How do we describe how we feel and why we feel this way?

We need help to see ourselves and to understand ourselves.

I try to start by embracing the premise of a nuanced and complex reality I cannot fully understand. One rarely defined by any certainty, but a confluence of interconnected truths influenced by forces and conditions I do no comprehend.  

I am an observer, not an expert. I write to help myself and hopefully others understand something, something that might be useful.

My own well-being is dynamic, ephemeral and I think a mysterious condition.

How do we feel the way we do?

The intricacy of our DNA, the unique contexts we inhabit, not to mention the enigmatic components of our minds and bodies. A set of symptoms of something much bigger and indescribable and possibly unknowable.

Many factors—our parents, our past, our practices, our pain, our perspective, our personality, our  problems…..

Yet we seem so easily inclined to diagnosing ourselves and others.

We hate stereotyping but all reduce ourselves and others to specific words and labels that are so limiting and inaccurate. And I think can contribute to generating or deepening our suffering.  

And when done carelessly and casually, is very harmful to those who suffer from those conditions.

Self-diagnosis seems to be its own pandemic. A dramatic increase in our confidence in diagnosing our own and other people’s problems. Medical, psychological, intellectual and spiritual conditions. We are quick to make a determination about what ails us and other people. The internet and social media have conspired to fuel these diagnoses.

The DSM, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, has grown by adding new conditions and some say “by loosening the diagnostic criteria” for existing conditions. Debates about “diagnostic inflation” and “over-diagnosis” and “over treatment” abound. The other side is the important addition of formerly “under-treated” and “under-recognized” health conditions.

Does “inflation” increase awareness and prevalence? Does it alter treatment? Does it improve our well-being?

In my view it has spawned amateur diagnoses. Greater interest and greater disinformation.

We are not our diagnosis.

Official or unofficial. Amateur or professional.

There is this disturbing movement to glamorization of illnesses or ailments.The acquisition of a new attribute that adds to a neural narrative to engender empathic status.

This type of self-diagnosis does not lead to self-improvement, but instead can create a more comfortable framework with which to justify behavior without accountability. The absence of a professional evaluation prevents the opportunity for change. Other times we are avoiding or denying a real diagnosis due to fear of reality.

Confirmation bias: When individuals self-diagnose, they often focus on information that supports their suspected diagnosis while ignoring or downplaying contradictory evidence. This confirmation bias can lead to an inaccurate understanding of their condition, potentially causing unnecessary anxiety or inappropriate treatment choices.

The widespread popularization of disorders has made them virtual “floating signifiers” for all manner of troublesome, frustrating, and disappointing experiences, from poor performance at work or school to feelings of being beleaguered and overwhelmed by all one has to do. Often enough, it is fair to say, the everyday distress, role conflicts, and lifestyle issues that motivate the personal appropriation of these categories have little to do with a mental disorder. The Appeal, and the Peril, of Self-Diagnosis, Psychology Today

Doctors are not my focus here, but it is worth noting that their “official” diagnoses can also often be inadequate or flawed. So seeking the truth is not just the word of one MD. 

I know a professor who recently had a student at the graduate level who claimed to have a condition that required an accommodation (In postsecondary education, an accommodation is a legally required change or adjustment to facilities, classes, exams, extra-curricular activities, or other parts of the educational setting that allows you to fully participate. It cannot require major changes to the curriculum) The student said he had applied for accommodation through the office of disabilities for his fear of giving a public presentation. I know. If this was an official diagnosis, then almost every student, every human being, would be given some kind of special accommodation. The professor avoided the confrontation and enabled this student to give their presentation privately and virtually not in front of his peers. Now it’s possible this is a real diagnosis. But I doubt it.

And I think the process of self-diagnosing and accumulating these ailments is what will ails us.

Real disabilities get diminished when the attention and resources for accommodation are highjacked.

I hear young people and old people list off mental and physical disorders like there is a contest.

My elder peers who are in different states of decay tend to start conversations with their current physical and mental challenges. Hip replacement, medicinal dosages, early onset of dementia, hearing loss, melanomas, arthritis, are the popular floats in the parade of pain. Most humorous are these conversations on the first tee of a golf course, when the entire human condition is revealed for the purpose of generating empathy, sympathy, and possibly even guilt in the allocation of strokes. But I digress……

Younger people in my interactions in workshops and mentoring also list off a host of mental conditions, allegedly for my benefit. “OCD, dyslexia, ADHD, dysgraphia, trauma…” What truths exist in the list get overrun by the self-diagnosed assumptions.  

We become what we think and say we are.

If one has a serious condition that requires accommodation, then this conversation is between the parties who must know. But to blurt out a litany of your self-determined ailments can be selfish and over-sharing.

“You know I have anxiety.”

Yup me too!

The other day an acquaintance said, “I am a cancer survivor.” I know they just had a mole removed.

We can diminish real issues and real human challenges by what we say.

How much of our suffering, our sympathy pains, do we acquire from over-digesting the experience of others?

The truth is we are absorbing consciously and unconsciously so much trauma and stress.  But what is our condition?

Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure you are not, in fact, surrounded by jerks. Wrongly attributed to Freud.

Context and content do matter. What you experience and what you consume can form your mindset.

How many times have I said, have you said, “I think he/she is on the spectrum”? Maybe we say this with empathy, but it is a baseless diagnosis.

To be labeled or to label others is wrong. Yes, it is necessary to understand a part/facet but not to define the whole person.

Each of us is having trouble reading, staying focused, paying attention, that does not mean we have ADHD.

The commoditization of our conditions can dilute the need to help people with real diagnosed and confirmed challenges.

Some think this inflation of diagnoses broadens the community of care, but I think it drowns the honest conversations in a sea of commonality.

Self-diagnosis can be the beginning of a discovery of personal truths or a descent into a self-fulling prophecy of self-pity.