I created an intense amount of emotional suffering for myself by self diagnosing. How i wish i had stumbled upon this video sooner. Thankyou Emma for all you do, please keep these informative videos coming!
(trigger warning: talking about the concept of suicide) Ever since I was a teenager, I always had this fear that I was going to one day kill myself. Not a desire to, just a fear that I would. I used to Google things like "signs that people might kill themselves", in an attempt to make sure that I didn't fit the criteria. I constantly checked for signs of having major depression, being bipolar, etc. Exactly as she says in this video, I empathized with everything I read, and I saw myself in every diagnosis. Things got so out of hand that in my early 20's, I basically had a mental breakdown. I became so convinced that something was "wrong" with me, and that I was going to end up killing myself, that I stopped making plans for the future because I legitimately didn't think I was going to be alive in a few months time. My fear of suicide caused so much anxiety that I became depressed, which only further convinced me that it was inevitably going to happen. I was a walking paradox. Finally, the therapist I was seeing at the time (I'd seen probably 6 different therapists over the course of 13 years by that point) made an observation that changed my life: "You know, this might be OCD". I mulled over that for a while, and eventually took myself to a trained OCD specialist. Suddenly, so many things started to click. All of it; all of the obsessive self-diagnosing, the constant checking to make sure I wasn't a danger to myself, the intrusive thoughts that spiraled and stewed in my head for hours on end...I can't tell you how it felt to be able to separate those things from myself; to put a name to it all. I'm happy to say that through years of training, practicing mindfulness, doing ERP (exposure response prevention) therapy, and some temporary help with medication, I have a much deeper understanding of myself and how my mind works. Now instead of being in a constant battle with my thoughts, I welcome them and let them flow as they wish. So yes, I definitely agree with this video. Please be very careful about self-diagnosing. Your brain wants to protect you at all costs, which is wonderful, but sometimes in order to do that it will convince you that you're in danger even when you're perfectly safe. Sometimes it might feel like you're "broken", but ironically that feeling of being broken might just be a sign that your brain is stronger than ever. It means that it really cares about your well-being. And of course, please don't self-diagnose yourself with OCD after reading this! Remember that I'm just a stranger commenting on a UA-cam video and I'm only sharing a tiny sliver of my experience.
Okay I've never related to something this much I swear I feel this like literally rn I feel like I might OCD see wow never really thought about this but now I understand thank you for sharing your story I'm so glad to hear you're better now ✨💙
Reading this comment my brain was just constantly going "OCD". I also have OCD and honestly it can be hard to decipher how many of my symptoms for other conditions I have are me overanalyzing, being anxious about having these disorders. I try my best to look carefully and logically at things and allow myself to just say "no, I don't do that actually" instead of spiraling into questioning if I do these things secretly. Lol.
Well, I'm not OCD but late diagnosed with autism. I have thought about suicide since I was 10. That made me go to specialists my entire life and even get wrong diagnosis, toke a lot of pills and neither ever worked on me. That was pretty harmful actually... Coming across videos about autism and my wife's ADHD diagnosis I decided to go after help again, did a lot of tests and went through a lot of specialists and finally, I can understand my brain... It took me 31 years and I'm still learning how to process and deal with my brain... Its similar to your history in a way. When we feel bad about something and try to find some answers online, we search and tend to find someone that can actually help us... In the end, both I and u had some kind of different brain, and I honestly think it would be worse if we just tried to belive we had nothing and didn't try to find any kind of help including online self diagnosis... Another important thing, even if we think taking pills is a solution, at least in my country is impossible to do that without taking a professional appointment... So maybe we should put some effort into having better health professionals instead of blame or shame people that are only trying to understand themselves... Sorry about any mistake, english is not my birth language...
I think it's the misunderstanding that most issues are on a spectrum and a 'disorder' crosses a certain boundary line on that spectrum. While many people may have tendencies for this or that, they generally don't have disorders. But also I would say we tend to downplay issues that don't cross the disorder threshold. Just because someone's not a diagnosable narcissist doesn't mean they couldn't maybe try to be a nicer, less selfish person in general. So it's a mixed bag currently. Personally I think we focus too much on diagnosis and not enough on simple self improvement in mental health areas.
My thoughts exactly. Of course mental health treatments and practices are most effective when catered to the individual, and diagnosis is a big part of that, but we are all human, and when we focus on the healthy habits that all or most humans benefit from, that will help us become a lot healthier.
where do these labels come from, where is the basis for claims that you have a disability and are therefore inferior because some guy you never met in your life diagnosed you with adhd and ocd, severe autism, genital warts, they could make up anything for fun if you find a sadistic enough doctor. But its easier to just label you because of a slight abnormality in the brain or tendencies to do unusual things. If its so abnormal why don't you get your doctor to describe what a normal person should be since he gets to decide your fate. If somebody is getting abused and that changes the physical makeup of their brain wouldn't it make more sense to try and understand them and help pull them back into reality instead of drugging them to the point of zombification because you don't feel like dealing with it then complain and lobby for change in a system you indulge in regularly
@@garbagecan6969 The labels are based on lumping things together that have similar appearances, and hopefully, treatments. Where things break down is when you start to get near the edges. The closer an autistic person gets to the schizophrenia spectrum the harder it is to make a reliable diagnosis and provide appropriate treatment. A similar thing happens with ADHD and OCD where you have to have some information about what you're seeing to know which it is. At the end of the day, one of the reasons why you sometimes need intermediary diagnoses is that some conditions can be had at the same time without impacting treatment that much and some diagnoses really don't combine at all.
Best lines: "Diagnosis is not an identity." "Humans are suggestible." "What I wish would become trendy is: personal responsibility, honesty, accountability, growth mindset, personal self-reliance and community values, and mental health education that everyone can access.... sadly it's a lot more fun to do decide your ex is a narcissist is more fun. Thanks for another great video Emma! -- I listen while I run.
Diagnosis can be an identity and there's nothing wrong with that. Just because someone has self-diagnosed doesn't mean they don't have personal self-reliance or community values.
Thx Emma. So glad you identified the therapist can sometimes lead to false causality… And that has caused massive problems. Keep the great contact coming!
I've been watching for a while now but I've never commented. I think the biggest thing that's helped me is just seeing you acknowledge that it's okay to feel your emotions. Like I can read about it in books a hundred times, but to actually see someone doing it, validating it. It gives me so much strength, especially when it seems like the norm is to try to bury your emotions. Thanks Emma.
Thank you so much for addressing the narcissism trend. It's so often a way for people who've learned codependent ways of interacting to villainize people they've overextended themselves to. Narcissists will certainly appear to be everywhere if you repeat patterns of self betrayal in every relationship.
Thanks for the video, I'd like to add that you don't need to have a mental illness to have bad mental health. Mental health still needs to be seen as more than just "illness/symptom/treatment" and would love to see more videos about mental health that doesn't have to stem or relate to a mental disease
I agree! I am currently in therapy, not because of an illness or disorder, but just because life got a little hard and sometimes you need help just because of what happens in life. I think everyone could use therapy once in a while, when things get though.
I’ve always felt as someone that’s been clinically diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder whenever I talk about my symptoms people try and “relate” to me it’s almost like everyone on the planet has anxiety because of how many people talk about it. But I never really feel like they understand the severity of some symptoms some days it’s debilitating for me.
Some people may understand and some may not…the experience is truly different for everyone. At the heart of others trying to “relate” though, is often a general message of them trying to say ‘you aren’t alone’ or ‘I get anxiety too’. Those may not be as validating as what you’re looking for from others…but people often struggle with what to do with others expressions of emotion etc. We can learn to say our truth to those who seem to genuinely care. We can say “I feel no one understands my experience with anxiety” & “I need that validated”. Maybe some one could hold space for you in that. However, it needs to be a two way street…others are suffering in ways we don’t know, or see either, and when we have GAD, it can be hard for our lens to be able to take in others experience too. The greater the anxiety, the greater the self focus. It’s just how it goes. So, we can be blind in our blindness to others. Sometimes others minimize their own experiences when they see we are having major anxiety issues. I had a friend with anxiety/depression and tried to be a “good” friend, by listening and saying small things about my own anxiety/depression…but never wanted to say “too” much because it seemed she didn’t have the “bandwidth” to receive it. I also didn’t want to burden her, didn’t want to detract from her pain. The truth was…I was actually suicidal at times…I had learned to quiet my own voice/needs for t others. She had so many easy life circumstances at the time, yet I knew depression and anxiety isn’t always situation dependent. I was a single mom, working 12+ hours, sometimes barely making it and so much more… she later said how I was “outgoing” and had so many friends, was beautiful and that she envied me. Inside I was so stunned. I was suffering greatly. We often don’t know how we are coming off. We often don’t know we are being seen through others filters. The best thing we can do, is to really get to know our own selves, connect to ourselves, learn to communicate our truth, pick the right to communicate that truth to, and be able to reciprocate for others and their truth.
This is why self diagnosis is bad. If they all feel they can relate, chances are many of those people don’t have a disorder even if they think they do. Having anxiety during stressful times is normal. Having it to a high degree especially when things aren’t so stressful is not normal
I actually got upset about something. So my mom was signing me up for school, and on the paper sheet of having any disorders she put anxiety and depression. I am not diagnosed with either of those! Yes, I have always been an anxious person (even when I was really young) I probably don't have an anxiety disorder. Nor do I have depression (never called my mom out on it though)
I accurately “diagnosed” myself with depression, anxiety and complex ptsd. When I began therapy 2 years ago, I received the same diagnoses. I think people who exercise self-awareness can use the internet to determine their issues so that they can take steps to heal, but agree that self-diagnosing can be perilous.
I did the opposite, "definitely didn't have bipolar", that didn't hold up so well! I think the information on the internet can be a bit limited to stereotypical presentations of mental illness, beyond which it's difficult to have an informed understanding without the experience to back it up.
This is the first sane, comprehensive video I have seen regarding the self-diagnosis craze. Everything you talk about makes complete sense, and I see myself clearly engaging in many of the behaviors you discuss. Listening to this was like looking into a dirty mirror for many years, and seeing only a distorted reflection. Your words wiped my mirror clean, and I was able to see things as they truly are. Thank you for that!
As someone who does have ADHD, I have to say as well that it’s not just people being over labeled due to over discussion, it’s also the type of narratives that get spread. Some are very easily digestible and get projected all over social media, while others fade to the background. Just this broad mischaracterization of a disorder still leaves people behind. It’s very easy for parents to talk about getting their little boys accommodations at school and spread success stories. It’s a lot harder to talk about how ADHD is weaponized, how it affects relationships, racial and gender discrimination, class privilege, etc. Its just not as neat of a package and leaves all involved parties to self reflect and be questioned.
why is that how can it be okay for one view but the other one has a similar narrative and its tossed into the ally like a used condom, there are bigger players pulling the strings from the top down, its high time we expose their angle to a broader audience. The powers that B have every base covered, if you care at all you will weaken their supports, help spread the message that you may not escape their grasp, but you will fight it to the very end, don't let them take your sovereignty the words i speak are true google it in your heart
I agree sooooo much with this! I think we talk about "keeping good mental health" so much but no one really knows what that means other than "being happy", and sadly no one dares to feel down for 10 minutes even for a genuine reason as this means they're "depressed". There's so many wrong messages out there on mental health and i think it's making us all worse. A product of it's own making!
“You know what isn’t trendy but I’d love for it to be cool again?! Personal responsibility, honesty, accountability, growth mindset.” THANK YOU!!! This should be 2022's tagline FOR SURE! 👌
Narcissism is the buzzword now. I’ve been diagnosed a narcissist ( by my ex with no degree). She had a friend who diagnosed her husband as a narcissist, then all of the sudden I was. Be careful who your friends are. All of trends you would like to see are coming back, you just have to train yourself to see and type in those words you listed. Then, you’ll see them everywhere.
yep. Apparently 3xs as many people search the term "Narcissist" as search the term "depression" it's just such a popular thing right now- but always about diagnosing someone else.
