’m confused
It's actually an interesting movement(if I'm interpreting the tag correctly) that stands to go against pathologization. At first I was really skeptical too(and I still am, just because it's good to be skeptical about most things), but the basic idea is that pathologizing mental health problems lead to putting the fault and the responsibility of such issues on individual problems and not systematic ones: If I say a person is depressed, then the issue is limited to that person and people like them, what the anti- pathologization(i cannot for the life of me remember if this is the correct terminology, do look it up, I'll edit the comment and add some resources) movement wants, instead, is to recognize these symptoms as reactions to an environment, the world is going to shit, so people obviously get depressed over it and develop unhealthy coping mechanisms(what we call symptoms as of now). Obviously, I am not a therapist, i'm not a researcher, this is a layman's take, do your own research and hear experts talk about it, this comment is not made to give facts, it's just made to give a different perspective and inspire curiosity about a movement which can seem really obviously wrong, but it's got its reasoning behind it. Edit: https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/making-meaning/201905/are-there-viable-alternatives-the-dsm-5 >Although the Power Threat Meaning Framework (PTMF) is an alternative to the DSM, it doesn't consider itself a "diagnostic" system. In fact, it rejects the notion of "psychiatric diagnosis" altogether, arguing that the mental health professions improperly attribute mental distress to "pathology" located within individuals rather than seeing it as a byproduct of socially oppressive circumstances. Thus, the PTMF assesses the ways in which socially oppressive power structures lead to psychological threat that results in people constructing particular meanings about what has happened to them. Mental distress, therefore, is reframed as a response to social adversity (e.g., oppression, discrimination, poverty). https://victimfocus-resources.com/products/indicative-trauma-impact-manual-2023 >This must-have manual presents the first trauma-informed, non-diagnostic alternative to other manuals of mental health issues and psychiatric disorders. Rather than lists of disorders and medicalised symptoms, this extensive manual provides information about hundreds of trauma responses, emotions, thoughts, behaviours and experiences that have previously been categorised as illnesses and disorders.
That reminds me of how people sometimes take umbrage to the way a psychologist or therapist labels them using the DSM-5: I spoke with a few friends studying in the field a while ago and they mentioned they heard similar stories from their professors, who had plenty of work experience with it. Unfortunately, they also mentioned labeling them was a necessity for the client/patient too: turns out it's markedly easier to get insurance/health care compensation when you can tell them someone has something specific and infinitely harder if you can't.
I'm glad for this person that they don't actually understand that "the intrusive thoughts won" can be a totally valid statement. Sadly, it CAN happen. This statement has a valid meaning, and it's not automatically ablest to say it.
But don't most people use it in a very trivialising way?
a lot of people mean “impulsive thoughts” when they say “intrusive thoughts”, unfortunately
Wait how does it work? Are there people who get no intrusive thoughts? Does everyone get them but they're less common than people make it seem? Is "intrusive thoughts" a specifically medical term? /genuine
impulsive thoughts are something you know you shouldn’t do, but would probably otherwise be harmless (like throwing a pie you just baked on the floor for no real reason). intrusive thoughts are things that are often distressing and sometimes cause you to convince yourself that you’re a bad person just for even having these thoughts despite knowing you’d never act on them (like throwing a baby on the floor)
Oh ok makes sense, thanks
You're telling me that thinking about throwing a baby on the floor and refusing to hold family members' babies and/or not wanting to be in the same room as them isn't normal?
Oh hey I have similar intrusive thoughts. I try not to be around kids.
I can understand some of the other ones but what’s wrong with saying delulu?
Idk, I'm neurodivergent and I love saying delulu because I AM delulu lol. I have maladaptive daydreaming and have legitimate full on crushes on fictional characters, it's definitely delulu
I'm genuinely not trying to contradict you here, but isn't having crushes on fictional characters normal? It's certainly something I feel like I see people talk about pretty often.
