What you're describing is a big problem [edit: for the people who get sucked into it] and, to me, is kind of the "other side" of the overmedicalization issue that this blog is complaining about. One way medicalization harms is is when people are forced into conditions they don't agree with (as the author feels they have been). The other way is when people who aren't medical professionals (and wouldn't be in a position to diagnose even if they were) adopt medical language to describe experiences.

I guess my thoughts on the trend you're critiquing is that it happens almost entirely outside of the medical community. As you describe the people who are most impacted by this often find actual medical treatment unhelpful and un-validating and turn to self-medication or other "medically inspired" coping techniques. I think the people who actually don't have these conditions and are applying medicalized treatments and explanations are opportunistically drawing on medical language because people often respect it socially. But also there are lots of people who engage in self-deception (or just normal deception) for social advantage and I don't know that people who use medical language are better or worse? A word is just a word and unless that word is actually on a medical record somewhere it only has the power you give it.

The flip side of this is of course that the medical establishment has many well-studied and documented biases. They offer poor treatment to overweight people, black people, people with mental health diagnoses, basically every vulnerable population that's been studied gets worse service from medical professionals. That very reasonably leads to people distrusting "the system" and searching for coping mechanism outside of it. I think that is generally pretty harmless and helpful - as long as it doesn't get into the realm of serious self-medication like you describe. Basically if you like using a medical term to describe your experience ("I'm being really OCD today") I don't think there's much harm in it and you may find coping mechanisms for people with ODC helpful as a bonus.

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entropicdrifter 5 days ago | parent [-]

>Basically if you like using a medical term to describe your experience ("I'm being really OCD today") I don't think there's much harm in it and you may find coping mechanisms for people with ODC helpful as a bonus.

I was with you up until this point. My wife has C-PTSD, Bipolar type 2 and ADHD, along with what her psychologist describes as "Social OCD". I can't tell you how many times I've had to explain to other people that her mental illnesses are real and some days she and I just can't hang out because she smelled a smell that gave her flashbacks. Because people have normalized the language, they think "triggered" just means upset. For someone with real PTSD, it doesn't mean upset, it means their mind has come unstuck in time and they don't know who to trust or sometimes even what is real. Sometimes this lasts 5 minutes, sometimes it lasts almost all day. She just loses that time, and all I can do is try to calm her down and try to get her to take medication to re-stabilize her.

My wife has been in therapy with a PhD psychologist for 11 years, and only just this year has gotten to the point where it seems like she could probably hold down a job and keep her trauma compartmentalized like most people do all the time. People normalize the language for these debilitating full-blown disabilities and then don't understand the gravity of the situation when somebody with a legitimate mental illness of that sort of degree comes along.

Co-opting medical language for sub-disorder level dysfunctions is bullshit. And that's fine, when you're just bullshitting with your friends or whatever, but how is someone like my wife supposed to be seen or understood, let alone properly accommodated for when everybody thinks they know what a panic attack is but has never in their adult life been so panicked they became nonverbal?

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KittenInABox 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

I would posit your issue is not in co-option of terminology but in that ableism is still rampant and these are people who wouldn't take your wife seriously even if you described her symptoms. I have conditions that people do not uwu cutesy about on tiktok and people still illegitimate me when it inconveniences them slightly like canceling plans. People playing down disabilities the disabilities of others is extremely common. Being able to be flexible and accommodating to any degree I can to someone's disability has nothing to do with whether or not I think it is legitimate, and gating my flexibility to whether or not I personally judge someone's disability as legitimate is ableism plain and simple.

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entropicdrifter 5 days ago | parent [-]

I upvoted your comment because this is also a huge issue. I just find that the co-opted terminology does worsen the quality of dialogues about the co-opted terms. People need to have the symptoms fully described for them in detail and sometimes don't believe me or think I'm exaggerating because it doesn't match their preconceived notions of what those words mean.

I'm not saying that the problem isn't ableism, it absolutely is, just that the co-opting of the terms is still harmful in that it uses up spoons and makes it harder to communicate clearly, especially with those who are stuck on the pop-culture meanings instead of actual medical meanings.