While I agree it's a buzzword that's overused, there are people who do match a large number of what is considered narcissistic traits. Ex: There's content from therapists regarding complex PTSD, childhood trauma and narcissistic parenting styles. I use the term narcissistic because it's the easiest way to describe parents who are controlling, invalidating, neglectful, abusive, self-centered and use conditional love with their children. Saying "narcissistic traits" is also different from trying to diagnose someone as NPD or other cluster B personality disorders.
As a person with a somatoform disorder, this video hits close to home. I've suffered from anxiety and depression for most of my adult life, but it wasn't until recently that the somatoform portion manifested. I've always been easily suggestible and I was the one who could manifest symptoms just by reading about them. Just being aware of the disorder has helped me to differentiate between real symptoms and somatics symptoms. Don't get me wrong, there are still days when I can't tell if I really have a medical problem or if it's all just in my head. Thank you for the video and the reminder to refrain from self-diagnosis.
Thank you very much, this video came at the right time to help me (save me) from the confusion I am going through this week after reading a book about childhood wounds and trauma. This confusion made me lose my everyday landmarks and put me in a state of unfounded sadness and a negative state of mind wasting the day in negative ideas and twisted interpretations of my memories to the point that I started having insomnia When I saw the title of your video (in the notifications) I was shocked, pleasantly surprised. Thank you from Tunisia
It's about time someone addresses this. I'm pretty shocked that the actual mental health experts themselves are perpetuating the self-diagnosis trend. And even if it isn't their intention, as the experts on mental health, they should really know better.
Is it? You wouldn't be shocked if you realized just how unreliable professional mental health diagnoses are. Apart from some people with psychotic disorders or intellectual disability, there's no real guarantee that self-diagnosis will be less reliable than a professional one.
I agree with most of your points. On the flip side, self-diagnosis can be life-changing, even life-saving. Despite decades of extensive analysis, I was never given a correct diagnosis by professionals. It took me being at the end of my rope to come to a self-diagnosis. This was the only way I could acquire a professional diagnosis. I now have my life back only because of my self-diagnosis. It's not because of medication or treatment, but because of knowledge and using it in my life. I believe It can be even more harmful to avoid self-diagnosing. It would have been for me. As with most things, the best course is one of balance.
I agree wholeheartedly. Both for individuals to self-diagnose themselves just like the way you described, as well as the fact that awareness of certain patterns with a lot of different issues like narcissistic, borderline, antisocial and other personality disorders can really help victims of abuse cope and come to terms with a lot of trauma experiences, and even save their/our lives, too. And in terms of identifying the how and why as to how an abusive partner might be abusive to us (because it's very rarely ever as clear-cut as "Yes, 1000%, they're abusing me!"), that tends to be one of the first of many steps it takes to make sense of the entire experience and eventually finding your way out. (And honestly, I think there's always been a lot of issues with this and that it's like she said with ASD - because now that there's more awareness and research done on these issues, more people are inherently diagnosed, which should be expected. And I think when people, not Emma necessarily but I do see it a lot, accuse victims/survivors of abuse across the board to be wrong about how their partners treated them because they use a word like "narcissistic" to describe them, it's basically gaslighting at times. Especially when victims can look at several different lists and put together what their partner is and isn't, as well as the consequences they've dealt with as a result of that abuse.)
So many people need to watch this! The Internet really does encourage people to try diagnosing themselves or their children. I've known a lot of mothers who've become convinced that their child has autism or ADD or whatever because they read a vague description on the Internet and thought it sounded "just like" their child.
The problem there is that ADHD and ASD, in particular, aren't things that are always reliably diagnosed. If it were something like AIDS or vision impairment where you get a test, or series of tests, and have a reliable result, that's one thing. But, with autism and ADHD in particular a self-diagnosis isn't necessarily any less reliable than a professional one is. I was in my late 20s before I got a provisional ADHD diagnosis and the only reason why I don't have an autism diagnosis is that I couldn't get an Asperger's Syndrome diagnosis under the previous criteria because I already had a bunch of wrong schizophrenia spectrum diagnoses and at the time, that wasn't an allowable comorbidity. People often times greatly overestimate the accuracy of mental health diagnoses, but it's pretty bad, most of the time they cant even figure out whether somebody is depressed or an insomniac. And those are both common problems and in a lot of ways have opposite treatments.
This is a tough topic, and there's a lot of nuance here. I could see in for a lot of the discussion, there was a focus on people making snap self-assessments, which I think differs to people who take their time in researching and understanding a condition that they've self-diagnosed with. There's a chance in both cases for it to be incorrect completely or partially, but I think the situation for someone who has really taken their time, done their homework, and reached out to find professional help will have a vastly different outcome than someone who has convinced themselves they have something over a short period of time. It's hard, sometimes even doctors ignore your need for help, or don't take the time necessary to actually investigate the problem with you to see how bad it really is. There's so many reasons why people turn to self-diagnosis. But I think if you're thorough, level headed, and focused on recovery, you will eventually have a proper diagnosis and treatment.
Spot on about not identifying too much with a diagnosis, it's very focused on the problem instead of focusing on the things that can be done to make living easier to manage.
Fantastic video! I’m definitely guilty of reading different diagnoses online, thinking I have a diagnosis, noticing aspects of that diagnosis in my life and using that as confirming evidence that “this is what I have…for sure.” And I’m sure I’ve used that as an excuse for many things. I really like what you said about personal responsibility being really cool. That’s an area I can improve on. If anyone knows of any good resources for personal responsibility, please send them my way! Meanwhile, I’m gonna go UA-cam some myself.
What you said at the very end resonated so well with me. You said (not an exact quote), that what you are going through is not who you are but rather an experience you are going through. Thank you so very much for that! And for the entire video as well. You are truly helpful. Many therapists mean well, but are not helpful. God bless you, Emma! I believe you can truly help me and many others!
This resonates with me. I was seeing myself as an empath, HSP, had depression and anxiety, ROCD, codependency, etc etc. I’m waiting to see what my therapist says about me now.
Inaccurate/inaccessible professional diagnosis is a more harmful issue that needs to be addressed first because it is the root cause of self diagnosis.
YES! My daughter recently became physically ill on a holiday weekend. We didn't realize how VERY ill she was. We used an online nurse, who prescribed some simple medications, but missed a major diagnosis. When we got to the specialist a few days later, who gave the proper diagnosis, he was a little frustrated (but nice) that we had used an online nurse for care. BUT - *nothing* else was available!
At 63 I am still learning how to deal with emotions. My family never taught us how to deal with them. Emotions create thought create action/ reaction. So far I have learned to accept I am feeling such and such emotion. Question myself Do I need to take action or just allow. Accepting seems to bring emotion/ body sensations stopping. Not blocked they just go.
I feel for you, so many families just survived on bare necessities or focus too much on material stuff, I feel like my emotions were never respected as a kid, only shunned or tolerated. I know I have so many issues and I don't understand why I feel a certain way, I end up hating myself (and everyone around me) but I don't want to. Am just glad to know there are people like you who have not given up.
I feel like self diagnosing and labeling can be dangerous, especially when the information is not from a professional person/source. I started to looking into the spiritual side of the world like tarot cards and readings, I learned that other people project their experiences/issues on you and if you are in a desperate state and need answers you will believe in anything. It is the same in the mental health field, I had a ex friend diagnosing me and I just did not agree with her feedback, but I respect her opinions and told her I would look into but she was so aggressive and invasive of me believing her diagnose of me that she was telling people about my personal experience and want me to believe her diagnose of me so I can get the proper help I needed🤨 #shady. I was going through something and I just didn't need someone who is not an professional expert bulling and dismissive my experience. If I was in total distress and not mentally capable of handling that diagnose from someone who just looked it up on MedMD, I probably would of self harm myself. I feel like we have to be careful what we tell people even if it is advice or not, we don't know what people are going through and we should direct them to the proper help and if they don't want to take it then that is their choice and you have to respect it and not control it. And fyi my ex friend later self diagnosed herself with the same diagnosis she try to give me, I know now that she was projecting her symptoms and issues on me. I am learning not to be mad because she was and is going through something and I am glad she found the peace in her self diagnose.
wow, this is a really mature response to someone's projections, I really commend you for being level-headed and fair to your friend despite her poor behavior. It seems like you were patient despite the drama she was causing and all the while you were already going through something difficult. I am curious though, how do you understand tarot cards and readings as something that can give you spiritual insights? Aren't the cards just random?
One of the reasons for avoiding actual professionals because most of them want you to take symtom suppressing drugs, like anti anxiety and anti depression, when there are other better ways of overcoming these issues. So far Internet has been my best doctor and help.
Surely the real problem here is the inaccessibility of expert-led diagnosis and treatment options. People self-diagnose using free online resources because it's the only option of those of us who are medically marginalised. Not because it's ideal.
Agreed. I knew I had severe ocd, depression, anxiety, among other things for almost 5 years before i was able to get "help" through my college. But the two white women therapists I saw basically just said that my intuitions were right since they've been prevalent disruptions to my life. The same has been the case with Autism. I knew I was autistic at least 7 years before I was able to get a diagnosis, again through college. Again a white woman. All of these times, I knew and suffered for years without anyone believing in me. The only reason why I'm not dead is because I believed that there were conditions or disorders that were negatively harming me, leading to dysfunction.
People already don't believe marginalized folks. None of the three white women I saw believed me initially since I had such a strong belief in what i was experiencing. I'm bipoc and queer. For ocd, I went in and have certainly previously researched my treatment options, to the point that i was leading my own sessions. It's important for marginalized people to be able to advocate for themselves so that professionals don't take advantage of our lack of self awareness. I hope that makes sense. Medical distrust is real and valid. Ultimately, none of the three white women were good therapists for me, all invalidating in their own ways.
Unfortunately many will reject therapy for a good looking salesperson on UA-cam. Many (like the awful Richard Grannon) will actually say therapy is bad and those with complex trauma should buy his courses instead of seeing a therapist. Unfortunately, vulnerable people will buy into such tactics which is why we regulated TV. The real problem lies in social media platforms enabling fraudsters to engage with vulnerable people with no recourse.
@@samfoston2336 Actually, "pros" are human beings and they are not exempt from being pompous, ego-centric and greedy either... or worse... so open your mind a little. Just a little.
Yeah the barnum effect is real ! It remind me also of the first year of medical school every student believe they have the disease they are studying ! When I read "the body keep the score" I felt traumatised even if I did went threw a rough childhood it definetely "made me" feel more bad about my past, same about reading and listening about manipulation, diets and all of that ! I'm curently reading a book called trance and treatment by David Spiegel, it talks about hypnosis and not every one is hypnotisable but for those who are it can be use as a strenght ! The placebo and nocebo effect also plays a huge role in this, so reading more about the solution than the problem, at least that's what I like to do, reading different type of therapy, like CBT, Exposure therapy... gives you tools instead of fear ! x) Diagnosis is not about giving a fix mindset but just to know where we are to be able to move forward with the right tools !
It can be hard to not self diagnose when you cant access the assessment professionals you need. More and more I keep thinking I'm an adult on the ASD spectrum, but when I looked into clinics that can diagnose it, it will cost $2000. I'm left weighing if its worth spending 2000 to get diagnosed to gain supports to make life easier but possibly be discriminated against for the label, or not get diagnosed and continue to fumble through life not clear why certain situations feel difficult
Yeah, a lot of people self-diagnoze out of necessity and not because of ignorance, carelessness or desire to appear "interesting". Millions of people all around the world don't have access to good mental health care - and a diagnosis.