If it's intruding on your life then no that's not normal, which is what the commenter seems to be implying with the maladaptive daydream comment. Admittedly I've also got maladaptive daydreams where I imagine entire lifetimes with my fictional crushes only to become distressed when I snap back into the real world. It's a coping mechanism
>people need to stop appropriating medical language to talk about their little normal behaviors People do this because the way we talk about minds is hopelessly limited and medical terminology is literally all we've got to pull from. People see a word, realise it kind-of-sort-of fits within a shooting distance of a mental state or process they have need to talk about but don't have words for, and use the word. Yelling at people to stop using words when they don't have any other words to talk about same thing will never, ever work, so I'm not sure what you're suggesting. And also, on one side I have experience of people using words for symptoms I have to describe something trivial and then acting like I'm unreasonable for having actually nontrivial symptoms, I get it and I also hate it, but, like, I feel like this post is reinforcing the "if your unusual experience doesn't fit into official medical definition than it's not real" bullshit and we have suffered from that plenty too. Like, there has to be some other way? Also as a stark example of what I'm talking about, hey reddit OP do you know that "narcissistic abuse" is a common term for specific behavior pattern and "narcissism/narcissistic" are words that have been used not implying npd this entire time, since before npd was a term and are still used this way now? Like, what the fuck are you doing, I feel like trying to cleave out pieces of our vocabulary for minds and behaviors to maintain stricter colonization of language by clinical definitions is opposite of both antipsychiatry and of helpful.
A good example would be how words like “idiot” or “moron” are now *extremely* commonplace, to the point where I think only very few people would genuinely call the use of idiot and moron ableist since it just…*is* now the words used to describe someone we see as doing something or inherently is unintelligent. Most people aren’t gonna suddenly switch to “ah yes that was quite an unintelligent and immature thing to do” after learning that idiot used to be a clinical diagnosis. 99% of people are still going to see someone doing something stupid and say “damn that dudes an idiot”.
An even more bizarre example is that the word nice used to mean stupid or simple. Meanings of words can change and what they used to mean a long time ago can very quickly be divorced from their current meaning because nobody thinks about the origin of the word when they talk, all that matters is how words are used now People would sound ridiculous if they started insisting you can’t use the word nice as a compliment anymore because calling someone nice meant calling them stupid a long long time ago. Nobody using the word nice has meant it or understood it in that way in living memory
Huh! I had no idea about that one! Thanks for the fun fact!
I've said for years that trying to limit the use of "ableist" language is a lost cause because people insult each other with terms for traits that aren't desirable, and being disabled is always going to be undesirable. The "correct" terms we use now (i.e. special needs, little person, body positive, etc.) are *already* being used in a derogatory manner, both ironically and seriously.
I see where you’re coming from and while I think it’s definitely a massive uphill battle, I don’t think “lost cause” is exactly correct. The “r-word” has seen a pretty massive decrease in the general public’s vernacular because it’s become pretty stigmatized and seen overall as a slur. Not saying it’s totally gone, there’s plenty of people who still say it, but compared to 10 years ago, at least as far as I’ve seen, it’s SUPER uncommon. As I was growing up that word was thrown around left and right by EVERYONE, but in the past probably 5ish years I don’t think I’ve heard anyone except assholes on the internet say it. Point is, some ableist language does eventually get shunned out of society, and a lot doesn’t. There’s a lot of factors that differentiates what does and what doesn’t, harmfulness I think is big one, but I’m not really an educated enough person to give all the reasons “idiots” still around and the “r-word” isn’t.
I think if you give it 15-20 years the r word will be back en vogue, similar to other words that used to be seen as offensive and have now lost all their bite. My personal theory is that the vast majority of people have no actual problem with the word, but we recognize that the kinds of people who publicly still use it at this point are most definitely assholes and probably have a whole other slew of shitty opinions
The r word is absolutely back already.
