#self-dx

*sees a video of traits* I do that, so now I’m gonna call myself that

What it actually is:

*sees video or post about traits* oh hey I do that

*gets curious and looks it up* 

*denies having it cause “i don’t relate to this at all”* 

*realizes that they do, diagnostic criteria are just very ridged and don’t provide a lot of explanation* 

*maybe a breakdown or two*

*talks to friends who have it*

*laughing about this anxiety, only for the scary moment of “oh yeah no that sounds like *insert disorder here**

*talks to a therapist if able*

*talks to strangers who have it*

“Maybe it’s not this, maybe it’s this...”

*More research to try to prove themselves wrong*

*realizes all the childhood/teenage moments that should have been a red flag* 

“Well, all these other people have it like this, but mine is different, so I don’t have it!” “No, that’s still a trait/symptom, just less well know or less sensationalized”

*finally coming to terms that maybe you have it*

*depending on what the disorder is, fearing your social life is fucked*

@queerautism I'd like to thank you for potentially resulting in a POTS diagnosis. Genuinely, I appreciate the work that you do and your blog's content.

With that out of the way, I'd just like to let y'all know that if I do, in fact, have POTS, this will be the fourth time I have gotten a diagnosis of a medical condition due to content from our favorite hellsite, tungly.hell - the first three being anxiety, PTSD, and autism.

Keep shitposting. Keep talking about yourselves. Keep sharing content. If it wasn't for fucking tungly.hell, I might have never found out about multiple of my health issues, if any of them!

first of all, i support educated self-diagnosis

(educated!)

however, please do keep in mind that when you're looking at a list of symptoms, especially in personality disorders, and you relate to like all of them, or most of them, it's only a disorder if it has a negative effect on your life

so for example with the obsessive-compulsive pd, the first symptom on this list (also linked in my little 'what even are cluster C pds?' post) is “Focusing on details and order”

this doesn't mean paying attention to detail

it means focusing on details and order too much, to the point of it impacting your life negatively (for example perfectionism and not being able to hand in stuff on time because you tried to make it perfect but it's never perfect or good enough for you; or focusing on the detail and order so much that you forget other things like having agreed upon a plan with someone beforehand, but something else coming up for them and them changing the plan, which you then can't accept because you're more focused on the fact that that's not what was agreed upon)

so please treat all symptoms on any list like this and think critically about these things

that being said, i fully support wondering whether you might have a certain pd, and i fully support educated self-diagnosis (hell i self-diagnosed as depressed for years before i could finally get a diagnosis and what do you know? im now diagnosed with depression!)

Doctors visits cost money

tests cost money

diagnosis's require multiple tests usually in multiple different places across multiple days if not weeks or months which requires reliable transportation to and from those appointments

in order to be tested in the first place your doctor must first believe you

doctors tend to disregard the complaints of women

doctors tend to disregard the complaints of fat people

doctors tend to disregard the complaints of people of color

doctors are literally just capable of and likely to be bigoted as anyone else

people who aren’t cishet white men are underdiagnosed because they don’t fit the specific criteria that cishet white men created based on the behavior of cishet white men

guess what. here’s a radical concept. some people are professionally diagnosed. But don’t know it. Because their parents decided not to tell them.

literally it’s none of your fucking business

literally it doesn’t hurt anyone