I agree with the OP. Sometimes self diagnoses is the only option. That’s what brought me to this channel to be honest. I am very much aware I have a lot of mental health issues. Been that way since I was 5 when something happened that I will not discuss on the internet. Ive seen at least a dozen therapists. Ive never benefitted from them. I just think now I am just hard wired to work through everything on my own. And it’s like my brained evolved or adapted because now, I have to work everything out myself before I can talk with others. Ive always just kinda been an outsider or alone. Had 3 sisters. Growing up they would be inside playing dolls and I was outside climbing trees and just sitting in the grass. I love nature. I’m a very empathetic person. I almost mirror the energy/emotion around me. So when something bad happens in society, I don’t go out because it hurts to be near them and the air is thick and muggy. I don’t like it. I live just a few towns over from Uvalde where the school shooting was recently. I went to the supermarket a few days after, and there was so much sadness and pain radiating from everyone. I left the store without buying anything and just went home. Surprise surprise, I live out in the country isolated from others. I don’t really have any family left from when I grew up. So I don’t feel like I have an anchor to hold on to. Which only makes me turn more inward. I recognize my problems, and why. But being aware of your crap and actually dealing with it are two totally different things. I am able to recognize my issues, figure out why or where it is stemming from. And now that I found this channel, it will be easier for me to deal with things. So thank you! I just want to be somewhat normal
I agree with this sentiment that the crazy financial costs or long wait times pushes people to diagnose themselves. But unfortunately that's creating a systematical problem where institutions are pressured to accommodate people who say they are XYZ without a visit from a doctor or specialist, which I find quite harmful. Basically people are faking it until they make it.
Here’s the thing, though. Let’s say someone self-diagnosis themselves with ADHD. They receive Adderall, a common prescription medicine given to people with ADHD. Potential side effects if you take it and don’t have ADHD like you originally self-diagnosed yourself with: Psychosis, heart attack, sudden death. OR, you can get arrested and taken to jail if you don’t have proof of having ADHD/proof of prescription because Adderall is considered a controlled substance.
I love this video! Thank you so much for sharing this valuable, golden information with us! So my conclusion is: I self-diagnose based on what people talk about (what is trendy). Right now as I watch this video, what is trendy is "people self-diagnosing", so I associate with that and I think "yeah, I am someone who self-diagnoses". I really love this video, once again thanks a million for educating us on mental health.
I find this video's message is so important in this era. We tend to believe that we can do everything by ourselves with just an internet connection. We cannot, we need other people. Information alone doesn't make us wise, especially when trying to use that information to analyze ourselves.
On the flip side until the mental health profession cleans up its act, there's no guarantee that a professional diagnosis is going to be any more reliable. Those are basically just hypotheses, granted ones that are based in experience, but they're still basically just guesses the same way that self-diagnoses are. It can be particularly problematic to get a professional diagnosis if you're dealing with something unusual or for which the knowledge has just come to light.. I'm 43 and I started getting mental health treatment about the time the DSM IV came out and nobody had any idea what the new autism variants were like in reality. By the time clinicians had any experience, I already had a bunch of wrong diagnoses that precluded getting a proper one without those other ones being reassessed. It's a real problem that self-diagnosis doesn't have. And given the lack of treatment options for the folks for which this applies, it's a real mess.
Thanks Emma, I also find this to be a big problem in public schools. Everyone want to 'label' the kids - but we aren't all qualified to do so. Some cases are a little big more "obvious," but I others aren't, and in the end we need to do the interventions or provide the accomadations regardless because we should just be doing what is best for the child.
You are so awesome Emma. Your voice and your mannerisms and your grounded common sense are all very calming to me. Thank you for the educational and helpful videos that are making us better people.
I'm online looking for mental health information because I am the best person to know myself. I have a few diagnoses, but nobody seems to have the time to get to know my very complex and multidimensional brain. So, to figure out how to cope, I watch UA-cam videos to learn about the different mental disorders and find their associated "toolbox" of therapies and suggestions. I look through these toolboxes thoroughly to find the ones that work to help me feel better. Sometimes I have many features of a disorder, other times it's just interesting information. The same features come up as part of many different disorders. It's easier to treat myself as a whole human though, instead of a pamphlet selection from the DSM-V.
I'm sharing because I want you to know we're not all taking cursory glances and getting confused. Some of us have tried professional help and found it wanting.
hi emma! i really appreciate all the effort into making manageable chunks of super important information to take care of our emotions and making us become the people we truly desire, i really appreciate your channel and you’ve taught me so much, keep doing what you do :D
Dang. This might be the best video on your channel. The video made me reflect on my own mental health and if I do just to conclusions too quickly (e.g. I'm depressed, have anxiety, BPD, etc). I've really got a lot of self-reflection to do. Thank you for the great video, Emma. Hope you're doing well!
This video is so important. TikTok has fed into this like CRAZY. People are even gender transitioning based off of things they saw online, only to later regret it & realize they don't actually have gender dysphoria. So dangerous.
I'm really happy I found your videos. I am a person who has uh, suspects, about myself and adhd. Beyond my own personal experience with the idea of self diagnosis, there is a real undercurrent on tiktok especially of discussing attributes of mental health issues. You pointed out narcissism and that is a really big one. Adhd and the term 'trauma response' are also big buzzwords. I hate to call them trendy because they are things that people experience and need room to talk about but as you said, there needs to be context and I think that's really something alot of media is lacking.
I self diagnosed with DID because I have the symptoms but I was officially diagnosed with delusions, but my voices are alter voices, I hope my psych notices it in the future.
I can't even begin to describe how important the work you do is to so many of us. This is so relevant to me and I think I needed to hear this. Thank you!
Thank you for these videos. You truly are making a different. I’m 23 turning 24 soon and this has been the toughest couple weeks of my life. Your videos helped me better calm down and remember thought are just thought. I’ll carry these emotional tools with me always. Thank you 😊😊❤️
It happens, any time a new diagnosis is created. It's one of the reason why there shouldn't be so much attention paid to older diagnoses, especially ones done using older standards. But,that happens with professionals as well.
Narcissism. LOL. I got pulled into that trend, but it actually started me down the path that saved me. I thought my gal was a narc, she thought I was one. Nope. We're actually both on the co-dependent side of the things, low self-esteem. Except when you push co-dependents they can snap like a narcissist. Remember, they likely grew up co-dependent because they were around narc behavior. So they know how to throw down and get mean, too. After six months of self-analysis (prepping for a professional I didn't end up needing), I realized neither of us were narcs. We were both co-dependents, trauma survivors, and sufferers of sleep deprivation and C-PTSD. And we were stuck in a 'victim cycle' and constantly concerned about the other. Way stressful, right? My whole life I'd been told I was bi-polar because of my anxiety and depression and high energy level. Nope. Just anxiety from the pressures I place on myself as a co-dependent. And understandable depression from the internal schemas and the anxiety. In my experience, I'd say 90% of professionals shouldn't be practicing. My case was EASY. G.D. textbook. 30 years and I ultimately had to do the work myself. I sure wish I'd had someone like our host working with me. She better than anyone I've ever seen, studied, read, or worked with.
Thank you so much! Your videos are so honest, real and very helpful to me. I'm grateful for everyone else who made it possible for me to watch this invaluable resource. I watched and did all exercises in your Dealing With Emotions course once and going to watch it again Thank you, Emma. All the best and warmth and love to your growing family.
I have one person in my life who I think is (or may be) a narcissist. The person is the only person I have known who I think fits the description. Whether the person is or is not a narcissist, I find that responding to the person's behavior through that lens has been exceedingly helpful. On the whole, however, it actually makes logical sense to assume that most people are normal. It's in the very meaning of the word "normal." There's a lot of variation in human behavior, but most behaviors make sense in certain particular contexts most of the time. We have witnessed a tendency to pathologize everything. People have emotions. They vary. Strong emotional responses to life are not usually evidence of anything other than the fact that life can be challenging.
Unfortunately, now there seems to be a trend of professionals dismissing their client's concerns before hearing them out. I would like to see more professionals providing both step 1 - the cautionary tale of self-diagnosis, and step 2 - a genuine conversation, and potentially evaluation, to validate their client's experience and, hopefully, to ease their mind if they are, in fact, simply showing signs of being human.
Right! I'm trying to seek an ADHD assessment and I had to fire my therapist over it. I've decided to shell out money for a professional evaluation from someone who is not in a therapeutic relationship with me so I can rule it out. All I want is the option to rule it out. Or learn to manage it if it turns out I have it. Or where to look next if it turns out I don't.
Yeah. I had pages of notes at my Dr.'s and I only brought up "autism spectrum referral.. maybe?" and he asked not a single question, and tried making a joke saying I'm "not an asperger". Ok doc. I fake laughed. Haha, I realized you tried a joke. I must have nothing going on, sweep it all under the rug! Not to mention I got bumped on a waiting list for a neurologist concerning 4.5 yrs-long debilitating chronic pain. Ah... cool... "trust the pros"...
Thank you! Best psychology 101 explanations I have come across, about the impact of our surrounding, of the advertising of the pharma industry and of the labelling of people. The pharma industry's objectives are to "develop" and sell more "cures and medicine", to grow their business. That is why the health cost (or wouldn't it be better to say the "illness cost") keeps increasing.
I've gone 2+ years of waitlisting and gatekeeping to get a state recognised autism diagnosis, and I've been threatened to be dropped more than once for not knowing how to navigate that bureaucratic maze on my own. So yeah, I'm not gonna scold someone less privileged than me who couldn't go through this and decide to fix their own life on their own. So much talk about mental health from doctors themselves assume you can summon them freely like genies in a bottle, and ignore how incredibly broken and abusive the psychiatric system is in the western world, it's absolutely infuriating.
just because people are over diagnosing, doesnt mean rise of mental illness isnt real. suicide and self harm rates are increasing as well. anyways i know you know that and i really appreciate the video too, i just think this kind of argument is a slippery slope to arguing increase in mental illness is purely bc of more self diagnosing, when its actually to do with other psychosocial reasons.
hey a really helpful video and I agree about seeing or projecting narcissism in many people around you but there is a great deal of suffering caused to you when you are either brought up in a family with one or two malignant narcissists or were in relationships of the sort. thanks
Thank you! You’ve explained this so well and yet people still getting annoyed with people like you telling them this. Thank you for speaking out. As someone with ADHD, I had been diagnosed by two doctors. BUT all I had to do was get my GP and or psych to diagnose me through a series of qualifications instead of official testing. i didn’t have to spend money on official testing, so, at least with stuff like ADHD and depression and other disorders it seems you only have to have a couple of doctor visits and most people should be able to get that on insurance 🤷 idk what the issue is with people using this excuse they have to diagnose because they can’t do a couple of doctor or psych visits… I’m in the US
@@k1ss4fr0g Yes, and even if we do, there's no guarantee that it will be covered. Plus, if you're talking ADHD, the tests for ADHD in adults are pretty much non-existent.
I agree with what you are saying 100%. However, no adays access to counselling or mental health is so hard and if it is available, it is very expensive (as a lot of folks don't have insurance to cover it). So how then do you expect people to get help? Just to sit there and accept their fate? Yes the internet can send a person down a rabbit hole of misinformation -- but sometimes that is all they have.
Well, I hope this video addressed the first lesson- be cautious about over diagnosing yourself. learn about mental health in a context of treatment, not brokenness. Honestly, I know that so many people can't access mental health services, so I made this video to try to address the gap I saw there.
@@TherapyinaNutshell In my experience, clinicians are far more likely to overdiagnose than patients are. In order to get insurance to pay for the sessions there has to be a diagnosis, even if one has to be made to fit. It's how I got such a very long list of diagnoses on my record whereas, I would have given myself a fraction of those and probably removed most of the ones I did give myself.
By the way: in the Medicaid-level behavioral health system, there is no such thing as psychological evaluations. I requested one at my former clinic and they claimed "we do one every time you come in here!" But they don't, they will never do it, and I can't find a practitioner who will do it for love or money. But they will happily supply me with prescribers who ask leading questions about my symptoms and rely on decades-old snap diagnoses for my current treatments.
Hi Emma, this video is brilliant and I totally agree with you. 👏. People shouldn't own the illness or labelling until a medical diagnosis has been made. It causes so much unhappiness, hopelessness and worry for individuals. Your video has hopefully brought about an awareness which is perhaps not considered by many people. God bless. 🙏 xx
I have major depression, underlying depression and anxiety disorder off an on since childhood with issues of child abuse and sexual abuse with fears of being alone and since having a full hysterectomy 9 years ago I am battling it again but the last 18 months have been the worst. I haven't been able to work much and fear getting old and losing loved ones so I keep praying for God to take me home. I have tried many meds but I can't get rid of that fear and don't want to make any effort. I don't know why God takes those that don't want to go and leaves those here that want to go.