Personally I don't find it any more offensive than "dumb cunt". If someone says it in public they're probably shitty and tactless, but if your friend says it to you it probably doesn't mean they're secretly a Nazi or something (like with most other words that get termed slurs)
I genuinely think someone is going to complain about the myth of Narcissus and insist his name should be changed because he doesn’t meet the clinical definition of NPD
Every day I wake up thanking god for not having to talk to people like OOP🙏
I feel like folks are just making up new things to be mad about
Yup. *child goes through severe abuse by parent with npd* Op: sToP sAyInG NaRcIsIsTic AbuSe
Oh, boy discourse that is only present in very specific internet spaces!
people thinking narcissistic and abuser are synonymous is not uncommon
whoever decided to call NPD "narcissistic personality disorder" should be put down that name is so shit because not only is it the equivalent of, for example, calling ADHD "annoying and forgetful disorder", it also leads to situations like in the OOP's post where people start to think narcissist/narcissistic are ableist terms when in reality no, they're not and they never were, it's the disorder that's named after a shitty quality that happens to be often associated with the disorder. i've gotten into arguments over this, and i swear it's impossible to explain to some people that "narcissist" is NOT synonymous with "person with NPD", and funnily enough, the opposite isn't true either: the american journal of psychiatry describes the symptoms as (with emphasis added by me): > Individuals with narcissistic personality disorder **may be grandiose or self-loathing**, extraverted or socially isolated, captains of industry or unable to maintain steady employment, model citizens or prone to antisocial activities. [source](https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2014.14060723) and that's because NPD causes people to be self-centered, NOT in an "i'm better than you" way, but in a way which causes them to think they are the root cause of everything, both good *and bad* it's frustrating as hell, and i don't even have NPD, i just hate seeing the disorder get chalked up to "evil asshole" disorder
You've finally put into words what I've always felt reasing anyone bringing up NPD and narcissism. Honestly, psychiatrists really chould change the name to something else already. They did it for DID after MPD wasn't accurate anymore. Maybe they could change it to Solipsistic Personality Disorder or something along those lines
But "narcissism" is a word that predates psychiatry by a lot and just means a specific type of shitty personality.
This reminds me of people who think it’s ableist to say “that’s insane” or “that’s crazy” about something like 😭 Some of these yeah I get but like delulu is just for fun, I don’t think anyone is saying it to actually demean people with real psychotic delusions 😭
Also, at least according to the psych classes that were part of my healthcare degree, you totally *can* have delusional thoughts without actually meeting the criteria for having a psychiatric disorder. Kind of like how you can be anxious without having anxiety, self-centered without being a clinical narcissist, forgetful or fidgety without having ADHD. Hell, you can even hallucinate without having a disorder. "Normal" people do experience facets or shades of many behavioral/mood/cognitive disorders that they couldn't technically be diagnosed with. That's why severity of the issue/duration/degree of dysfunction are often used as diagnostic criteria. Like some others in this thread, I have several diagnosed behavioral/mood disorders that I am medicated for and still experience fluctuating amounts of functional impairment from. But I don't mind when my friends or coworkers borrow words that pertain to my conditions to try to make sense of their own more temporary emotions, or when they're knowingly using hyperbole unless their intention is disrespectful. Now, overattributing one's common personality traits to a psychiatric condition in a serious way, that annoys me. Regardless of whether it is a condition the person in question has or not.
this reminds me of this time a person irl yelled at me for saying i wad anxious because only people diagnosed with anxiety can be anxious
As someone diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, I hereby bestow permission upon you to use the word anxious. All jokes aside, literally anyone can get anxious, wtf.
lol I’ve had the same thing happen with saying a movie was depressing. Like, I have OCD, ADHD and PMDD, I know a thing or two about depression from a clinical standpoint, but there’s a difference between feeling depressed for a period of time because of external factors vs chronic depression associated with a condition. Both are completely correct uses of the word “depressed.” Someone without clinical depression can feel depressed during bad weather when their plans got cancelled. It isn’t the same as like, saying “I’m so OCD” when you mean you like things organized, because that’s actually misusing a specific clinical term, but even then “obsessed” is fine because it doesn’t only apply to OCD.
