It seems - and I can't confirm because the fake news NYT is behind a paywall, so I can't see the context for the quote - that Eloise is euphoric about the *diagnosis*, but Freddie is reading it about being euphoric about *what the diagnosis says*. That would mean it's just a case of misreading.
But the two aren't that clear-cut, as anyone who's dealt with a hypochondriac can tell you. "I told you I was sick" is the grim joke around that tendency, and I've seen it first hand.
That sentence in isolation does seem very spartan in its approach, yes. Taken as part of the greater article, and knowing that Freddie has written at length about his own history with mental struggles, I think there is a more charitable reading includes the previous paragraph wherein the dignity of the individual is expressly upheld even if the condition is not.
It's possible that our respective personal histories are coloring our reading here. For example, I don't know personally anyone who has had struggles with pain management. I am aware of one such person via my wife, but I get the feeling that person's concerns are less about ceremony and more about getting opiates. (That sentence, as I re-read it, looks a bit snotty, but it's not supposed to be. The concern is not "I demand my pain be centered and ceremonial and deemed valid by the internet" and more "the crackdown on prescribing painkillers is going to impact my quality of life to the extent that I don't know if I can go on.")
To me Eloise's concluding paragraph is more concerning: "Looking back at that child now, and that disruptive teenager, I just want her to know that she is loved. I see her staring so intently at her books or her train set or her Game Boy and I wish I could tell her that she’s autistic — and that it isn’t only OK, but good."
That's not just about having answers -- she sees her autism as a blessing.
Do high functioning autistic people even exist? Years ago the diagnosis was reserved for people who were profoundly, fundamentally disabled. Then the criteria for diagnosis widened, and widened, and widened some more. Was the impetus for that a new societal imperative that the disabled be viewed as merely "differently abled"?
It just seems like kind of a weird coincidence that in the wider society you have this movement that touts how disabilities aren't really disabilities because while x is handicapped y is enhanced...
There was a huge spike in diagnoses in the early 2000s. It is widely speculated that the impetus for that was that there were a host of accommodations and social services available for people with the diagnosis of "autism", so to access those benefits more and more people received such a diagnosis.
To repeat myself: your wife did not write a book-length argument that her ailments are in-and-of-themselves good, something positive, something to be proud of.
I was deeply relieved when I got a diagnosis of my chronic illness because it meant I could then get treatment and stop Googling my symptoms incessantly to try to figure it out. That’s it though.
On those terms, it would seem that self-consciousness is the deadliest and most chronic mental illness, one that all of us suffer from. Although some to more of an extent than others.
If you accept that there's no God and no heaven and that we're all worm food in the end--for a lot of people that inevitably invokes a sense of fatalism and hopelessness.
Sisyphus is about saying "Fuck it, let's do this anyway."
You are Sisyphus. If you are ever in this life happy, if you ever feel joy, then it's possible for him as well.
I think I can see where You're coming from, KT, but I suspect You've never suffered under a psychotic disorder. Right? At least with me, anyway, it was knowing that it could happen again.
But as far as neurodiversity and self-diagnosis? They're sick jokes. *Very* sick. I think that, while well-meaning, they're really doing a lotta dirty deeds taht cause harm to people who deserve help, right? I don't think these people promoting this crap actually have any interest in helping the unfortunate.
Which I think is a hallmark characteristic of the Woke Religion. But I dunno that's where this comes from or not. Just smells like it.
As far as celebrating it? Another sick joke. Wicked of the worst kind. You celebrate it if YOu had a leg amputated? SURE, You're special.
Besides You're special regardless of ANYthing, right? Having a disability that makes life difficult sure doesn't make YOu *more* special.
Naw, one paragraph outta five is about the WOke Religion. And a minor one at that.
Get a grip.
I agree with everything else You said, except that You imply self-diagnosis is *caused* by the sorry state of the practioners. Nup. Self-diagnosis, for the most part, is people assigning themselves a special identity.
In fact, last year a psychologist I was seeing said that even getting therapy on these minor kinds-a problems had become fashionable amongst a certain set. Wonders never cease.