I'm really excited for my appointment next week because I'm going to be completely honest with my therapist and get a proper diagnosis for what I believe is the first time. About 10 years ago I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety and because I was harming my therapist said that I might have borderline personality disorder but never really gave me a definitive assessment. Believing that it was just depression and anxiety I did some talk therapy and took my medication but I didn't really improve over the 10 years that I saw him and when covid hit I stopped seeing a doctor and being on my medication for a year and a half. In that time things got really bad so I started trying to implement lifestyle changes and doing research on things and based on my findings and things that I didn't tell my therapist at the time because I had thought it wasn't important or that he wouldn't believe me because he was also seeing my mother at the time which I now know he shouldn't have been doing but I didn't really know at the time that my compulsions and my obsessions weren't just me being weird or strange. After a Year's worth of research I realize now that a lot of the fears of contamination and all the rituals I did with numbers and all these strange rules and thoughts that I had that I used to do little rituals to negate weren't actual facts but when I now believe is obsessive compulsion disorder. I grew up with a very superstitious and paranoid mother who came from a country where they are very superstitious and believe in magic and things like that and it led me to believe that thoughts were magic based on the things that she told me one of them being that whatever you think happens. I would do things like look up at the ceiling because I thought if you would look down and maybe say something or get a weird thought that it meant you were singing or saying something like that to the devil and that you would go to hell or be possessed. I would do a bunch of rituals and compulsions to negate that anxiety so that I wouldn't be punished and I did that well into my 30s before I realized hey these are just things my head came up with to get rid of anxiety based on fears that I have. The thing is I never ever in 10 years told my doctor about any of these compulsions or thoughts because I genuinely thought that they were real things. I feel like I got to the point where I stopped having so many outward compulsions like changing my bed sheets if a fly landed on it or if I happen to see a string of numbers that are significant in Christianity as evil that I would have to do some other number related compulsion to negate the evil. The only issue is that now that I realized those things are or were silly my obsessions of gone from magical thinking to more real world meta OCD type things and fears such as harming people or having a disease or having a mental illness that I don't show signs of and don't have and then likewise all the compulsions that come along with that and all the avoidance. I'm really looking forward to getting back on my medication and hopefully getting a better therapist who will help me deal with these issues but while I know it's not good to solve diagnose I think that if I would have just continued to believe that it was just depression and not do some research I wouldn't have ever discovered that all the things I thought were real or fact just because I thought of them who weren't real at all. I also am excited to talk about my trauma/abuse and really getting to heal because even though I was an adult my mother was still sitting in on a lot of my sessions and I really couldn't say anything that I wanted to say without her interrupting me in correcting me and giving me dirty looks so I shut up and didn't say anything bad about her.
Thank you so so much for this video. Long time subscriber, first time commenter. This video has been my favourite. It was the title, not the thumbnail that captured me. FYI
Definitely interested in that future video about narcissism. ive been a victim of suspecting people in my life are narcissists because of that recent youtube trend
Thank you so much for bringing the online diagnosis down to an understandable level. You are SOOO correct with your lesson!!! I’ve recently retired and am in the process of trying to figure things out for myself and have fallen into the exact trap that you described! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! Your “common sense” advice is fantastic and I’ll be waiting for the next video! Good luck and thanks again! Ed
Too much access to Psychology since more than 6 months. felt to me like I had this feeling of Longterm Guilt than usually way back, A year ago. I just want to say Thank You for this WHOLESOM information, Like I'm feeling of understanding my self, I am Convinced that I have Misdiagnosed my self, influenced Some Friends, and made me Complex to Understand. I am Like, drained from the Crude and unexperienced information that was on the back of my Fore head. Stressed But 😊 I will Choose Gratitude. like to Express again my Deep engagement in thankfulness To You Ma'am, the creator of this Video I'm just very Greatful that you were one of the person who helped me, that encouraged me To trust again and brought me to My senses Again.
Great to see this covered. Ive seen people self diagnose mental health problems in personal life and they fall into the role of being more ill than before.
I think those who self diagnose tend to overlook the outer aspects of the illness/disorder. They often say “we know our inner feelings better than anyone else”, which is kind of a controversial idea, but they also don’t know what they look like on the outside. Now, many things can manifest differently, but even then, there are outer signs that range from light to severe. Also, they might forget that in some situations, you NEED to have papers/documents confirming you are DIAGNOSED with the disorder you have. If you want to get help for a disorder, self diagnosis might help you in a sense of where to begin, but it certainly won’t help you when you need physical proof of your illness. (Documents and paperwork). Also, I wonder if some people are rude and aggressive towards those who self diagnose not because they hate them for doing it, but because they want to protect them from the potential harm of it. Maybe the aggression and hate is their way of trying to knock someone into getting real help, and preventing danger. Idk tho
This makes me think of a recent head-shaking moment I had. I was looking into something a doctor had diagnosed, and right there among all the potential symptoms (which is already risky for the reasons described in this video) was a statement that some people never have any detectable symptoms. I couldn’t help but think that, if someone was looking up a condition because it might be have hereditary elements, a statement like that without any context like how often or rare it is to have the condition without any symptoms is not going to be helpful for their anxiety. Some of that is probably from the sites wanting to cover themselves in case someone wants to take them to court because the website left them thinking they were fine when they weren’t. But there’s got to be a better way of tempering that advice about possibly having something when you are otherwise asymptomatic.
I have a feeling I already self diagnosed myself…like I haven’t like physically said “yeah I’m so and so” but I keep thinking about it and I think about how much like me it is, and that’s hardwiring my brain to think I AM this thing
When I was a kid I had professional diagnosis and treatment they said that I had ADD and gave me strong amphetamines. I really grew up isolated in a cult and had an anxiety disorder and depression and OCD. The amphetamine addiction made things way worse but they kept me on them through middle school until early adulthood. I have never had a doctor help me one bit, they have only made things worse
I'm sorry that happened. It is worth noting that OCD and ADHD can be hard to separate if the doctor doesn't ask the right questions and there is significant bleed over between the two.
Wow! Thank you for this video! I’ve learned a lot from it and will take it with me. Beung a little sceptic or taking a little distance before believing myself or others around mental health isn’t a bad thing:)
I agree that self-diagnosis is a slippery slope… I work as a mental health counselor and I think as providers we should be careful about dismissing things that can be a source of support for many that otherwise would not have access to education and support and tools for healing. Narcissism is not cool and it’s no joke. Yes there is way too much info on-line from opinion based and/or unprofessional sources but there is also real and effective help from trained experts and that should not be minimized. Narcissistic abuse is not only a real issue it is a source of trauma for many. Sure, narcissism is the new buzz word and many people are using the term too freely and incorrectly…. But fir the people who have actually suffered at the hands of a narcissist, they need all the validation and support they can get. My advice is to stick w the trained professionals and experts, and avoid the videos created by the ex’s, the opinionated, and the so-called self-aware narcissists… that’s when it gets slippery. Thank you for your videos!
So important! I tapped into this as well and thought in between I might have BPD. It turned out that it was just PTSD, but it took me quite a while to address this to my therapist, because I was so afraid I might really have a personality disorder.
My heart goes out to you🤍 I so relate. I really struggle with not hopping on the “self-diagnosis” bandwagon. This past year I convinced myself that I was autistic, narcissistic, had borderline personality disorder and an onslaught of other things. It sounds humorous to even say that, but it has been a huge fear that something was deeply wrong with me. Even though everyone close in my life was like uhhh absolutely not. But I’ve been learning there’s just a lot of pain I haven’t addressed. It’s just crazy how much our brains can convince of something that’s not even close to being accurate.
Emma! Thank you! Seriously, these videos are very helpful and I feel I'm growing from them :) But, do you every administer anger management therapy? I would love to learn some of those skills, thoughts?
I agree, especially as someone who misdiagnosed myself when I was younger. There’s a reason that it’s frowned upon for even licensed doctor to diagnose themselves and it’s because you loose objectivity when you’re both the doctor and the patient. Often times if you think you have an illness you can start exhibiting symptoms that you didn’t have before because the human mind is biased and easily influenced. Also, mental illnesses are as real and serious as physical illnesses. I disagree fundamentally with the American healthcare system and I know it’s expensive but If you wouldn’t claim to have a physical illness like epilepsy without a diagnosis why wouldn’t you do the same for something like DID or ADHD? I have no issue with people being aware of their feelings, researching them, and/or bring up potential problems with your doctor. We shouldn’t have to but the reality is that sometimes doctors downplay issues and understanding your own feelings and issues can help you advocate for yourself. It can also lead to noticing problems that would otherwise go undiagnosed and untreated.
The method they used to tell the "truisms" is called "cold reading" and is useful in entertaining as well as deceiving people. Be benevolent and use these powers to make people smile.
All through my life I believed I had something wrong with me. I was treated differently as I was behind at school and couldn't regulate my emotions. As a grown up I had an autism assessment but I was told I wasn't. I had a mental health assessment two years ago and the psychiatrist said I had traits of Avoidant Personality Disorder and Dependant Personality Disorder. I am now learning about myself and what I'm capable of. It doesn't matter if I take longer on a job now. I try to be kind to myself now too. I don't need a label to define me _ I'm just me!
I guess it depends on the person. The first time I read about Borderline Personality Disorder, I thought "uh, this sounds kinda like me" (dissociation, disliking losing people, mood shifts), but the more I read about it, the more I understood how it is like, and I could see that wasn't my diagnosis. Schizoid PD on the other hand... this time I was more doubtful and it took a long time to finally find useful information about it, but once I did, the more I read it, the more it made sense, down to some of the most emotionally important songs to me. I guess most people aren't "scientific" enough, in the sense they don't self doubt as much, and they don't dig too much into information, or try to false-proof their thoughts, consider multiple contradicting perspectives.
It’s also funny to me that self care and self love is treated as gospel but narcissist is the worst insult to throw at someone. Could you never hold narcissistic traits? Are you really destigmatizing mental health if you’re treating a personality disorder as a slur?
I created an intense amount of emotional suffering for myself by self diagnosing. How i wish i had stumbled upon this video sooner. Thankyou Emma for all you do, please keep these informative videos coming!
(trigger warning: talking about the concept of suicide)
Ever since I was a teenager, I always had this fear that I was going to one day kill myself. Not a desire to, just a fear that I would. I used to Google things like "signs that people might kill themselves", in an attempt to make sure that I didn't fit the criteria. I constantly checked for signs of having major depression, being bipolar, etc. Exactly as she says in this video, I empathized with everything I read, and I saw myself in every diagnosis. Things got so out of hand that in my early 20's, I basically had a mental breakdown. I became so convinced that something was "wrong" with me, and that I was going to end up killing myself, that I stopped making plans for the future because I legitimately didn't think I was going to be alive in a few months time. My fear of suicide caused so much anxiety that I became depressed, which only further convinced me that it was inevitably going to happen. I was a walking paradox.
Finally, the therapist I was seeing at the time (I'd seen probably 6 different therapists over the course of 13 years by that point) made an observation that changed my life: "You know, this might be OCD". I mulled over that for a while, and eventually took myself to a trained OCD specialist. Suddenly, so many things started to click. All of it; all of the obsessive self-diagnosing, the constant checking to make sure I wasn't a danger to myself, the intrusive thoughts that spiraled and stewed in my head for hours on end...I can't tell you how it felt to be able to separate those things from myself; to put a name to it all.
I'm happy to say that through years of training, practicing mindfulness, doing ERP (exposure response prevention) therapy, and some temporary help with medication, I have a much deeper understanding of myself and how my mind works. Now instead of being in a constant battle with my thoughts, I welcome them and let them flow as they wish.
So yes, I definitely agree with this video. Please be very careful about self-diagnosing. Your brain wants to protect you at all costs, which is wonderful, but sometimes in order to do that it will convince you that you're in danger even when you're perfectly safe. Sometimes it might feel like you're "broken", but ironically that feeling of being broken might just be a sign that your brain is stronger than ever. It means that it really cares about your well-being.