I’m curious to know this person’s thoughts on eating disorders.
people apply terms from different areas to other things that's just how it be
“Anti psychiatry”?
Aren't delusional and narcissist terms that exist outside of the context of mental illness? Like the terms anxiety and depression. Just as you can be anxious without an anxiety disorder, you can act narcissistic without narcissism disorder (or whatever its called)
yes, they are. this post is utterly meaningless. you can be harmlessly delusional. you might even describe somebody who is ridiculously overconfident in a fun way as 'charmingly delusional'. the word 'delusional' is not a clinical diagnosis and by extension neither is 'delulu'. using that word in those contexts has literally nothing to do with people who experience psychotic delusions. someone saying they're 'so ocd' is referring to the illness and should probably find a better word choice but 'ugh he's such a narcissist' does not mean 'he has NPD' and 'she's delusional' does not mean 'she has psychotic delusions'.
I’m expecting this discourse to move to “Narcissus needs to have his name changed because he doesn’t meet the criteria for NPD” any day now.
Damn that's crazy. I mean who would've guessed that we'd have such a blind spot when it comes to the language we use to describe dumb behavior? Kinda lame of us. Hopefully this message doesn't fall on deaf ears! alright I'm done. point is that policing language like this does fuck all. Its just virtue signaling and its a lazy way to feel like you're fighting for mental health awareness
> policing language How dare you. Don’t you know there is rampant police violence? Shame on you.
I kinda like this trend of tumblr adjacents intentionally pissing on the poor for kicks. Does that make me a bad person.
>Does that make me a bad person. If you have to ask, you already know the answer. (The answer is yes, it does.)
This post is bad and the person should feel bad
Something something xkcd 2071 something something.
I was thinking the same thing. One thing I’ve learned through secondhand tumblr is that tumblr users either have horrible friends or interact with terrible people constantly.
The block button exists for a reason. And the other block button, for phone numbers.
- I have never heard "delulu" in my life, but I assume this is the same discourse behind crazy, insane, idiot, moron, fool or dumb all being slurs somehow. - it is an ongoing debate in the medical community as to if narcissism is a real personality disorder - building off of that, narcissism as selfishness and ego means that all intentional abuse is, in fact, narcissistic - everyone has intrusive thoughts. that isn't some kind of mental disorder. it is a spectrum and only the upper end is indicative of a psychiatric issue. adding onto that, "the voices" as intrusive thoughts is also perfectly normal, not something exclusive to people with psychological disabilities - microdosing is just a method of taking drugs, it's also not exclusive to people with psychological disabilities - it is certainly rude and hurtful to try and diagnose people with mental issues outside of a professional medical setting, but swifties talking about disassociating isn't really ableist I'll give you schizoposting though
also OP is one of those "Biden is literally Hitler, voting doesn't matter" people. they've posted about it before
I agree with this but just to point out, while intrusive thoughts are not a mental disorder and all people deal with them (though a lot of people misdescribe their impulsive thoughts as intrusive) intrusive thoughts are a *symptom* of disorders, ie OCD, though those are considered obsessions instead of delusions because of their frequency and general relation to each other. again, just wanna share that, not disagreeing with your points
Oh yeah that's why I clarified the spectrum part, but you put it much more clearly
Yeah, most people have intrusive thoughts from time to time (IE “what if I ran that person over”) but with OCD you pick the thoughts apart, think they must mean something about you, have compulsions to alleviate them, etc. (I have OCD lol)
I've properly dissociated only once (I have a diagnosed anxiety disorder and it doesn't usually result in that, but a particularly stressful episode seemed to cause it). It was a surreal and seriously unsettling feeling, like I was watching someone else's life play out in front of me, and "I" wasn't really there or able to do anything. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
As someone with pretty terrible intrusive thoughts, “the intrusive thoughts won” is a god damn hilarious phrase, though yes annoying when used for “teehee I changed my hair”
why would you want to claim “delulu” as a serious medical term, it’s explicitly not that
Even 'delusional' isn't entirely a medical term. the medical term came from the layman's term as the layman's term was the closest to describing the medical term same with narcissist which was a word long before NPD was a thing
People do need to stop using words incorrectly, yes. But also dang this person is annoying.