Shrink never said anything one way or the other. Yeah, I've *been* in the situation where i had to be in the system to pay on a sliding scale. Lucked out. Lotta people don't.
But, no. People are no good self-diagnosing. Old joke that first-year med students come down with every ailment they study. Or something.
I think of some self-diagnosis as less harmful and some as more. I think self-diagnosing mental health issues is so fraught with harmful possibilities. Especially given the nature of the disease, right?
"Yeah, I've *been* in the situation where i had to be in the system to pay on a sliding scale. Lucked out. Lotta people don't."
Slight correction. Well, there were a couple times I was in the system because I had *no* money to pay. Lucked out once. The other time I was punished for no good reason and put in Ward 16. That's where they housed the criminally insane, back in the bad-old-days.
Similar situation here--not PTSD and OCD specifically, but other "neurodivergent" traits that significantly affect my day-to-day functioning. I never consciously embraced these traits as an identity, but I did somehow internalize the message that these conditions defined me; that they would be with me forever in their most acute forms and precluded a normal life. This mindset prevented me from doing any number of straightforward things (exercise, cognitive therapy, etc) that would have greatly improved my situation. Eventually I got there, and I'm happy enough with my current life that I don't exactly regret the bad times (since they were part of the road here). But there were several wasted years that probably wouldn't have been as bad if I had been quicker to fully embrace personal agency.
I don't know if it banishes mortality but it perhaps rationalises a fear of living. It's a great way to get attention for what you perceive as a vacuous life, it gives you cred and excuses any lapses in behaviour.
I worked in hospitality and I remember when the "I'm gluten intolerant" era started where tons of people suddenly developed an allergy to gluten, red peppers, cauliflower, uncooked tomatoes.. rarely anyone over 50 mind you. The result was that people who had genuine allergies or issues with food ended up being discounted because 90% of it was bullshit. I have the feeling it's the same here. So many people now claim to have PTSD, immunocompromised, ADHD, etc.. I mean we all have scars from life but it makes me nauseous as it trivialises those out there who really are hurting, who really are ill and require help.
I feel the same way about casual switch to non-binary or gender-nonconforming or trans identity. Not necessarily equating any of that with diagnosed mental illness, they're different things of course. But I know people who have struggled very seriously with who they are, mentally and emotionally, and some who have gone the physical transformation route. All to end up at a place where they finally feel like themselves, in the right pronoun that they finally feel fits them. I'm not going to pretend to understand any of this but I've seen the struggles. And then I see colleagues just casually changing their pronouns and their gender identity to supposedly "de-center masculinity" and I just want to scream. Great way to diminish the genuine struggles that a small minority of people have faced, all to prove some ideological point, join the latest fad. Maybe there's some good intentions there but it feels so fucking gross to me. And laughable. They get to skip the struggle part but get to reap all the identity cred available in prog circles.
"People are so desperate to have an identity so that they can be special enough to banish the fear of their own mortality."
I think that you're on to something, but that it's more complex than that. After all, fear of your own mortality is hardly a new thing.
What we may be seeing is the result of raising kids in the highly monitored, heavily bureaucratized, maximally risk-averse manner that has come to be fashionable, especially among the striving class. A lot of these young people likely grew up with very little slack and with few opportunities to develop personal resilience. If the only relief comes from either protected identity categories or approved medical diagnoses, then we shouldn't be surprised when those things proliferate.
For the most part, no. People are looking for the sense of community that comes with an identity, the sense that they aren't alone and that others understand what they deal with. I think it's largely a mistake to do this with a mental health diagnosis unless the community is one that encourages health and recovery, but it is understandable.
I have more than one family member whose life has been ruined by untreated mental illness. Their lives would be no better if they'd romanticized their conditions, because not getting treatment is what's ruinous, not "stigma" or whatever.