And of course, please don't self-diagnose yourself with OCD after reading this! Remember that I'm just a stranger commenting on a UA-cam video and I'm only sharing a tiny sliver of my experience.
Okay I've never related to something this much I swear I feel this like literally rn I feel like I might OCD see wow never really thought about this but now I understand thank you for sharing your story I'm so glad to hear you're better now ✨💙
Reading this comment my brain was just constantly going "OCD". I also have OCD and honestly it can be hard to decipher how many of my symptoms for other conditions I have are me overanalyzing, being anxious about having these disorders. I try my best to look carefully and logically at things and allow myself to just say "no, I don't do that actually" instead of spiraling into questioning if I do these things secretly. Lol.
Well, I'm not OCD but late diagnosed with autism. I have thought about suicide since I was 10. That made me go to specialists my entire life and even get wrong diagnosis, toke a lot of pills and neither ever worked on me. That was pretty harmful actually...
Coming across videos about autism and my wife's ADHD diagnosis I decided to go after help again, did a lot of tests and went through a lot of specialists and finally, I can understand my brain... It took me 31 years and I'm still learning how to process and deal with my brain...
Its similar to your history in a way. When we feel bad about something and try to find some answers online, we search and tend to find someone that can actually help us... In the end, both I and u had some kind of different brain, and I honestly think it would be worse if we just tried to belive we had nothing and didn't try to find any kind of help including online self diagnosis...
Another important thing, even if we think taking pills is a solution, at least in my country is impossible to do that without taking a professional appointment... So maybe we should put some effort into having better health professionals instead of blame or shame people that are only trying to understand themselves...
Sorry about any mistake, english is not my birth language...
I think it's the misunderstanding that most issues are on a spectrum and a 'disorder' crosses a certain boundary line on that spectrum. While many people may have tendencies for this or that, they generally don't have disorders. But also I would say we tend to downplay issues that don't cross the disorder threshold. Just because someone's not a diagnosable narcissist doesn't mean they couldn't maybe try to be a nicer, less selfish person in general. So it's a mixed bag currently. Personally I think we focus too much on diagnosis and not enough on simple self improvement in mental health areas.
My thoughts exactly. Of course mental health treatments and practices are most effective when catered to the individual, and diagnosis is a big part of that, but we are all human, and when we focus on the healthy habits that all or most humans benefit from, that will help us become a lot healthier.
where do these labels come from, where is the basis for claims that you have a disability and are therefore inferior because some guy you never met in your life diagnosed you with adhd and ocd, severe autism, genital warts, they could make up anything for fun if you find a sadistic enough doctor.
But its easier to just label you because of a slight abnormality in the brain or tendencies to do unusual things. If its so abnormal why don't you get your doctor to describe what a normal person should be since he gets to decide your fate.
If somebody is getting abused and that changes the physical makeup of their brain wouldn't it make more sense to try and understand them and help pull them back into reality instead of drugging them to the point of zombification because you don't feel like dealing with it then complain and lobby for change in a system you indulge in regularly
@@garbagecan6969 The labels are based on lumping things together that have similar appearances, and hopefully, treatments. Where things break down is when you start to get near the edges. The closer an autistic person gets to the schizophrenia spectrum the harder it is to make a reliable diagnosis and provide appropriate treatment. A similar thing happens with ADHD and OCD where you have to have some information about what you're seeing to know which it is.
At the end of the day, one of the reasons why you sometimes need intermediary diagnoses is that some conditions can be had at the same time without impacting treatment that much and some diagnoses really don't combine at all.
Best lines:
"Diagnosis is not an identity."
"Humans are suggestible."
"What I wish would become trendy is: personal responsibility, honesty, accountability, growth mindset, personal self-reliance and community values, and mental health education that everyone can access.... sadly it's a lot more fun to do decide your ex is a narcissist is more fun.
Thanks for another great video Emma! -- I listen while I run.
Diagnosis can be an identity and there's nothing wrong with that. Just because someone has self-diagnosed doesn't mean they don't have personal self-reliance or community values.
@@lv9265 I was diagnosed at 3. I don’t have a choice to self undiagnose.
Autism is a disability, not an identity. I don’t identify, I am.
@@A5H_01 Idk if you're disagreeing with what I said, but I stand by what I said.
@dinahn6955 you know nothing about me, troll.
Thx Emma. So glad you identified the therapist can sometimes lead to false causality… And that has caused massive problems. Keep the great contact coming!
yep, it's unfortunately true
@@TherapyinaNutshell 💯
Great info!
I've been watching for a while now but I've never commented. I think the biggest thing that's helped me is just seeing you acknowledge that it's okay to feel your emotions. Like I can read about it in books a hundred times, but to actually see someone doing it, validating it. It gives me so much strength, especially when it seems like the norm is to try to bury your emotions. Thanks Emma.
Thank you so much for addressing the narcissism trend. It's so often a way for people who've learned codependent ways of interacting to villainize people they've overextended themselves to. Narcissists will certainly appear to be everywhere if you repeat patterns of self betrayal in every relationship.
Thanks for the video, I'd like to add that you don't need to have a mental illness to have bad mental health.
Mental health still needs to be seen as more than just "illness/symptom/treatment" and would love to see more videos about mental health that doesn't have to stem or relate to a mental disease
I agree! I am currently in therapy, not because of an illness or disorder, but just because life got a little hard and sometimes you need help just because of what happens in life. I think everyone could use therapy once in a while, when things get though.
I’ve always felt as someone that’s been clinically diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder whenever I talk about my symptoms people try and “relate” to me it’s almost like everyone on the planet has anxiety because of how many people talk about it. But I never really feel like they understand the severity of some symptoms some days it’s debilitating for me.
Some people may understand and some may not…the experience is truly different for everyone.
At the heart of others trying to “relate” though, is often a general message of them trying to say ‘you aren’t alone’ or ‘I get anxiety too’.
Those may not be as validating as what you’re looking for from others…but people often struggle with what to do with others expressions of emotion etc. We can learn to say our truth to those who seem to genuinely care. We can say “I feel no one understands my experience with anxiety” & “I need that validated”.
Maybe some one could hold space for you in that. However, it needs to be a two way street…others are suffering in ways we don’t know, or see either, and when we have GAD, it can be hard for our lens to be able to take in others experience too. The greater the anxiety, the greater the self focus. It’s just how it goes. So, we can be blind in our blindness to others. Sometimes others minimize their own experiences when they see we are having major anxiety issues.
I had a friend with anxiety/depression and tried to be a “good” friend, by listening and saying small things about my own anxiety/depression…but never wanted to say “too” much because it seemed she didn’t have the “bandwidth” to receive it. I also didn’t want to burden her, didn’t want to detract from her pain.
The truth was…I was actually suicidal at times…I had learned to quiet my own voice/needs for t others.
She had so many easy life circumstances at the time, yet I knew depression and anxiety isn’t always situation dependent.
I was a single mom, working 12+ hours, sometimes barely making it and so much more… she later said how I was “outgoing” and had so many friends, was beautiful and that she envied me. Inside I was so stunned. I was suffering greatly.
We often don’t know how we are coming off. We often don’t know we are being seen through others filters.
The best thing we can do, is to really get to know our own selves, connect to ourselves, learn to communicate our truth, pick the right to communicate that truth to, and be able to reciprocate for others and their truth.
This is why self diagnosis is bad. If they all feel they can relate, chances are many of those people don’t have a disorder even if they think they do. Having anxiety during stressful times is normal. Having it to a high degree especially when things aren’t so stressful is not normal
I actually got upset about something. So my mom was signing me up for school, and on the paper sheet of having any disorders she put anxiety and depression. I am not diagnosed with either of those! Yes, I have always been an anxious person (even when I was really young) I probably don't have an anxiety disorder. Nor do I have depression (never called my mom out on it though)
I accurately “diagnosed” myself with depression, anxiety and complex ptsd. When I began therapy 2 years ago, I received the same diagnoses. I think people who exercise self-awareness can use the internet to determine their issues so that they can take steps to heal, but agree that self-diagnosing can be perilous.
I did the opposite, "definitely didn't have bipolar", that didn't hold up so well! I think the information on the internet can be a bit limited to stereotypical presentations of mental illness, beyond which it's difficult to have an informed understanding without the experience to back it up.
@@DefinitelyNotTwitter To be fair the information your MH provider has could also be limited to stereotypical representations too.
Or did your self diagnoses cause you to manifest these disorders
This is the first sane, comprehensive video I have seen regarding the self-diagnosis craze. Everything you talk about makes complete sense, and I see myself clearly engaging in many of the behaviors you discuss. Listening to this was like looking into a dirty mirror for many years, and seeing only a distorted reflection. Your words wiped my mirror clean, and I was able to see things as they truly are. Thank you for that!
As someone who does have ADHD, I have to say as well that it’s not just people being over labeled due to over discussion, it’s also the type of narratives that get spread. Some are very easily digestible and get projected all over social media, while others fade to the background. Just this broad mischaracterization of a disorder still leaves people behind. It’s very easy for parents to talk about getting their little boys accommodations at school and spread success stories. It’s a lot harder to talk about how ADHD is weaponized, how it affects relationships, racial and gender discrimination, class privilege, etc.
Its just not as neat of a package and leaves all involved parties to self reflect and be questioned.
why is that how can it be okay for one view but the other one has a similar narrative and its tossed into the ally like a used condom, there are bigger players pulling the strings from the top down, its high time we expose their angle to a broader audience. The powers that B have every base covered, if you care at all you will weaken their supports, help spread the message that you may not escape their grasp, but you will fight it to the very end, don't let them take your sovereignty the words i speak are true google it in your heart
I agree sooooo much with this! I think we talk about "keeping good mental health" so much but no one really knows what that means other than "being happy", and sadly no one dares to feel down for 10 minutes even for a genuine reason as this means they're "depressed". There's so many wrong messages out there on mental health and i think it's making us all worse. A product of it's own making!
I couldn't agree more !
“You know what isn’t trendy but I’d love for it to be cool again?! Personal responsibility, honesty, accountability, growth mindset.” THANK YOU!!! This should be 2022's tagline FOR SURE! 👌
Narcissism is the buzzword now. I’ve been diagnosed a narcissist ( by my ex with no degree). She had a friend who diagnosed her husband as a narcissist, then all of the sudden I was. Be careful who your friends are.
All of trends you would like to see are coming back, you just have to train yourself to see and type in those words you listed. Then, you’ll see them everywhere.
yep. Apparently 3xs as many people search the term "Narcissist" as search the term "depression" it's just such a popular thing right now- but always about diagnosing someone else.
There's narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder. People head the first and assume the latter, especially in an ex they now hate.
While I agree it's a buzzword that's overused, there are people who do match a large number of what is considered narcissistic traits. Ex: There's content from therapists regarding complex PTSD, childhood trauma and narcissistic parenting styles. I use the term narcissistic because it's the easiest way to describe parents who are controlling, invalidating, neglectful, abusive, self-centered and use conditional love with their children. Saying "narcissistic traits" is also different from trying to diagnose someone as NPD or other cluster B personality disorders.
As a person with a somatoform disorder, this video hits close to home. I've suffered from anxiety and depression for most of my adult life, but it wasn't until recently that the somatoform portion manifested. I've always been easily suggestible and I was the one who could manifest symptoms just by reading about them. Just being aware of the disorder has helped me to differentiate between real symptoms and somatics symptoms. Don't get me wrong, there are still days when I can't tell if I really have a medical problem or if it's all just in my head. Thank you for the video and the reminder to refrain from self-diagnosis.
I totally relate with this.
Thank you very much, this video came at the right time to help me (save me) from the confusion I am going through this week after reading a book about childhood wounds and trauma. This confusion made me lose my everyday landmarks and put me in a state of unfounded sadness and a negative state of mind wasting the day in negative ideas and twisted interpretations of my memories to the point that I started having insomnia
When I saw the title of your video (in the notifications) I was shocked, pleasantly surprised. Thank you from Tunisia
It's about time someone addresses this. I'm pretty shocked that the actual mental health experts themselves are perpetuating the self-diagnosis trend. And even if it isn't their intention, as the experts on mental health, they should really know better.
