I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t have my finger on the pulse of what’s chic, but this line:
“…“the gentrification of disability,” how sickness became chic…“
is quite something.
“…“the gentrification of disability,” how sickness became chic…“
is quite something.
This obviously does not negate my sympathy for those with the real disorders - I have some as well. It's enraging to see the real stuff be treated so lightly though.
“Teens faking mental illness” is a folk tale older than social media.
The closest allegory is that mental illness is having its “pride” where it’s no longer a big shameful thing, you’re allowed to have it be visible, and it doesn’t make you less of a person. And just like pride you get similar “teens faking for attention”, “it’s just a phase”, “trenders” or “ugh people make it their whole personality.”
If you want a not politically charged example of something being destigmatized suddenly increasing in prominence look at the graph of the percent of left handed people over time and guess when we stopped forcing kids to be right handed.
In totality this is probably just part of the pendulum swing, and as awareness of fake disorder cringe grows, and as mental illness actually becomes "just normal" we will also see this phenomenon slowly disappear.
I just hope that all this doesn't lead to over-diagnosis of various mental disorders, because that would be a horrible outcome. We already see this with ADHD and autism, since those diagnoses are so fluid, and the nature of the "spectrum" is inherently fluid.
Personally, I would not consider clout in mental health communities to be 'material benefit'
If your argument is “there exist people who purposely fake various disorders” then sure you’re absolutely right. You can find all breeds of crazy if you go looking for it.
But what isn’t true at all is that the noticeable uptick in people realizing they have and being diagnosed with things like depression, adhd, anxiety is just the result of people faking it.
> This is such the wrong take
And:
> "Teens faking mental illness” is a folk tale older than social media.
And I do not believe either of those statements captures the truth of the situation. Hysteria and group psychosis are also ancient phenomena, and not particularly well-understood, and so I think it's prideful and potentially harmful to preclude the current situation of mental illness, particularly when it manifests in hyper-connected online communities, from that possibility entirely.
I know you didn't really imply this in your post, but I can see in this thread others taking issue with statements like the above. Those opinions don't make me an opponent of mental health awareness, quite the opposite really. I just think we ought to be cautious and suspect when evaluating the current state of affairs, and not let current progress blind us of the potential for greater harm down the road.
Any source for that? With both being so often defined in terms of external behavior (usually from parents perspective), I find it hard to believe that ADHD and autism aren't severely under-diagnosed, especially with many people still not figuring out that their "quirks" and "problems" are completely typical autistic behaviors until well in their adulthood; and I know for sure that they're both still massively under-diagnosed in women.
If you go to the freakshow, of course you'll see some freaks.
I’ll get better or die trying, but there’s a lot of confusion as to what all this means by both those well meaning and those who are assholes.