From my own experience, the stigma that prevents treatment is stigma that can't be instagrammed away. A member of my family struggled deeply with untreated bipolar disorder, but the reason he didn't get treatment was that he was ashamed of his inability to take care of himself (and we're talking "living with multiple dead animals in the house" here, not greasy hair). None of this "neurodivergence" stuff would have helped him because there's a level of dysfunction where, frankly, mental illness stops being mysterious and photogenic and tragic in the cool way. Byronic heroes and manic pixie dream girls are sexy. An older man barricading himself in his room because he's convinced the doctors are trying to poison him isn't. "Break the silence" campaigns weren't made with people like him in mind, and everyone knows that.
One of my eternal frustrations with mental illness activism is how it prioritizes the needs of those who can advocate for themselves--those with mild (if any) mental illness--over those who cannot. "Nothing about us without us" is a lovely goal, but untenable when half of the "us" cannot be at the table.
Wow, C MN...that sounds terrible. I'm sorry he's had to endure that, and that you've had to as well.
I think there's something about victimhood that attracts people the same way. I don't believe people *truly* want to be the target of a crime, but they do enjoy the moral authority that brings. Then they get to say, "As the survivor of a sexual assault..."
I can't believe I'm admitting this, but I am the survivor of a sexual assault, and I don't feel authoritative because of it. I feel nervous, angry, and ashamed, and I wish to hell it hadn't happened, but I definitely don't feel authoritative. Nor do I use my experience to win Twitter arguments--I usually just have nightmares about it.
As you can imagine, I don't feel the need to indulge those who want to sorrow-brag about their problems.
I want to recognize your courage here, writing about your experience.
As someone who is also a survivor of sexual assault, I was helped immeasurably by EMDR. Talking was only a little bit useful. EMDR actually helped - for me. If you ever decide to involve health care in this aspect of your life, there can be useful therapies.
I think assaults are not all identical and neither is living with the aftermath. You can maintain your values about communication and not sorrow-brag, and still get health care for it if you wish. Finding the right professional can take research & time though.
For similar reasons, it's been so weird for me over the last decade watching autism receive this makeover as being damn near a superpower. I had a family member who was diagnosed with autism in the 80s. It didn't make him a member of the X-Men. It made him have a life that was both short and terrible.
The weirdness of watching spoiled little rich girls run around trying to get the same diagnosis that ruined his life - and caused so much pain to his family - is astounding. As is the glorification of his disease. Some might even call it disrespectful.
Right. The whole “spectrum” notion is true of, like, every human condition. But at some point, some conditions become debilitating. And claiming the status and expecting special accommodation is pretty shitty if your place on the spectrum (again, of whatever condition) is not truly debilitating. I have an autoimmune issue, but it’s very mild. I don’t need a disability placard or FMLA. It’s nice for people to realize why sometimes I might be grumpy because of arthritic pain. But that’s not the same as a person with this condition who, say, needs a kidney transplant. I do not “feel their pain.”
I don’t know. A few years ago I realized, “Oh, I’m probably a bit autistic.” I don’t talk much about it nor do I expect anything. (Nor have I felt official confirmation of the diagnosis necessary, because what would it change?) It’s more a “note to self” and as such a useful heuristic that has brought situations into focus.
THIS is how a mature adult processes a possible diagnosis. And I never thought I’d say that about you, Jeff G.: mature.
I just texted this to a friend as we discussed this topic not five minutes ago: “You know, I’m as guilty of Dr. Google diagnosing as the next guy, and if having certain suspicions or thoughts that you might be/have some level of x or y helps you manage your life, then cool. But it’s the bit about claiming an identity that nags. Instead of just thinking “huh. I could very well be on the autism spectrum, maybe I could use some strategies that autistic people use to cope “
I actually have thought my 60something uncle is autistic. He has severe cerebral palsy but a brilliant mind. A lovely, caring person. But the way he processes the world and relationships is very different. Not great with social cues.
Thx. And I should add as a complement to the above, if it caused me more than a certain level of distress, I would seek treatment rather than claim it as an “identity.”
This is the most important part. Right here. Everyone should be fighting for cheaper health care and more beds. Hardly anyone is. Sure as shit the Democrats aren't.