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KittenInABox 5 days ago | parent [-]

I flagrantly disagree that disbelieving someone's disability or believe someone is exaggerating because it doesn't mean their preconceived notions is something that can be helped if the culturally known depictions were specific to your wife's depictions. This is the mental health equivalent of yelling at someone in a wheelchair who can stand for short periods of time. Disbelieving someone about a disability assumes I am even capable of telling who is "really" disabled, which is an ableist belief that will not go away even if all the TikToks that say they were triggered by a minor toe stub disappeared.

In fairness, I believe that people who make jokes and light of disability suck in that I also believe this is an ableist activity. And I fully believe you that this kind of uwu-ification of disability is used as justification for ableist people to behave shittility towards your loved one.

	▲	squigz 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		It's not really a matter of it entirely solving the issue. As the other commenter is trying to stress, these are 2 separate issues, even if 1 underpins the other. We can and should try to solve for both. The thing is, 1 is a heck of a lot easier to solve. So why wouldn't we? I don't think the position of "Having more accurate pop culture depictions of mental health issues and disabilities would enable better understanding from non-disabled people" is an entirely crazy one, and you haven't really made any arguments as to why we shouldn't do that.

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aeturnum 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I am so sorry to hear about what you and your wife have gone through. It sounds extremely frustrating and aggravating. I also suspect that when it comes up the people who downplay your wifes' conditions often act as if they are the insulted party.

We have an epidemic of not taking psychological conditions seriously. As my depression has worsened I've understood better the depth to which someone can fall and re-thought when it makes sense to say that I'm having a "depressive episode." I think there's a real issue of people mis-understanding diagnoses (in the way the comment I was replying to spoke about) and describing themselves as having them when their symptoms would not rise to the level of a diagnosis. Un-restrained by medicine and popularized by social media, watered-down understandings of disorders proliferate.

> Co-opting medical language for sub-disorder level dysfunctions is bullshit.

However, this I disagree with. Someone invoking PTSD or Bipolar to characterize their experience is not the same as claiming that label for themselves. I am not bipolar, but I mention the condition to talk about cyclic moods that I do experience (that are neither major depressive or manic but impact me). I think it's common to talk about a disease condition with the understanding that the condition has a range of severity.

I have a friend who was institutionalized for depression for a time. I don't think I am co-opting them to talk about my much less serious case - even though there's a similar "flattening" effect. If people hear my mental health journey first they might assume my friend is putting on airs about their situation. My friend has constantly had people imply or accuse them of overplaying their condition to get special treatment, which is gross.

> how is someone like my wife supposed to be seen or understood, let alone properly accommodated for when everybody thinks they know what a panic attack is but has never in their adult life been so panicked they became nonverbal?

My hope - and it is just a hope - is that on balance the social spread of broad and vague understandings of mental disorders is a net positive overall. The alternative feels like locking these terms away in the medical field - where when your wife (or anyone) says they're having a panic attack and the person who's there to help her has never heard of it. People are often shitty when you are going through a serious illness through ignorance and selfishness and I think medical conditions are the same as physical[1] in this case. I do not think that talking or identifying less with disorders is a net-positive.

All of these conditions have a spectrum of severity and, I believe, many people have sub-diagnostic versions of medical conditions. Those people will often improve their lives by recognizing patterns in their lives and using coping mechanisms developed for people with more severe cases. On balance I think that practice increases empathy for more severe conditions - because once people recognize a trend outside normative experience I think they often can extend it. I've also known far too many people who had life-changing adult diagnoses of conditions ("you mean this isn't what everyone is dealing with") to be set against the popularization of considering if you have a diagnosis.

[1] Mental conditions are, of course, also physical conditions but the dichotomy is widespread.

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pseudalopex 4 days ago | parent [-]

Someone can see their cyclic moods resemble bipolar disorder, use coping mechanisms developed for bipolar disorder, and gain empathy for people with bipolar disorder. Or someone can see their normal post traumatic stress resembles PTSD, use coping mechanisms developed for normal post traumatic stress, and lose empathy for people with PTSD.

	▲	entropicdrifter 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Exactly this. Thank you