The Debate Club discussion
: ̗̀➛ Ethics and Education
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•✩• Are Mental Health Disorders Being Over-Diagnosed, or Is There Something Else?
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Sai :), Assistant Moderator
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Jun 15, 2025 06:06PM
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yeah like we can argue about lots of things but you can't invalidate pain, mental health issues are here and have always been here
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dude even today when i walk around my school kids are always so weird towards autism or depression or other stuff. not demon-spawn but socially close
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My uncle thinks my great-aunt's dementia is caused by demons from the Buddhist and Native-American symbols she has around her house :)
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and this is kinda random but isn't it weird that great aunts and uncles aren't in the same generation as great grandparents
I don't think there's something else, however I do think that some mental disorders are over diagnosed and are only fixed with medication and not actually trying to heal the person (sorry if this doesn't make sense, i havent been debating a lot recently so my responses might not be concise)
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My son who is 38 recently was arrested 3 times in the past 3 months. He had a mental breakdown. This was the culmination of many years of losing good jobs and exhibiting erratic behavior. I knew something was going on with him mentally for years, but I couldn't afford to send him to a facility that could diagnose and treat him, and he didn't have insurance that would cover treatment. Because of the arrests, a sympathetic judge whose son had committed suicide recommended that my son be placed in a treatment center for a year in lieu of a jail sentence. Luckily, his wife has great insurance that is paying for treatment. He has been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, traumatic brain injury due to several concussions, PTSD, and mild schizophrenia. He's on medication and is in daily therapy. I can now recognize the person I knew many years ago. He's no longer suicidal, and he is stable mentally. For so many years, I thought he could control his behavior and chose not to. But all that time, he was self-medicating and trying to live a normal life and support his children while dealing with conditions that were overwhelming. So, my experience is that maybe many people go undiagnosed because they don't have insurance or don't have the financial means to get the help they need. My son is one of the lucky ones.
message 10:
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Sky ~take from you like you took from me~, Assistant Moderator
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![l i z [save the sharks‼️] | 63 comments](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1749134410p1/179013597.jpg)
no, they aren't over diagnosed. the u.s. is fucking horrible right now.
I think they aren’t over diagnosed, but are sometimes misdiagnosed. I think with how the world is they are very common, but also a lot of neurodivergent people and people with chronic illnesses are misdiagnosed and told they just have anxiety or depression when it’s really something else, but otherwise I don’t think they are.
And of course people can have both
its totally fine to have a mental health disorder, but what really pmo is when ppl self diagnose (esp when its for the 'aesthetic' or 'vibe')
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With the self diagnosis I agree and it shouldn’t be played off as I know for a fact I have this… I have done extensive research to try and understand what is going on in my brain as I don’t have access to get diagnosed with anything and I match many symptoms and such (enough to fit diagnosis criteria) for many things but I just say I’m neurodivergent (since I do not have a diagnosis) and I think there is a difference of self diagnosing without reason and for aesthetics and for doing it as it is your only option and making it clear you haven’t been professionally diagnosed
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Literally
fr like ppl faking DID just bc they have diff moods is wild
I think that self dx is valid, when done correctly. Self dx shouldn't be "I relate to this 1 minute video on autism" yeah, so will the majority of the population. They're SYMPTOMS not the DSM-5!! So do research, TONS of it (Like I've done literal years of research on things and then a therapist confirmed it).
I did research online for years, trying to figure out what was going on with my son. I knew something was terribly wrong, but nothing I read fit his symptoms. Now that he's in a good treatment facility, it turns out that one diagnosis is mild schizophrenia. That's not something I ever considered, but suddenly everything made sense - the fact that when he would have anger episodes, he couldn't remember what he had done afterwards, and while they were happening, he was unrecognizable to me as the son I raised. He's also been diagnosed with traumatic brain injury due to several serious concussions. He's fortunate to be getting help, and I'm learning so much that helps me understand his behavior. The sad thing is that he, and so many others, go undiagnosed because they don't have insurance, or their insurance doesn't cover proper diagnosis and treatment. And many people don't have family support. I wonder how many people are living on the streets because of this.
꩜ Pierce Samuel ✞︎ wrote: "I think that self dx is valid, when done correctly. Self dx shouldn't be "I relate to this 1 minute video on autism" yeah, so will the majority of the population. They're SYMPTOMS not the DSM-5!! S..."THIS
gia wrote: "its totally fine to have a mental health disorder, but what really pmo is when ppl self diagnose (esp when its for the 'aesthetic' or 'vibe')"I think self diagnosis should be allowed since a lot of doctors dismiss symptoms and underdiagnose so it can take years to get an official diagnosis. But this should only be allowed if you actually spend a lot of time researching and feel like all your symptoms match (this isn’t mental but I self diagnosed with dysautonomia months ago, and just today I got an official diagnosis so…)
I dont think its over diagnosed. I read a study a while ago, a long while, that talked about hhow the great depression changed genetics in their children and such, for example one of the reasons of so much obesity in america today is becaus ein the great depression peoples' metabolism shifted to withstand hunger, and in result a lot of people have naturally slower metabolisms. I think similar things apply in mental health, and it affects people today.Also, the world is shambles. With the internet, we aren't hidden as much from all the issues in the world, which i believe definitely adds to things like depression and anxiety. As for neurodivergent diagnosis, i think its always been as high as it is now, yet before it wasn't 'we think audrey should be tested fro autism' it was 'audreys r*tarted' etc
Yes, and no. Chronically ill patients with very real physical illnesses are often gaslit and simply diagnosed with things like anxiety because the doctors gaslight a lot of us. That said, a lot of our conditions do co-occur with things like anxiety and depression.When those things are misdiagnosed, they are definitely over diagnosed. But a lot of people with mental health conditions are also told they are fine, which leads to under diagnosis of many conditions.
I don't think people are inherently being over diagnosed. I think that because the population gets bigger over time, it's natural for diagnoses to go up, especially now that we know more scientifically.
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