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Are We Talking Too Much About Mental Health?

nytimes.com

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Re: Are We Talking Too Much About Mental Health?

#11

Post by grumpy-de-sre »

d1sxeyes wrote: post #9
grumpy-de-sre wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like everything in the health world it's a spectrum isn't it. Where you draw the cutoff for something being a disorder and needing intervention is super subjective. Probably something where too much talk doesn't necessarily help, as it seems to dilute that threshold over time. I guess that's just it, it's a spectrum and even "normal" people can be somewhere on it. And decisions about diagnosis or labeling etc should…

Absolutely agree on the 'spectrum' point, and I would argue that it's not that case that 'normal' people can be somewhere on it, but everyone is on it, even if they're all the way to the left. If we take OCD as an example, there's clearly a huge range from 'I like the TV volume to be set to an even number' through to massive impairments to functioning to the point it's impossible to hold down a job, or that it's dama…

Yeh I kinda threw that out there and wasn't the clearest but yes I'm 100% in agreement that everyone is somewhere on the spectrum and I guess we need to reach a place as a society where everyone is okay with that and that there are thresholds where intervention and disorder verbiage makes sense and thresholds where perhaps a conservative approach is sufficient (and these can change over an individuals life).

Totally true that the DSM uses concrete cutoff values in an attempt to limit subjectivity, given that, what do you think is driving "overdiagnosis"? Eg. given we have guidelines in place?

> I think it's unhelpful if folks who (for example) like their TV to be set to an even number talk about 'their OCD'.

I guess we can agree that a tiktok mental health awareness is a poor substitute for a proper education (broad, balanced, evidence based etc). The sad thing is tiktok awareness is popular because people just aren't getting good information elsewhere.

At the same time I don't think gatekeeping is particularly good, the folks who struggle the most are often the quietest.

Re: Are We Talking Too Much About Mental Health?

#12

Post by grumpy-de-sre »

d1sxeyes wrote: post #10
BoredPositron wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking at how mental health was treated before the 80s-90s and that you easily lost control over your life. It's understandable not disclosing serious mental health problems. Personally I didn't disclose my bipolar diagnosis for 20 years because of prejudice like yours. It's not that you don't recognize mental health issues; it's that often people with your mindset don't believe that others are truly sick because th…

I'm sorry that you feel that way, that wasn't the intention of my comment at all, and to be clear, I am not trying to refute any individual diagnosis. I strongly believe that those suffering with mental health issues, whether they're chronic or acute, deserve recognition and support. I'm not a psychiatrist, and even if I were, I don't know you at all, so please don't take my comment personally, or assume any negative…

Ah but that OCD study suggests the opposite of OCD overdiagnosis.

People who actually have OCD are being misdiagnosed with other more specific disorders due to a poor understanding of the heterogeneity of the condition.

Re: Are We Talking Too Much About Mental Health?

#13

Post by d1sxeyes »

nilsherzig wrote: post #5
d1sxeyes wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just teenagers. How many adults have you come across who (inappropriately) describe pedantry as OCD, or losing focus from time to time as ADHD, or being a bit withdrawn as 'autistic'? There's no scope for people to simply be imperfect people with imperfect character traits any more. Any minor deviation is considered to be a personal disability. That's not to say ADHD and OCD and autism don't exist—of course they…

I have a recent ADHD diagnosis (M 21 / from Germany) and this apparent social media trend of having ADHD makes it very hard for me to get taken seriously with my diagnosis. I'm very sure that my diagnosis is right (they even talked with my primary school teachers and I respond very well to the meds), but I still get these moments of self doubt / imposter syndrome in which im thinking, that I might just have made this…

That sucks :( sorry to hear that.

Re: Are We Talking Too Much About Mental Health?

#14

Post by d1sxeyes »

grumpy-de-sre wrote: post #11
d1sxeyes wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely agree on the 'spectrum' point, and I would argue that it's not that case that 'normal' people can be somewhere on it, but everyone is on it, even if they're all the way to the left. If we take OCD as an example, there's clearly a huge range from 'I like the TV volume to be set to an even number' through to massive impairments to functioning to the point it's impossible to hold down a job, or that it's dama…

Yeh I kinda threw that out there and wasn't the clearest but yes I'm 100% in agreement that everyone is somewhere on the spectrum and I guess we need to reach a place as a society where everyone is okay with that and that there are thresholds where intervention and disorder verbiage makes sense and thresholds where perhaps a conservative approach is sufficient (and these can change over an individuals life). Totally…

> what do you think is driving "overdiagnosis"? Eg. given we have guidelines in place?

This is a super interesting question, and I don't know the answer.

My personal, completely unsupported opinion is that people now feel more pressure than ever to be perfect, when people are not. It is therefore logical that when people look at themselves and find imperfections, they try to find a 'cause' or a 'reason' that they can blame those imperfections on. I suspect that once you have convinced yourself that your imperfections are caused by something, you have a sort of Baader-Meinhof effect of the mind which causes you to see more and more 'symptoms' and attribute more and more negative things to that 'cause'.

Agree on both the TikTok mental health awareness and gatekeeping points however.

Re: Are We Talking Too Much About Mental Health?