Your are so right, and I am grateful for your honesty. I flew in from the Middle East to put my closest friend in the hospital when her bipolar mental disorder rendered her incoherent and unable to live by herself. I sat her her room as she wept for hours in her misery. It took years for her to recover and she was never the same. Fortunately, as a tenured professor, she had great medical insurance and job security but she still suffered enormous pain and there was nothing to celebrate. Thank you again for speaking the truth.
I liked your piece and a lot of it resonated with me, someone who got caught up in that stuff for a bit. The reason people are saying it make sense to seperate scitzofrenia etc from autism ADHD etc is that the the later can be thought of as a difference that has many parts some of which genuinely are NOT bad. For example, if an autistic kid is obsessed with trains I don't think it makes sense to claim that he can't get any joy out of the way he's unique. Obviously that shouldn't be extended to his social difficulties etc but it is possible that some developmental disorders (as opposed to other mental illness) have PARTS that are not bad (and maybe good) in addition to the parts that are bad. Depression, etc are a disease that impacts a specific part of cognition in a negative way but things like ADHD or autism are better thought of as a "brain that processes things differently but not always incorrectly" and theres a fundamental distinction there. I think it's possible to acknowledge that without leaning into the cult of validation.
Look at it this way. If you're depressed you're always going to be struggling for as long as you are depressed. When you're struggling less you're less depressed. With autism or ADHD you will always have the same "amount" of autism/ ADHD and sometimes you'll be happy sometimes sad sometimes struggling etc. But one is more structural in a sense.
The people who have no impairment therefore have no right to the accommodations that we extend to the disabled; the impairments are the fundamental moral and legal justification for the accommodations.
Isnt it possible that one aspect of their life would be impaired and another aspect of their life would differ from the norm but not be an impairment but both of those two aspects are a result of a condition that is defined by being different from the norm? For example maybe someone with autism needs accomodations in loud sensory environments but is also really weird about trains or something but likes the weird train shit while still genuinely suffering from the sensory shit? It's a mistake to collapse every aspect of something into one category and then try to assess it on that basis.
Yes that is bad. I don't think all that many people are doing that though. A lot of the "mental illness as identity" doesn't deny it's an impairment but it instead says "give yourself to this impairment and wear it like a soft blanket define everything by it so nothing can hurt you with the cold truth of culpability for your actions or a sense of duty to others.
I wish you could have been there, in the half-dozen times I've been told by people in the mental health community that my psychotic disorder is "a blessing and a curse."
Yeah that's fucked up and not something I can speak to. I'm just talking about what I've witnessed in social media communities. Like I said, I agreed with most of your piece. I probably shouldn't have said I don't think all that many people are doing that and instead qualified it with "what I've witnessed in social media has trended more toward this other thing imo"
I'm sure some people do this but even the most hardline social model of disability people accept that there's impairment, they just distinguish between impairment and disability. I don't think the distinction really holds up all that well but they don't pretend that, say, schizophrenic episodes don't impair people at all beyond social discrimination.
How far does that go? Somebody who uses a wheelchair needs special accommodations. Does that mean we install elevators on all the hiking trails in national parks?
Funny you mention, where I live we’ve had a long deliberation over whether a new segment of the CA Coastal Trail -- through dense woodlands on the side of a steep hill -- should be wheelchair-accessible. The accessible option would have required felling >3x as many mature trees ... to the point where some parts would have ceased to function as forest.
I think this really gets at something. It seems to me a lot of this rhetoric that Freddie objects to started with autism and expanded from there. I agree with him that it is dangerous to apply it to other mental illnesses.
But autism is a tricky case for exactly the reason you say. People can be both impaired in some respects and arguably enriched in others.
Right. Like depression always sucks. But autism is so complicated and people might be extreamly weird in a way that they have no problem with while ALSO being weird in ways that cause legitimate suffering. Freddie is collapsing those categories into "the autism impairment" but that doesn't work with things that are defined as a neurodevelopmental difference the same way it works for something like depression where the diagnostic criteria is defined EXCLUSIVELY by the impairment.