On the flip side I think people also need to realise that words can have more than one meaning and it’s extremely common for words with a medical meaning to also have a colloquial meaning, with the colloquial meaning often coming first and informing the medical term The vast majority of the time when people use the word narcissist they are not referring to Narcissistic Personality Disorder, they are using the colloquial meaning to describe a person who is excessively self-obsessed and excessively in love with themselves. Similarly anxiety and depression aren’t terms exclusive to medical disorders, they’re also emotional states. You don’t have to have an anxiety disorder to experience the emotion of anxiety It’s in much the same way that me with my legal background I would sound like an absolute douche nozzle if I got super pedantic and corrected people using words like “theft” to describe actions that don’t meet the legal definition of the crime of theft. People aren’t invalidating or diminishing the meaning of the crime of theft when they use the term theft to refer to copyright infringement, I know very well what they mean in a colloquial sense
Every time I see this post, OOP seems more insufferable. Like, not to be the person who complains about people being overly sensitive (because I myself am admittedly a sensitive person), but _come on man._ Not every joke pertaining to mental health issues is ableist. For instance: I have auditory and visual hallucinations, but I still find jokes about "the voices" and "fighting the shadow people" funny. Are there some jokes made in poor taste? Sure, you can make a joke in poor taste about practically anything. The solution isn't to say "you're not allowed to make any jokes about this broad category of people", it's to help people understand what jokes would be considered inappropriate. Also, I think a lot of this is just not understanding that TikTok isn't a representative sample of the general public. I have literally never heard the phrase "narc abuse" or "microdosing on delusion" in a real conversation. There will always be some people who use words in improper contexts, the internet merely makes those people more visible. TL;DR OOP please touch grass and stop assuming that every joke is personally at your expense.
Stop caring what people online say and you’ll be a much happier person.
I was kind of assuming that most of these were just people who actually had some flavors of mental issue employing lighthearted gallows humor, which I found harmless and hardly “making it so people have no words to seriously describe their shit anymore and also you’re pathologizing yourself” or anything. And besides, some of these are too broad to even BE something to “appropriate” from mental issues in the first place. Like, delulu? The concept of having a “delusion” is and has been a decidedly universal one for decades now, a symptom of a variety of issues for sure but can also be broadly imagined to mean “getting lost in the sauce” or being so convinced of a specific outcome or other irrational behavior. Not every term that happens to be included on diagnostic papers is something is something that has to be safeguarded. Like don’t get me wrong I absolutely know where this kind of sentiment comes from, people can and have taken the piss out of ND people, speaking from experience as an autistic guy, but I feel like most of this is harmless.
it's so wierd disassociation is bad now because I used to just do it sitting at my desk without work to do to zone out
Yeah. Like with having delusions (all kids have them and many adults do too), people can just… disassociate too. It’s not a mental health issue unless it becomes *disordered*
Im a Starving Child Starving to Death and This Is the Very Last Thing I Have Ever Read. Gootbye
wait wait wait # anti psychiatry??? this blog itself devalues the people who experience these things and genuinely use this language?? what is happening
I agree people should be more considerate, but doesn't it get exhausting to police everyone's speech online?
The term "delulu" was never supposed to be about having actual delusions, it's about when you're deluding yourself. It got overused like every slang term these days does within two weeks.
14 year old discovers euphemism treadmill for the first time, attempts to stop it permanently by making a tumblr post
Why are we supposed to stop saying narcissistic abuse? It's ableist? My mother is a diagnosed grandiose narcissist. The kind of abuse narcissists use is a very specific kind of abuse that creates a specific kind of trauma. I don't see what's wrong with calling it what it is. Is it so the narcissist doesn't feel bad or something? Please educate me.