Is it? You wouldn't be shocked if you realized just how unreliable professional mental health diagnoses are. Apart from some people with psychotic disorders or intellectual disability, there's no real guarantee that self-diagnosis will be less reliable than a professional one.
I agree with most of your points. On the flip side, self-diagnosis can be life-changing, even life-saving. Despite decades of extensive analysis, I was never given a correct diagnosis by professionals. It took me being at the end of my rope to come to a self-diagnosis. This was the only way I could acquire a professional diagnosis. I now have my life back only because of my self-diagnosis. It's not because of medication or treatment, but because of knowledge and using it in my life.
I believe It can be even more harmful to avoid self-diagnosing. It would have been for me. As with most things, the best course is one of balance.
I agree wholeheartedly. Both for individuals to self-diagnose themselves just like the way you described, as well as the fact that awareness of certain patterns with a lot of different issues like narcissistic, borderline, antisocial and other personality disorders can really help victims of abuse cope and come to terms with a lot of trauma experiences, and even save their/our lives, too. And in terms of identifying the how and why as to how an abusive partner might be abusive to us (because it's very rarely ever as clear-cut as "Yes, 1000%, they're abusing me!"), that tends to be one of the first of many steps it takes to make sense of the entire experience and eventually finding your way out. (And honestly, I think there's always been a lot of issues with this and that it's like she said with ASD - because now that there's more awareness and research done on these issues, more people are inherently diagnosed, which should be expected. And I think when people, not Emma necessarily but I do see it a lot, accuse victims/survivors of abuse across the board to be wrong about how their partners treated them because they use a word like "narcissistic" to describe them, it's basically gaslighting at times. Especially when victims can look at several different lists and put together what their partner is and isn't, as well as the consequences they've dealt with as a result of that abuse.)
So many people need to watch this! The Internet really does encourage people to try diagnosing themselves or their children. I've known a lot of mothers who've become convinced that their child has autism or ADD or whatever because they read a vague description on the Internet and thought it sounded "just like" their child.
It's done purposely this way. Anyone can be diagnosed with something, and solution for everything is ... yeah pharmaceutical drugs...
The problem there is that ADHD and ASD, in particular, aren't things that are always reliably diagnosed. If it were something like AIDS or vision impairment where you get a test, or series of tests, and have a reliable result, that's one thing. But, with autism and ADHD in particular a self-diagnosis isn't necessarily any less reliable than a professional one is. I was in my late 20s before I got a provisional ADHD diagnosis and the only reason why I don't have an autism diagnosis is that I couldn't get an Asperger's Syndrome diagnosis under the previous criteria because I already had a bunch of wrong schizophrenia spectrum diagnoses and at the time, that wasn't an allowable comorbidity.
People often times greatly overestimate the accuracy of mental health diagnoses, but it's pretty bad, most of the time they cant even figure out whether somebody is depressed or an insomniac. And those are both common problems and in a lot of ways have opposite treatments.
This is a tough topic, and there's a lot of nuance here. I could see in for a lot of the discussion, there was a focus on people making snap self-assessments, which I think differs to people who take their time in researching and understanding a condition that they've self-diagnosed with. There's a chance in both cases for it to be incorrect completely or partially, but I think the situation for someone who has really taken their time, done their homework, and reached out to find professional help will have a vastly different outcome than someone who has convinced themselves they have something over a short period of time. It's hard, sometimes even doctors ignore your need for help, or don't take the time necessary to actually investigate the problem with you to see how bad it really is. There's so many reasons why people turn to self-diagnosis. But I think if you're thorough, level headed, and focused on recovery, you will eventually have a proper diagnosis and treatment.
Spot on about not identifying too much with a diagnosis, it's very focused on the problem instead of focusing on the things that can be done to make living easier to manage.
Fantastic video! I’m definitely guilty of reading different diagnoses online, thinking I have a diagnosis, noticing aspects of that diagnosis in my life and using that as confirming evidence that “this is what I have…for sure.”
And I’m sure I’ve used that as an excuse for many things. I really like what you said about personal responsibility being really cool. That’s an area I can improve on. If anyone knows of any good resources for personal responsibility, please send them my way! Meanwhile, I’m gonna go UA-cam some myself.
What you said at the very end resonated so well with me. You said (not an exact quote), that what you are going through is not who you are but rather an experience you are going through. Thank you so very much for that! And for the entire video as well. You are truly helpful. Many therapists mean well, but are not helpful. God bless you, Emma! I believe you can truly help me and many others!
I totally agree - it's not who I am it's what I am experiencing.
This resonates with me. I was seeing myself as an empath, HSP, had depression and anxiety, ROCD, codependency, etc etc. I’m waiting to see what my therapist says about me now.
Inaccurate/inaccessible professional diagnosis is a more harmful issue that needs to be addressed first because it is the root cause of self diagnosis.
YES! My daughter recently became physically ill on a holiday weekend. We didn't realize how VERY ill she was. We used an online nurse, who prescribed some simple medications, but missed a major diagnosis. When we got to the specialist a few days later, who gave the proper diagnosis, he was a little frustrated (but nice) that we had used an online nurse for care. BUT - *nothing* else was available!
At 63 I am still learning how to deal with emotions. My family never taught us how to deal with them. Emotions create thought create action/ reaction. So far I have learned to accept I am feeling such and such emotion. Question myself Do I need to take action or just allow. Accepting seems to bring emotion/ body sensations stopping. Not blocked they just go.
Pray to Christ.
I feel for you, so many families just survived on bare necessities or focus too much on material stuff, I feel like my emotions were never respected as a kid, only shunned or tolerated. I know I have so many issues and I don't understand why I feel a certain way, I end up hating myself (and everyone around me) but I don't want to. Am just glad to know there are people like you who have not given up.
@@lilhoneybun5390 You know, I do that a lot but sometimes, maybe God put people like this on earth to help us.
I feel like self diagnosing and labeling can be dangerous, especially when the information is not from a professional person/source. I started to looking into the spiritual side of the world like tarot cards and readings, I learned that other people project their experiences/issues on you and if you are in a desperate state and need answers you will believe in anything. It is the same in the mental health field, I had a ex friend diagnosing me and I just did not agree with her feedback, but I respect her opinions and told her I would look into but she was so aggressive and invasive of me believing her diagnose of me that she was telling people about my personal experience and want me to believe her diagnose of me so I can get the proper help I needed🤨 #shady. I was going through something and I just didn't need someone who is not an professional expert bulling and dismissive my experience. If I was in total distress and not mentally capable of handling that diagnose from someone who just looked it up on MedMD, I probably would of self harm myself. I feel like we have to be careful what we tell people even if it is advice or not, we don't know what people are going through and we should direct them to the proper help and if they don't want to take it then that is their choice and you have to respect it and not control it.
And fyi my ex friend later self diagnosed herself with the same diagnosis she try to give me, I know now that she was projecting her symptoms and issues on me. I am learning not to be mad because she was and is going through something and I am glad she found the peace in her self diagnose.
wow, this is a really mature response to someone's projections, I really commend you for being level-headed and fair to your friend despite her poor behavior. It seems like you were patient despite the drama she was causing and all the while you were already going through something difficult. I am curious though, how do you understand tarot cards and readings as something that can give you spiritual insights? Aren't the cards just random?
This is exactly why most Gen Z kids are lazy, and fail in school. Because they are self diagnosed or their parents diagnose them
And 9 times out of 10 these parents probably don't have any medical expertise
One of the reasons for avoiding actual professionals because most of them want you to take symtom suppressing drugs, like anti anxiety and anti depression, when there are other better ways of overcoming these issues.
So far Internet has been my best doctor and help.
Surely the real problem here is the inaccessibility of expert-led diagnosis and treatment options.
People self-diagnose using free online resources because it's the only option of those of us who are medically marginalised. Not because it's ideal.
Yes!
Agreed. I knew I had severe ocd, depression, anxiety, among other things for almost 5 years before i was able to get "help" through my college. But the two white women therapists I saw basically just said that my intuitions were right since they've been prevalent disruptions to my life. The same has been the case with Autism. I knew I was autistic at least 7 years before I was able to get a diagnosis, again through college. Again a white woman. All of these times, I knew and suffered for years without anyone believing in me. The only reason why I'm not dead is because I believed that there were conditions or disorders that were negatively harming me, leading to dysfunction.
People already don't believe marginalized folks. None of the three white women I saw believed me initially since I had such a strong belief in what i was experiencing. I'm bipoc and queer. For ocd, I went in and have certainly previously researched my treatment options, to the point that i was leading my own sessions. It's important for marginalized people to be able to advocate for themselves so that professionals don't take advantage of our lack of self awareness. I hope that makes sense. Medical distrust is real and valid. Ultimately, none of the three white women were good therapists for me, all invalidating in their own ways.
Unfortunately many will reject therapy for a good looking salesperson on UA-cam. Many (like the awful Richard Grannon) will actually say therapy is bad and those with complex trauma should buy his courses instead of seeing a therapist. Unfortunately, vulnerable people will buy into such tactics which is why we regulated TV.
The real problem lies in social media platforms enabling fraudsters to engage with vulnerable people with no recourse.
@@samfoston2336 Actually, "pros" are human beings and they are not exempt from being pompous, ego-centric and greedy either... or worse... so open your mind a little. Just a little.
Yeah the barnum effect is real !
It remind me also of the first year of medical school every student believe they have the disease they are studying !
When I read "the body keep the score" I felt traumatised even if I did went threw a rough childhood it definetely "made me" feel more bad about my past, same about reading and listening about manipulation, diets and all of that !
I'm curently reading a book called trance and treatment by David Spiegel, it talks about hypnosis and not every one is hypnotisable but for those who are it can be use as a strenght !
The placebo and nocebo effect also plays a huge role in this, so reading more about the solution than the problem, at least that's what I like to do, reading different type of therapy, like CBT, Exposure therapy... gives you tools instead of fear ! x)
Diagnosis is not about giving a fix mindset but just to know where we are to be able to move forward with the right tools !
It can be hard to not self diagnose when you cant access the assessment professionals you need. More and more I keep thinking I'm an adult on the ASD spectrum, but when I looked into clinics that can diagnose it, it will cost $2000. I'm left weighing if its worth spending 2000 to get diagnosed to gain supports to make life easier but possibly be discriminated against for the label, or not get diagnosed and continue to fumble through life not clear why certain situations feel difficult
Yeah, a lot of people self-diagnoze out of necessity and not because of ignorance, carelessness or desire to appear "interesting". Millions of people all around the world don't have access to good mental health care - and a diagnosis.
Okay but you don’t get that treatment by self-diagnosing either
I agree with the OP. Sometimes self diagnoses is the only option. That’s what brought me to this channel to be honest. I am very much aware I have a lot of mental health issues. Been that way since I was 5 when something happened that I will not discuss on the internet.
Ive seen at least a dozen therapists. Ive never benefitted from them. I just think now I am just hard wired to work through everything on my own. And it’s like my brained evolved or adapted because now, I have to work everything out myself before I can talk with others. Ive always just kinda been an outsider or alone. Had 3 sisters. Growing up they would be inside playing dolls and I was outside climbing trees and just sitting in the grass. I love nature. I’m a very empathetic person. I almost mirror the energy/emotion around me. So when something bad happens in society, I don’t go out because it hurts to be near them and the air is thick and muggy. I don’t like it. I live just a few towns over from Uvalde where the school shooting was recently. I went to the supermarket a few days after, and there was so much sadness and pain radiating from everyone. I left the store without buying anything and just went home. Surprise surprise, I live out in the country isolated from others. I don’t really have any family left from when I grew up. So I don’t feel like I have an anchor to hold on to. Which only makes me turn more inward. I recognize my problems, and why. But being aware of your crap and actually dealing with it are two totally different things. I am able to recognize my issues, figure out why or where it is stemming from. And now that I found this channel, it will be easier for me to deal with things. So thank you! I just want to be somewhat normal
I agree with this sentiment that the crazy financial costs or long wait times pushes people to diagnose themselves.
