Do you think another term is more appropriate to describe the experiences underlying CPTSD? It's now quite broadly recognized that its effect on the psyche is severe and if anything broader in impact and more difficult to heal than acute trauma.

▲

Aurornis 13 hours ago | parent [-]

> Do you think another term is more appropriate to describe the experiences underlying CPTSD?

True CPTSD as diagnosed over time by a clinician is the result of complex traumas (complex, specifically, as that’s part of the definition. It’s what the C is for). The term is valid in that context.

In common social media language, even the term CPTSD has become diluted. It was intended to represent complex cases of PTSD which were edge cases, and correspondingly rare.

At some point the social media version of CPTSD emerged as a generic term and nearly everyone who self-diagnosed as having PTSD started upgrading themselves to CPTSD.

The comment above is right that “trauma” has become so generic as to cover everything stressful or saddening in common vernacular. The concept of CPTSD was supposed to be a step above even normal trauma, but now even CPTSD is being brought out as a generic term for any post-trauma response, which was never the definition of CPTSD.

A similar trend is happening on social media with the ADHD influencers now upgrading themselves to “AuDHD” which they say is a special more difficult variant of ADHD combined with Autism. My friends in psychiatry are at their wits end with all of the people coming in and demanding Autism diagnoses or “AuDHD” diagnoses despite not showing Autistic traits at all.

There’s an arms race going on where some people try to amplify experiences into something much more dramatic. These therapy and psychiatry terms start to lose their meaning when they get adopted by social media.

▲

tejohnso 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> My friends in psychiatry are at their wits end with all of the people coming in and demanding Autism diagnoses

Why would you want, much less demand, to be diagnosed with any particular disorder? Is there such a thing as being fashionably disordered?

I think that if I felt something was wrong with me, I would want to be accurately diagnosed, not fashionably diagnosed.

▲

DavidPiper 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Is there such a thing as being fashionably disordered?

Anecdotally, absolutely yes. Based on what the Instagram and YouTube feeds have sent me over the last couple of years, ADHD in particular (Autism less so, but as the parent notes, "AuDHD" is becoming very popular) is totally glamourised at this point, much to the detriment of people who actually have to manage ADHD and Autism, I assume.

There is an enormous amount of monetised content around it.

	▲	PaulHoule 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The ADHD culture is particularly dangerous because it is a license to get dangerous addictive drugs that frequently get diverted. Used as directed people don't have trouble in the short term but I know a lot of 50-somethings who were in school districts that were early adopters of the ADHD construct and a lot of them are in terrible shape. When people save up a week worth of meds and take them at once they often wind up in the psych ward. When you see the drugged out people who drive people out of cities into the suburbs or give you another reason to order a private taxi for your burrito [1], note that psychosis is frequently caused or exacerbated by amphetamines. Plenty of people who get a prescription and who feel poor and that the world is unfair develop a "tolerance" for their meds because they are keeping 1 and selling 2 and they're contributing to that visible disorder you see. [1] https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/good-cities-cant-exist-without...

▲

PaulHoule 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

There's a good discussion of this in the

https://www.amazon.com/Autism-Matrix-Gil-Eyal/dp/074564399X

and you can ask the question of why schizotypy

https://www.amazon.com/Schizotypy-Schizophrenia-View-Experim...

is ignored which is that by being a developmental disability "autism" avoids the stigma that a diagnosis of severe mental ilness would bring (e.g. confirmed bipolar Kanye West thinks he is autistic, Elon Musk who sure acts like he's bipolar but is not diagnosed also thinks he is autistic) If you told the parents of the kid who's being bullied in first grade who shows some signs of anxiety and seems to be dressed oddly that he has a 10% chance of losing his mind completely as a young adult they'd be horrified. Tell them that he has autism and they can get more resources.

	▲	gsf_emergency_2 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Schizotypy is perceived to be left-wing :) The less flippant rewording of that is that the schizotypal mindset prefers strong-link "positive-sum" problems

▲

lanstin 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This phenomenon is not new; the love of drama that even common and routine trauma leaves many people with makes these sorts of attractions to diagnoses very appealing. I once hung out a lot with a class of masters students in experimental psychology and they all went thru evaluating their own minds thru the lens of various pathologies.

My own childhood included the relatively common experience of being sexually assaulted by a relative and being threatened with death if I talked about it, and as a young adult, while I never quite believed I had MPD, I read so many books by and on multiple personality disorder, and took both comfort and inspiration from the stories.

Like so many other things in our human society, networked technology is making this part of society more visible.

	▲	watwut 12 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> I once hung out a lot with a class of masters students in experimental psychology and they all went thru evaluating their own minds thru the lens of various pathologies. Something similar happens with medical students. They kind of start to recognize themselves in all kinds of physical conditions. It is fairly common phase they go through.

▲

LorenPechtel 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It looks to me like many of the psych diagnoses come down to how much trouble we have with the situation.

And, personally, I look at the world, do I meet the criteria for Asperger's? Probably, although without a time machine there doe not appear to be any way to be certain. But it's a so-what I have had no reason to ever talk to a psychiatrist about. A label won't change reality, it won't provide any solutions, why should I bother?

▲

crawfordcomeaux 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Your friends in psychiartry...are they acknowledging the impact of living under oppression as a direct cause of issues & advocating for an end to oppression?

Because that's what many healers outside of western medicine are touting.

People are amplifying because the western medicine approach isn't addressing underlying issues & so people are trying to explain the compounding of their issues in the language of western medicine. The dismissiveness in these comments is a direct driver of this culture.

	▲	resonious 12 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I'll be honest, I don't think I would've interpreted "demanding an AuDHD diagnosis" as "explaining the compounding of their issues in the language of western medicine". Especially if their issues are just oppression. Perhaps I'm just misunderstanding. Western medicine is well aware of the fact that they can't treat the underlying cause of things like autism and ADHD. If you're a real patient with one of these diagnoses (or even depression), they will tell you that upfront. They're not pretending to fix anything with pills.

▲

growingkittens 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

"True CPTSD" doesn't exist as a diagnosis yet in the DSM. Referring to it that way is highly disingenuous.

I was recently diagnosed as "AuDHD". I noticed that doctors who don't understand anything outside of depression and anxiety were more likely to refer to autism as a "fad".