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2020 the age of designer disorders...
On the one hand I can say I **do** like the fact that mental disorders have more acceptance and less stigma, but my god did the pendulum swing too far. Now its a point of pride to the point that people just make up (or even get frivolously diagnosed) just to be cool or accepted. Autism and ADHD seem to be the designer disorders of the day and I am completely convinced the overwhelming majority of people who claim to have autism, or were even diagnosed, at least the high-functioning ones, dont.
@freemo I'm not so sure about "overwhelming majority", these seem to be not that uncommon once you learn to recognise the symptoms. There is a problem with people assuming them, self-diagnosing and overall subconsciously Munchausening themselves for attention, yeah, but there's also a large pool of fairly high functioning adults who never got diagnosed when it was taboo and now are discovering it in a big wave as awareness spreads.
@Amikke Yrea I am fairly well aware of the symptoms, Ive worked with a lot of real autistic people in the past.
Obviously I disagree with the narrative. Dont get me wrong i do think there were a lot of undiagnosed people, a nd of the official diagnosis of high-functioning artists go i would suspect somewhere around 5% are legitimate. But yea i maintain the overwhelming majority are not. They appear to be so only because the overwhelming majority of the Americcan population have personality disorders and when your in such an environment you will check most of the check marks for autism despite not having it.
Psychiatry breaks down when the overwhelming majority of your population is not "normal" since most diagnosis assumes the majority of your interactions are with people who dont have a disorde rthemselves.
@Amikke I am only speaking of the USA and the few countries where toxicity has become the norm (like much of England as well but to a much lesser degree).
That said, psychiatry should be trying to find dysfunction in the brain and correcting it. It should never be based on achieving a "normal" state (that is, a state which arbitrarily aligns with the majority).
@freemo I was actually thinking more about my surroundings and the people I got to know or heard about. It may vary between countries a lot. But tbh, if a crushing majority is "not normal" in a certain way, then whatever they are becomes "normal".