But unfortunately that's creating a systematical problem where institutions are pressured to accommodate people who say they are XYZ without a visit from a doctor or specialist, which I find quite harmful.
Basically people are faking it until they make it.
Here’s the thing, though. Let’s say someone self-diagnosis themselves with ADHD. They receive Adderall, a common prescription medicine given to people with ADHD.
Potential side effects if you take it and don’t have ADHD like you originally self-diagnosed yourself with: Psychosis, heart attack, sudden death.
OR, you can get arrested and taken to jail if you don’t have proof of having ADHD/proof of prescription because Adderall is considered a controlled substance.
I love this video! Thank you so much for sharing this valuable, golden information with us! So my conclusion is: I self-diagnose based on what people talk about (what is trendy). Right now as I watch this video, what is trendy is "people self-diagnosing", so I associate with that and I think "yeah, I am someone who self-diagnoses". I really love this video, once again thanks a million for educating us on mental health.
I find this video's message is so important in this era. We tend to believe that we can do everything by ourselves with just an internet connection. We cannot, we need other people. Information alone doesn't make us wise, especially when trying to use that information to analyze ourselves.
On the flip side until the mental health profession cleans up its act, there's no guarantee that a professional diagnosis is going to be any more reliable. Those are basically just hypotheses, granted ones that are based in experience, but they're still basically just guesses the same way that self-diagnoses are. It can be particularly problematic to get a professional diagnosis if you're dealing with something unusual or for which the knowledge has just come to light..
I'm 43 and I started getting mental health treatment about the time the DSM IV came out and nobody had any idea what the new autism variants were like in reality. By the time clinicians had any experience, I already had a bunch of wrong diagnoses that precluded getting a proper one without those other ones being reassessed. It's a real problem that self-diagnosis doesn't have. And given the lack of treatment options for the folks for which this applies, it's a real mess.
Thanks Emma, I also find this to be a big problem in public schools. Everyone want to 'label' the kids - but we aren't all qualified to do so. Some cases are a little big more "obvious," but I others aren't, and in the end we need to do the interventions or provide the accomadations regardless because we should just be doing what is best for the child.
You are so awesome Emma. Your voice and your mannerisms and your grounded common sense are all very calming to me. Thank you for the educational and helpful videos that are making us better people.
I'm online looking for mental health information because I am the best person to know myself. I have a few diagnoses, but nobody seems to have the time to get to know my very complex and multidimensional brain. So, to figure out how to cope, I watch UA-cam videos to learn about the different mental disorders and find their associated "toolbox" of therapies and suggestions. I look through these toolboxes thoroughly to find the ones that work to help me feel better. Sometimes I have many features of a disorder, other times it's just interesting information. The same features come up as part of many different disorders. It's easier to treat myself as a whole human though, instead of a pamphlet selection from the DSM-V.
I'm sharing because I want you to know we're not all taking cursory glances and getting confused. Some of us have tried professional help and found it wanting.
@dinahn6955 Well, no, because I've never thought all my problems stem from a mental disorder. Why do you ask?
Thank you for this Emma. Fascinating. And real. Exactly what I love about you. I'm learning so much.
hi emma! i really appreciate all the effort into making manageable chunks of super important information to take care of our emotions and making us become the people we truly desire, i really appreciate your channel and you’ve taught me so much, keep doing what you do :D
Thank you so much!!
Dang. This might be the best video on your channel. The video made me reflect on my own mental health and if I do just to conclusions too quickly (e.g. I'm depressed, have anxiety, BPD, etc). I've really got a lot of self-reflection to do. Thank you for the great video, Emma. Hope you're doing well!
This video is so important. TikTok has fed into this like CRAZY. People are even gender transitioning based off of things they saw online, only to later regret it & realize they don't actually have gender dysphoria. So dangerous.
I'm really happy I found your videos. I am a person who has uh, suspects, about myself and adhd. Beyond my own personal experience with the idea of self diagnosis, there is a real undercurrent on tiktok especially of discussing attributes of mental health issues. You pointed out narcissism and that is a really big one. Adhd and the term 'trauma response' are also big buzzwords. I hate to call them trendy because they are things that people experience and need room to talk about but as you said, there needs to be context and I think that's really something alot of media is lacking.
I self diagnosed with DID because I have the symptoms but I was officially diagnosed with delusions, but my voices are alter voices, I hope my psych notices it in the future.
Social media is making narcissism out of control.
I can't even begin to describe how important the work you do is to so many of us. This is so relevant to me and I think I needed to hear this. Thank you!
Thank you for these videos. You truly are making a different. I’m 23 turning 24 soon and this has been the toughest couple weeks of my life. Your videos helped me better calm down and remember thought are just thought. I’ll carry these emotional tools with me always. Thank you 😊😊❤️
❤ I hope that all you experience is an opportunity for growth and learning and that things get better for you
I’ve also noticed waves of people being diagnosed with the same trendy diagnosis. I’ve noticed it since the late 1990s. Great video.
It happens, any time a new diagnosis is created. It's one of the reason why there shouldn't be so much attention paid to older diagnoses, especially ones done using older standards. But,that happens with professionals as well.
Narcissism. LOL. I got pulled into that trend, but it actually started me down the path that saved me. I thought my gal was a narc, she thought I was one. Nope. We're actually both on the co-dependent side of the things, low self-esteem.
Except when you push co-dependents they can snap like a narcissist. Remember, they likely grew up co-dependent because they were around narc behavior. So they know how to throw down and get mean, too.
After six months of self-analysis (prepping for a professional I didn't end up needing), I realized neither of us were narcs. We were both co-dependents, trauma survivors, and sufferers of sleep deprivation and C-PTSD. And we were stuck in a 'victim cycle' and constantly concerned about the other. Way stressful, right?
My whole life I'd been told I was bi-polar because of my anxiety and depression and high energy level. Nope. Just anxiety from the pressures I place on myself as a co-dependent. And understandable depression from the internal schemas and the anxiety.
In my experience, I'd say 90% of professionals shouldn't be practicing. My case was EASY. G.D. textbook. 30 years and I ultimately had to do the work myself.
I sure wish I'd had someone like our host working with me. She better than anyone I've ever seen, studied, read, or worked with.
Here’s to the best year… the year of healing, and greatness ❤️🙏🏽
Cheers to that because I am sick and tired of all the medical bs especially the number of medication push through advertisement.
@@japplesin yesss we love to see it! This year will be the year for good people 🙏🏽❤️
Thank you! As an outpatient therapist LCSW who is tired of armchair diagnosticians, I subscribed to your channel based on this video alone!
Thank you so much! Your videos are so honest, real and very helpful to me. I'm grateful for everyone else who made it possible for me to watch this invaluable resource. I watched and did all exercises in your Dealing With Emotions course once and going to watch it again Thank you, Emma.
All the best and warmth and love to your growing family.
I have one person in my life who I think is (or may be) a narcissist. The person is the only person I have known who I think fits the description. Whether the person is or is not a narcissist, I find that responding to the person's behavior through that lens has been exceedingly helpful. On the whole, however, it actually makes logical sense to assume that most people are normal. It's in the very meaning of the word "normal." There's a lot of variation in human behavior, but most behaviors make sense in certain particular contexts most of the time. We have witnessed a tendency to pathologize everything. People have emotions. They vary. Strong emotional responses to life are not usually evidence of anything other than the fact that life can be challenging.
Unfortunately, now there seems to be a trend of professionals dismissing their client's concerns before hearing them out. I would like to see more professionals providing both step 1 - the cautionary tale of self-diagnosis, and step 2 - a genuine conversation, and potentially evaluation, to validate their client's experience and, hopefully, to ease their mind if they are, in fact, simply showing signs of being human.
Right! I'm trying to seek an ADHD assessment and I had to fire my therapist over it. I've decided to shell out money for a professional evaluation from someone who is not in a therapeutic relationship with me so I can rule it out. All I want is the option to rule it out. Or learn to manage it if it turns out I have it. Or where to look next if it turns out I don't.
Yeah. I had pages of notes at my Dr.'s and I only brought up "autism spectrum referral.. maybe?" and he asked not a single question, and tried making a joke saying I'm "not an asperger". Ok doc. I fake laughed. Haha, I realized you tried a joke. I must have nothing going on, sweep it all under the rug!
Not to mention I got bumped on a waiting list for a neurologist concerning 4.5 yrs-long debilitating chronic pain. Ah... cool... "trust the pros"...
Thank you! Best psychology 101 explanations I have come across, about the impact of our surrounding, of the advertising of the pharma industry and of the labelling of people. The pharma industry's objectives are to "develop" and sell more "cures and medicine", to grow their business.
That is why the health cost (or wouldn't it be better to say the "illness cost") keeps increasing.
I've gone 2+ years of waitlisting and gatekeeping to get a state recognised autism diagnosis, and I've been threatened to be dropped more than once for not knowing how to navigate that bureaucratic maze on my own. So yeah, I'm not gonna scold someone less privileged than me who couldn't go through this and decide to fix their own life on their own. So much talk about mental health from doctors themselves assume you can summon them freely like genies in a bottle, and ignore how incredibly broken and abusive the psychiatric system is in the western world, it's absolutely infuriating.
THIS.^
Thank you!
Absolutely.
yep
This is valuable, important and indeed very necessary for all to hear. Thank you.
Glad you think so!
You've convinced me not to engage in self diagnosis anymore, thanks
This is probably the most helpful video ive seen ever for mental health, thank you : 3
Thank you . The bit about something you're experiencing, not who you are got me.
just because people are over diagnosing, doesnt mean rise of mental illness isnt real. suicide and self harm rates are increasing as well. anyways i know you know that and i really appreciate the video too, i just think this kind of argument is a slippery slope to arguing increase in mental illness is purely bc of more self diagnosing, when its actually to do with other psychosocial reasons.
hey a really helpful video and I agree about seeing or projecting narcissism in many people around you but there is a great deal of suffering caused to you when you are either brought up in a family with one or two malignant narcissists or were in relationships of the sort. thanks
Thank you! You’ve explained this so well and yet people still getting annoyed with people like you telling them this. Thank you for speaking out. As someone with ADHD, I had been diagnosed by two doctors. BUT all I had to do was get my GP and or psych to diagnose me through a series of qualifications instead of official testing. i didn’t have to spend money on official testing, so, at least with stuff like ADHD and depression and other disorders it seems you only have to have a couple of doctor visits and most people should be able to get that on insurance 🤷 idk what the issue is with people using this excuse they have to diagnose because they can’t do a couple of doctor or psych visits… I’m in the US
Some people straight up dont have insurance luv
@@k1ss4fr0g Yes, and even if we do, there's no guarantee that it will be covered. Plus, if you're talking ADHD, the tests for ADHD in adults are pretty much non-existent.
This is such an important thing for each of us to consider.
Thank you for this video. This is so important.
Thank you for laying out this difficult issue and telling it like it is. Your message is very balanced.
I agree with what you are saying 100%. However, no adays access to counselling or mental health is so hard and if it is available, it is very expensive (as a lot of folks don't have insurance to cover it).
So how then do you expect people to get help? Just to sit there and accept their fate? Yes the internet can send a person down a rabbit hole of misinformation -- but sometimes that is all they have.
Well, I hope this video addressed the first lesson- be cautious about over diagnosing yourself. learn about mental health in a context of treatment, not brokenness. Honestly, I know that so many people can't access mental health services, so I made this video to try to address the gap I saw there.
@@TherapyinaNutshell And I am grateful for the work and help you shared. =)
@@TherapyinaNutshell In my experience, clinicians are far more likely to overdiagnose than patients are. In order to get insurance to pay for the sessions there has to be a diagnosis, even if one has to be made to fit. It's how I got such a very long list of diagnoses on my record whereas, I would have given myself a fraction of those and probably removed most of the ones I did give myself.
By the way: in the Medicaid-level behavioral health system, there is no such thing as psychological evaluations. I requested one at my former clinic and they claimed "we do one every time you come in here!" But they don't, they will never do it, and I can't find a practitioner who will do it for love or money.