The question is to what extent the expansion of the criteria for autism is driven precisely by prerogatives that insist that disabilities have benefits as well as drawbacks.
I have no doubt that blind people probably have compensated in some fashion by tuning their other senses. But would anybody choose to go blind just to pick up an improved sense of hearing? Of course not. Being blind is still being profoundly disabled.
It's important define terms. There are "benefits" that exist as compensation for a deficit and there are "benefits" that proceed from a common underlying factor that causes benefits and drawbacks. Those two are different things and worth distinguishing.
I am not myself Deaf, but my understanding is that there is a non-insignificant portion of the Deaf community that believes it is not an illness/disability in need of a cure and that they have a rich and unique culture that has value and would be lost if they were all able to hear. There is even divisiveness over whether parents of Deaf children should be getting them Cochlear implants.
If someone says "I'm glad I have ADHD because I completed this amazing project" then I'm not sure if they even meet the criteria. ADHD means focus issues that interfere with your life. You neglect deadlines and housework and bills and relationships and self-care, even when there are *significant* negative consequences.
Broken relationships, getting fired, fuck-ups that cost thousands of dollars. The consequences get worse as you get older and have more responsibilities. "I forgot to pay my bills lol" becomes "I fucked up so bad that my husband wants a divorce."
I won't deny that hyperfocus is a rush, but I would still cure my ADHD in a heartbeat and that's why I can't celebrate having it.
Yeah I guess I have mixed thoughts. Because I think being really shitty at a bunch of things forced me to compensate and get good at other things the same way a blind person's hearing improves. But in both cases it's an actual impairment that's causing the other "good thing" it isn't the thing itself that's good. I'd also probably cure it if I could but what I really wish is I knew how to deal with it when I was younger before I fucked up so many relationships and academics .
as someone with ADHD this is complete bullshit. ADHD is not a gift and only creates disadvantages there is absolutely nothing about ADHD that is advantageous. It's also not an identity. I have run into so many parents over the years that claim their kid is "gifted" with ADHD. When asked why they say this they tell me they don't want their kid to feel bad about themselves. I explain that they are the ones that think their kid is less than and that's why they say gifted because they're disappointed their kid is disabled so say he's gifted to justify his worth to themselves and others. Also telling a kid with ADHD they are gifted while they continue to fail at life makes them feel worse about themselves.
Agreed. Although my "good" was perhaps too broad for my intentions. I'd also love to see a response that includes some criticism Freddie finds worthwhile.
I think one of the problems you have run into is how unherd frames things.
Your review came with the heading:
"Mental illness doesn’t make you special. Why do neurodiversity activists claim suffering is beautiful?"
I am not sure if a real human being decided to write this, or if this is robot headlining, but it in no way captures the thought of your writing. You weren't even attempting to answer that question with your column. No wonder people got defensive.
Next time you write for unherd, see if you can have creative control over the headline, as well. (And please report back here if the answer was -- no. This will mean something, though I am
of many minds as to what, as of now.) I'd like to write a column for them, but not if they get to control the framing of the article with their title.
I get that solidarity is important, but combining all mental health related concepts into a single bloc has become
basically incoherent. After mass shootings, I see friends on social media talking about how mental illness doesn’t cause mass shootings and how they know this because they had a single depressive episode four years ago. “Neurotypical” is a bizarre concept that somehow includes, say, a piano prodigy, a guy with an average IQ but a photographic memory, and an intellectually slow woman with amazing people skills, but doesn’t include a guy who gets nervous in some social situations.
See also “allistic”, which has become one of my pet peeves. It tells you literally nothing about a person except that they’re not on the autism spectrum.
People yell on Twitter about how “allistic people do this!” and “allistic people do that!”, and usually it’s some extreme extrovert thing, or a trait associated with John Nerst’s “wamb” (https://everythingstudies.com/2017/11/07/the-nerd-as-the-norm/). But, of course, in actuality you can be a shy nerd and still be “allistic”.