#15

Post by d1sxeyes »

grumpy-de-sre wrote: post #12
d1sxeyes wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry that you feel that way, that wasn't the intention of my comment at all, and to be clear, I am not trying to refute any individual diagnosis. I strongly believe that those suffering with mental health issues, whether they're chronic or acute, deserve recognition and support. I'm not a psychiatrist, and even if I were, I don't know you at all, so please don't take my comment personally, or assume any negative…

Ah but that OCD study suggests the opposite of OCD overdiagnosis. People who actually have OCD are being misdiagnosed with other more specific disorders due to a poor understanding of the heterogeneity of the condition.

Thanks—I may well be wrong about OCD.

Re: Are We Talking Too Much About Mental Health?

#16

Post by marginalia_nu »

There's probably several sides to this.

On the one hand, we're talking about experiences that we previously would have kept to ourselves, in a way that is probably healthy.

On the other hand, we tend to medicalize life experiences in a way that may not be helpful.

If you for example view every unpleasant experience you have as psychological trauma that is expected to leave an indelible scar on your soul, that's an expectation that may do more harm than good. Especially combined with the notion that people exist that never have any of these negative experiences ever, that walk through life unblemished, living it as it should have been had that one fateful event never happened.

You can absolutely get messed up by traumatic events and this is a real thing, but if we set the expectation that this is always the case, we may plant the suggestion that has even those that would have otherwise walked it off marked for life.

I've also noticed a trend where people tend to sort of frame themselves in terms of their diagnoses (like ADD and Autism/Asperger), almost like a Jungian archetype, as though these diagnoses are causes of behaviors and not descriptions of them.

Although most of these problems likely stem from pop-culture psychology. It's probably something that comes from media portrayals of mental illness much more than it does from the medical professions.

Re: Are We Talking Too Much About Mental Health?

#17

Post by grumpy-de-sre »

d1sxeyes wrote: post #14
grumpy-de-sre wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeh I kinda threw that out there and wasn't the clearest but yes I'm 100% in agreement that everyone is somewhere on the spectrum and I guess we need to reach a place as a society where everyone is okay with that and that there are thresholds where intervention and disorder verbiage makes sense and thresholds where perhaps a conservative approach is sufficient (and these can change over an individuals life). Totally…

> what do you think is driving "overdiagnosis"? Eg. given we have guidelines in place? This is a super interesting question, and I don't know the answer. My personal, completely unsupported opinion is that people now feel more pressure than ever to be perfect, when people are not. It is therefore logical that when people look at themselves and find imperfections, they try to find a 'cause' or a 'reason' that they can…

And to top it off, the same pressure to be perfect can also exacerbate underlying risk factors, and cause a legitimate increase in illness.

Agreed, plus the controversial take, some young adults seem to take an odd pride in strongly identifying with their diagnoses, an in-group effect if you will.

Either way back to the original article, talk is cheap, action is harder. If we want to actually improve mental health we're going to talk less and do more, eg. reducing the pressure on young people (housing/education reform anyone?).

Re: Are We Talking Too Much About Mental Health?

#18

Post by grumpy-de-sre »

d1sxeyes wrote: post #15
grumpy-de-sre wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah but that OCD study suggests the opposite of OCD overdiagnosis. People who actually have OCD are being misdiagnosed with other more specific disorders due to a poor understanding of the heterogeneity of the condition.

Thanks—I may well be wrong about OCD.

OCD is extremely difficult to talk openly about, even in this TikTok era, society just isn't ready yet.

So by and far it's diagnosis is actually made very late, but I guess over time it'll become trendy aswell.

Re: Are We Talking Too Much About Mental Health?

#19

Post by viraptor »

nilsherzig wrote: post #5
d1sxeyes wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just teenagers. How many adults have you come across who (inappropriately) describe pedantry as OCD, or losing focus from time to time as ADHD, or being a bit withdrawn as 'autistic'? There's no scope for people to simply be imperfect people with imperfect character traits any more. Any minor deviation is considered to be a personal disability. That's not to say ADHD and OCD and autism don't exist—of course they…

I have a recent ADHD diagnosis (M 21 / from Germany) and this apparent social media trend of having ADHD makes it very hard for me to get taken seriously with my diagnosis. I'm very sure that my diagnosis is right (they even talked with my primary school teachers and I respond very well to the meds), but I still get these moments of self doubt / imposter syndrome in which im thinking, that I might just have made this…

On the other hand, it's the trend of talking about mental health more openly that allowed me to figure out my issues. It's going to take some time for things to cool off and stabilise either way. Let's just keep in mind both the positive and negative effects here.

It's actually HN itself where someone mentioned a paper/medication that turned out to work quite well for me.

Re: Are We Talking Too Much About Mental Health?

#20

Post by viraptor »

d1sxeyes wrote: post #4
jasontlouro wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this is not true. Teenagers these days are convinced that all stress is anxiety, all sadness is depression, and all negative emotions besides anger are sicknesses that must be treated with therapy and/or chemicals. See also https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/18/opinion/teenagers-mental-...

Not just teenagers. How many adults have you come across who (inappropriately) describe pedantry as OCD, or losing focus from time to time as ADHD, or being a bit withdrawn as 'autistic'? There's no scope for people to simply be imperfect people with imperfect character traits any more. Any minor deviation is considered to be a personal disability. That's not to say ADHD and OCD and autism don't exist—of course they…

I think every name that's common enough will get misused in a casual context at some point. It's not even restricted to mental health. How many people saying "you gave me a heart attack" actually experienced that rather than just being scared? How many people are mention stroke when smelling something weird? We just need to use social skills to figure out when the "haha, forgot that because of my ADHD brain" is real and when it's a joke.
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