But they will happily supply me with prescribers who ask leading questions about my symptoms and rely on decades-old snap diagnoses for my current treatments.
Hi Emma, this video is brilliant and I totally agree with you. 👏.
People shouldn't own the illness or labelling until a medical diagnosis has been made. It causes so much unhappiness, hopelessness and worry for individuals.
Your video has hopefully brought about an awareness which is perhaps not considered by many people.
God bless. 🙏 xx
It always seems like your videos are in perfect timing for me and give me the information I need. Thank you for giving these to the community! 🙏
Thanks Nick!
The arguments put forth in this video are so VERY, VERY true.
I have major depression, underlying depression and anxiety disorder off an on since childhood with issues of child abuse and sexual abuse with fears of being alone and since having a full hysterectomy 9 years ago I am battling it again but the last 18 months have been the worst. I haven't been able to work much and fear getting old and losing loved ones so I keep praying for God to take me home. I have tried many meds but I can't get rid of that fear and don't want to make any effort. I don't know why God takes those that don't want to go and leaves those here that want to go.
I'm really excited for my appointment next week because I'm going to be completely honest with my therapist and get a proper diagnosis for what I believe is the first time. About 10 years ago I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety and because I was harming my therapist said that I might have borderline personality disorder but never really gave me a definitive assessment. Believing that it was just depression and anxiety I did some talk therapy and took my medication but I didn't really improve over the 10 years that I saw him and when covid hit I stopped seeing a doctor and being on my medication for a year and a half. In that time things got really bad so I started trying to implement lifestyle changes and doing research on things and based on my findings and things that I didn't tell my therapist at the time because I had thought it wasn't important or that he wouldn't believe me because he was also seeing my mother at the time which I now know he shouldn't have been doing but I didn't really know at the time that my compulsions and my obsessions weren't just me being weird or strange. After a Year's worth of research I realize now that a lot of the fears of contamination and all the rituals I did with numbers and all these strange rules and thoughts that I had that I used to do little rituals to negate weren't actual facts but when I now believe is obsessive compulsion disorder. I grew up with a very superstitious and paranoid mother who came from a country where they are very superstitious and believe in magic and things like that and it led me to believe that thoughts were magic based on the things that she told me one of them being that whatever you think happens. I would do things like look up at the ceiling because I thought if you would look down and maybe say something or get a weird thought that it meant you were singing or saying something like that to the devil and that you would go to hell or be possessed. I would do a bunch of rituals and compulsions to negate that anxiety so that I wouldn't be punished and I did that well into my 30s before I realized hey these are just things my head came up with to get rid of anxiety based on fears that I have. The thing is I never ever in 10 years told my doctor about any of these compulsions or thoughts because I genuinely thought that they were real things. I feel like I got to the point where I stopped having so many outward compulsions like changing my bed sheets if a fly landed on it or if I happen to see a string of numbers that are significant in Christianity as evil that I would have to do some other number related compulsion to negate the evil. The only issue is that now that I realized those things are or were silly my obsessions of gone from magical thinking to more real world meta OCD type things and fears such as harming people or having a disease or having a mental illness that I don't show signs of and don't have and then likewise all the compulsions that come along with that and all the avoidance.
I'm really looking forward to getting back on my medication and hopefully getting a better therapist who will help me deal with these issues but while I know it's not good to solve diagnose I think that if I would have just continued to believe that it was just depression and not do some research I wouldn't have ever discovered that all the things I thought were real or fact just because I thought of them who weren't real at all.
I also am excited to talk about my trauma/abuse and really getting to heal because even though I was an adult my mother was still sitting in on a lot of my sessions and I really couldn't say anything that I wanted to say without her interrupting me in correcting me and giving me dirty looks so I shut up and didn't say anything bad about her.
Thank you so so much for this video. Long time subscriber, first time commenter. This video has been my favourite. It was the title, not the thumbnail that captured me. FYI
Thanks for this video. Super important concepts.
I can’t believe some of these comments you clearly speak about the self diagnosing being a result of of poor accessibility. Her point still stands.
Definitely interested in that future video about narcissism. ive been a victim of suspecting people in my life are narcissists because of that recent youtube trend
Thank you so much for bringing the online diagnosis down to an understandable level. You are SOOO correct with your lesson!!! I’ve recently retired and am in the process of trying to figure things out for myself and have fallen into the exact trap that you described! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! Your “common sense” advice is fantastic and I’ll be waiting for the next video! Good luck and thanks again! Ed
Thanks Ed!
Too much access to Psychology since more than 6 months. felt to me like I had this feeling of Longterm Guilt than usually way back, A year ago. I just want to say Thank You for this WHOLESOM information, Like I'm feeling of understanding my self, I am Convinced that I have Misdiagnosed my self, influenced Some Friends, and made me Complex to Understand. I am Like, drained from the Crude and unexperienced information that was on the back of my Fore head. Stressed But 😊 I will Choose Gratitude. like to Express again my Deep engagement in thankfulness To You Ma'am, the creator of this Video I'm just very Greatful that you were one of the person who helped me, that encouraged me To trust again and brought me to My senses Again.
Great to see this covered. Ive seen people self diagnose mental health problems in personal life and they fall into the role of being more ill than before.
That's because people self-diagnose primarily due to a lack of appropriate health care. So, of course they're going to have more problems.
EXCELLENT video!!!! Thank you for addressing personal responsibility.
I think those who self diagnose tend to overlook the outer aspects of the illness/disorder. They often say “we know our inner feelings better than anyone else”, which is kind of a controversial idea, but they also don’t know what they look like on the outside. Now, many things can manifest differently, but even then, there are outer signs that range from light to severe. Also, they might forget that in some situations, you NEED to have papers/documents confirming you are DIAGNOSED with the disorder you have. If you want to get help for a disorder, self diagnosis might help you in a sense of where to begin, but it certainly won’t help you when you need physical proof of your illness. (Documents and paperwork). Also, I wonder if some people are rude and aggressive towards those who self diagnose not because they hate them for doing it, but because they want to protect them from the potential harm of it. Maybe the aggression and hate is their way of trying to knock someone into getting real help, and preventing danger. Idk tho
This makes me think of a recent head-shaking moment I had. I was looking into something a doctor had diagnosed, and right there among all the potential symptoms (which is already risky for the reasons described in this video) was a statement that some people never have any detectable symptoms. I couldn’t help but think that, if someone was looking up a condition because it might be have hereditary elements, a statement like that without any context like how often or rare it is to have the condition without any symptoms is not going to be helpful for their anxiety.
Some of that is probably from the sites wanting to cover themselves in case someone wants to take them to court because the website left them thinking they were fine when they weren’t. But there’s got to be a better way of tempering that advice about possibly having something when you are otherwise asymptomatic.
I like how you color code your bookshelves. It looks very nice!
Emma, THANK YOU - MUCHAS GRACIAS. This video is informative and so much needed.
I have a feeling I already self diagnosed myself…like I haven’t like physically said “yeah I’m so and so” but I keep thinking about it and I think about how much like me it is, and that’s hardwiring my brain to think I AM this thing
When I was a kid I had professional diagnosis and treatment they said that I had ADD and gave me strong amphetamines. I really grew up isolated in a cult and had an anxiety disorder and depression and OCD. The amphetamine addiction made things way worse but they kept me on them through middle school until early adulthood. I have never had a doctor help me one bit, they have only made things worse
I'm sorry that happened. It is worth noting that OCD and ADHD can be hard to separate if the doctor doesn't ask the right questions and there is significant bleed over between the two.
Wow! Thank you for this video! I’ve learned a lot from it and will take it with me. Beung a little sceptic or taking a little distance before believing myself or others around mental health isn’t a bad thing:)
I agree that self-diagnosis is a slippery slope… I work as a mental health counselor and I think as providers we should be careful about dismissing things that can be a source of support for many that otherwise would not have access to education and support and tools for healing. Narcissism is not cool and it’s no joke. Yes there is way too much info on-line from opinion based and/or unprofessional sources but there is also real and effective help from trained experts and that should not be minimized. Narcissistic abuse is not only a real issue it is a source of trauma for many. Sure, narcissism is the new buzz word and many people are using the term too freely and incorrectly…. But fir the people who have actually suffered at the hands of a narcissist, they need all the validation and support they can get. My advice is to stick w the trained professionals and experts, and avoid the videos created by the ex’s, the opinionated, and the so-called self-aware narcissists… that’s when it gets slippery. Thank you for your videos!
So important! I tapped into this as well and thought in between I might have BPD. It turned out that it was just PTSD, but it took me quite a while to address this to my therapist, because I was so afraid I might really have a personality disorder.
My heart goes out to you🤍 I so relate. I really struggle with not hopping on the “self-diagnosis” bandwagon. This past year I convinced myself that I was autistic, narcissistic, had borderline personality disorder and an onslaught of other things. It sounds humorous to even say that, but it has been a huge fear that something was deeply wrong with me. Even though everyone close in my life was like uhhh absolutely not. But I’ve been learning there’s just a lot of pain I haven’t addressed. It’s just crazy how much our brains can convince of something that’s not even close to being accurate.
I like how you said its something you're experiencing not who you are
OMG THIS VIDEO IS LITERALLY WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS. ❤❤❤
Emma! Thank you! Seriously, these videos are very helpful and I feel I'm growing from them :) But, do you every administer anger management therapy? I would love to learn some of those skills, thoughts?
Thank you Emma keep up the good work you are a breath of fresh air :)
I agree, especially as someone who misdiagnosed myself when I was younger. There’s a reason that it’s frowned upon for even licensed doctor to diagnose themselves and it’s because you loose objectivity when you’re both the doctor and the patient. Often times if you think you have an illness you can start exhibiting symptoms that you didn’t have before because the human mind is biased and easily influenced.
Also, mental illnesses are as real and serious as physical illnesses. I disagree fundamentally with the American healthcare system and I know it’s expensive but If you wouldn’t claim to have a physical illness like epilepsy without a diagnosis why wouldn’t you do the same for something like DID or ADHD?
I have no issue with people being aware of their feelings, researching them, and/or bring up potential problems with your doctor. We shouldn’t have to but the reality is that sometimes doctors downplay issues and understanding your own feelings and issues can help you advocate for yourself. It can also lead to noticing problems that would otherwise go undiagnosed and untreated.
The method they used to tell the "truisms" is called "cold reading" and is useful in entertaining as well as deceiving people. Be benevolent and use these powers to make people smile.
I am just loving this channel more & more. Take love Emma 💗
All through my life I believed I had something wrong with me. I was treated differently as I was behind at school and couldn't regulate my emotions. As a grown up I had an autism assessment but I was told I wasn't. I had a mental health assessment two years ago and the psychiatrist said I had traits of Avoidant Personality Disorder and Dependant Personality Disorder. I am now learning about myself and what I'm capable of. It doesn't matter if I take longer on a job now. I try to be kind to myself now too. I don't need a label to define me _ I'm just me!
Hello 👋 dear ,how are you doing?
@@Godwinpounds4333 fine thanks 👍
@@sarahblunden4372 it nice meeting with you here Sarah, where are you texting from?
@@Godwinpounds4333 UK
@@sarahblunden4372 Am from Denmark, It rained like hell last night. How is the weather condition over there?
I guess it depends on the person. The first time I read about Borderline Personality Disorder, I thought "uh, this sounds kinda like me" (dissociation, disliking losing people, mood shifts), but the more I read about it, the more I understood how it is like, and I could see that wasn't my diagnosis. Schizoid PD on the other hand... this time I was more doubtful and it took a long time to finally find useful information about it, but once I did, the more I read it, the more it made sense, down to some of the most emotionally important songs to me.
I guess most people aren't "scientific" enough, in the sense they don't self doubt as much, and they don't dig too much into information, or try to false-proof their thoughts, consider multiple contradicting perspectives.
It’s also funny to me that self care and self love is treated as gospel but narcissist is the worst insult to throw at someone. Could you never hold narcissistic traits? Are you really destigmatizing mental health if you’re treating a personality disorder as a slur?
Thank you, Emma!! Your videos help me so much!