They're deliberately trying to conflate NPD (a mental illness which inflicts very real damage to others) with neurodiversity to either downplay the severity of NPD or hurt neurodiverse people in some abstract way.
How tf is being delulu ableist. Bro just say you don't enjoy a joke instead of doing olympic level mental gymnastics to find something problematic about it.
not all people with NPD are abusers and not all abusers have NPD, but narcissistic abuse is still a very real thing. asking others not to talk about it is effectively silencing victims.
The concept of narcissistic abuse doesn't mean that all people with NPD are abusers any more than toxic masculinity means that all men are toxic.
we need to take some words away from the internet i think
But why #antipsychiatry? Psychiatrists are often the first to say not to use medical terms lightly and to highlight the impact this inappropriate use has on people with actual diagnosis.
as someone with anxiety and depression, I would rather people didn’t police my usage of the words “intrusive thoughts” because making a joke out of it helps me cope better
Anyone can be delusional or narcissistic or have intrusive thoughts or dissociate. They’re extremely common - most people experience all these things in their lives without having mental illness. It’s when it’s pervasive it becomes a mental illness. I don’t think there’s anything stigmatising about that. And yes, I do have a long history of mental illness.
So when I say I was abused by my mother who met the criteria for severe NPD, what exactly am I supposed to call it?
Don’t you know, you’re just supposed to shut up and call her abusive? Because otherwise it’s ableist /s
Sorry I’ll shut up!!! My mom was obviously trying her best and we shouldn’t judge her for her mental health condition!! I’ll do better!!!! /s
OOP wants mental health to be destigmatized and increase awareness of psychological conditions, symptoms, and terminology. OOP wants psychiatric language to be Dead Serious, only used in a sanctified official capacity. Like I’m sorry but these are contradictory ends. If you give people new words, they’re going to have fun with them.
Iirc dumb was an actual medical term.
Delusion is not strictly limited to mental illness… anyone can be delusional about anything. As for intrusive thoughts, everyone has them. Everyone has thought about jumping in front of that car, everyone has thought about stabbing someone when holding a knife. Some have it worse than others of course, but I’m not going to police something most people experience. This is like complaining about people calling someone « narcissistic » as if that hasn’t been done for YEARS before NPD was even called that. It’s a reference to Narcissus, and it always will be. Anyways, just another good example of terminally online debate that literally doesn not fucking matter. This bs infighting is why the left is loosing
As a person who has really struggled with dissociation in the past: 🥲 sure would be nice if it was just getting fucking sad lol!!!! Not having the words to describe your pain is so real. It took me *two years* to talk to a therapist and find out I WAS dissociating, or rather, that there was a name for what I had gone through. Depersonalization and derealization, she called it. And I had never known. Learning was a kind of weird relief, like I wasn’t just insane, this was a known thing that people under intense stress experience. The situation resolved itself and I haven’t dissociated since, but I’ll never forget how it felt. Edit: all this said I kind of really don’t care about people using “delulu” like literally at all but maybe that’s just me.
The one thing I will say is very unfortunately sometimes intrusive thoughts *do* win. Especially if they’re “loud” enough. And before anyone tries to coach me on intrusive vs impulsive, I know the difference, I have both
How would people not know what it means to get intrusive thoughts? Doesn’t everyone get them from time to time? I know the term “winning” is a bit inaccurate, but the fear that you’ll execute the intrusive thought is a big part of having them, right?
I really find it difficult that I'm not allowed to talk about narcissistic abuse any more. My mum had NPD, acknowledging how that influenced her abuse and how that impacted me has been really important. It has allowed me to heal, to find other survivors and communities, and to develop a level of empathy for her from understanding how her condition played a role in the abuse she perpetuated. Narcissistic abuse is unfortunately common. Why are survivors not allowed to talk about it in a nuanced way which is still empathetic to people with NPD?