This drives me batty. I have ADHD and I’m in a small chat group with some others who do too, to share strategies, vent, etc. It helps me, but what doesn’t help me is when someone in the group generalizes a behavior as being “neurotypical.” What I’ve come to realize, actually, is that ADHD is a “spectrum” or whatever and no two people (in my group anyway) are experiencing it the same way…which makes all of the ADHD cult identity stuff so obnoxious and false.
It sounds like (once again) you’re being attacked by people with poor reading comprehension, and subpar critical thinking skills. The American culture of “quick fix” and “it’s never my fault” thinking conditions people to attack rather than to experiment with self-awareness. Capitalism conditions us to think and behave in this self-defeating and unproductive way.
We live in disturbed world. We do not know the causes of these issues. Maybe these issues always existed and people were just called possessed or witches.
Today, people want special recognition for their condition. It makes since. If they are just an upper middle class white teenager, they are the target of systemic hatred from the CRT regime. In one quick move, they can jump up in the privilege line.
Conditions may be real, but instead of developing skills to deal with them, they identify with their conditions. They excuse their own bad behavior. And develop personality disorders.
Life is hard enough without this. Mental health issues are not to be desired.
I think there are autistic people whose disease doesn’t cause them any problems in itself, and who would have no issues living life if it weren’t for non-autistic people treating them poorly. It seems like describing this type of person is the origin of “neurodiversity” and the concept fits quite well.
Why every useful concept has to be expanded beyond its limits into a big blob, I don’t know.
Why do non-autistic people treat autistic people poorly, in what ways do they treat them poorly, and how much of this is due to social expectations that are - inadvertently - breached by the autistic person?
In other words, someone in a wheelchair has no problems at all with buildings, until a staircase treats them badly.
It's almost tautological to say that a disease that often manifests itself in social relations - autism is one such disorder, borderline disorder would be another - only flares up when another person enters the equation. Thus the concept of neurodiversity makes sense as a *descriptor* but not as a statement of *value*. That someone's neurological makeup is different, and that that makeup presents challenges, is a fair description. Where this falls down is saying that "it doesn't cause them any problems, except for those problems it does cause, and those are because of other people treating them poorly", because:
1) Clearly it does cause problems
2) Such problems as it does cause are surely, *surely* not monocausal
3) If they are monocausal, then the contention that non-autistic people are that cause would... well, if there are ten poker players at a table, and one loses every single hand, is it because the other nine are world champions?
Note that item 3 doesn't mean we need to treat society as a poker game and punish the tenth person, the autistic person. It does suggest that if they find themselves struggling in society, it's not a slam dunk that it's because they're being treated "poorly." There are ways of seeking accommodation that don't begin with pathologizing the behavior of the neurotypical... but the neurodivergent community resists this as a vampire does sunlight because then they'd have to acknowledge, well, the disease that they have is a disease.
First, I thought your review was excellent, but please realize that my narcissism is special :)
Second, I could never do what you do. It must be withering to deal with unfair characterization and criticism on media platforms these days. Sometimes, things need to be said, and I’m glad you say the things . . .
It seems - and I can't confirm because the fake news NYT is behind a paywall, so I can't see the context for the quote - that Eloise is euphoric about the *diagnosis*, but Freddie is reading it about being euphoric about *what the diagnosis says*. That would mean it's just a case of misreading.
But the two aren't that clear-cut, as anyone who's dealt with a hypochondriac can tell you. "I told you I was sick" is the grim joke around that tendency, and I've seen it first hand.
Well, my reading is less misery and more realism. But I guess that's semantics.
That sentence in isolation does seem very spartan in its approach, yes. Taken as part of the greater article, and knowing that Freddie has written at length about his own history with mental struggles, I think there is a more charitable reading includes the previous paragraph wherein the dignity of the individual is expressly upheld even if the condition is not.
It's possible that our respective personal histories are coloring our reading here. For example, I don't know personally anyone who has had struggles with pain management. I am aware of one such person via my wife, but I get the feeling that person's concerns are less about ceremony and more about getting opiates. (That sentence, as I re-read it, looks a bit snotty, but it's not supposed to be. The concern is not "I demand my pain be centered and ceremonial and deemed valid by the internet" and more "the crackdown on prescribing painkillers is going to impact my quality of life to the extent that I don't know if I can go on.")
Should be sleeping rn, but this AA/KT exchange was worth it.
To me Eloise's concluding paragraph is more concerning: "Looking back at that child now, and that disruptive teenager, I just want her to know that she is loved. I see her staring so intently at her books or her train set or her Game Boy and I wish I could tell her that she’s autistic — and that it isn’t only OK, but good."
That's not just about having answers -- she sees her autism as a blessing.
Do high functioning autistic people even exist? Years ago the diagnosis was reserved for people who were profoundly, fundamentally disabled. Then the criteria for diagnosis widened, and widened, and widened some more. Was the impetus for that a new societal imperative that the disabled be viewed as merely "differently abled"?
It just seems like kind of a weird coincidence that in the wider society you have this movement that touts how disabilities aren't really disabilities because while x is handicapped y is enhanced...
There was a huge spike in diagnoses in the early 2000s. It is widely speculated that the impetus for that was that there were a host of accommodations and social services available for people with the diagnosis of "autism", so to access those benefits more and more people received such a diagnosis.
https://mattbruenig.com/
May I remind people that she also romanticizes debilitating anxiety, OCD, night terrors, and an eating disorder?
AND her anxiety AND her OCD AND her eating disorder AND her alcohol abuse....
To repeat myself: your wife did not write a book-length argument that her ailments are in-and-of-themselves good, something positive, something to be proud of.
I was deeply relieved when I got a diagnosis of my chronic illness because it meant I could then get treatment and stop Googling my symptoms incessantly to try to figure it out. That’s it though.
Yes.
There's your anti-stoic bias again.
On those terms, it would seem that self-consciousness is the deadliest and most chronic mental illness, one that all of us suffer from. Although some to more of an extent than others.
I'm afraid this is also true of the pain of being alive, but one must imagine Sisyphus happy.
The first choice is between life and suicide. The second choice is what kind of life do you want to have?
If you accept that there's no God and no heaven and that we're all worm food in the end--for a lot of people that inevitably invokes a sense of fatalism and hopelessness.
Sisyphus is about saying "Fuck it, let's do this anyway."
You are Sisyphus. If you are ever in this life happy, if you ever feel joy, then it's possible for him as well.
I think I can see where You're coming from, KT, but I suspect You've never suffered under a psychotic disorder. Right? At least with me, anyway, it was knowing that it could happen again.
But as far as neurodiversity and self-diagnosis? They're sick jokes. *Very* sick. I think that, while well-meaning, they're really doing a lotta dirty deeds taht cause harm to people who deserve help, right? I don't think these people promoting this crap actually have any interest in helping the unfortunate.
Which I think is a hallmark characteristic of the Woke Religion. But I dunno that's where this comes from or not. Just smells like it.
As far as celebrating it? Another sick joke. Wicked of the worst kind. You celebrate it if YOu had a leg amputated? SURE, You're special.
Besides You're special regardless of ANYthing, right? Having a disability that makes life difficult sure doesn't make YOu *more* special.
Naw, one paragraph outta five is about the WOke Religion. And a minor one at that.
Get a grip.
I agree with everything else You said, except that You imply self-diagnosis is *caused* by the sorry state of the practioners. Nup. Self-diagnosis, for the most part, is people assigning themselves a special identity.
In fact, last year a psychologist I was seeing said that even getting therapy on these minor kinds-a problems had become fashionable amongst a certain set. Wonders never cease.
Shrink never said anything one way or the other. Yeah, I've *been* in the situation where i had to be in the system to pay on a sliding scale. Lucked out. Lotta people don't.
But, no. People are no good self-diagnosing. Old joke that first-year med students come down with every ailment they study. Or something.
I think of some self-diagnosis as less harmful and some as more. I think self-diagnosing mental health issues is so fraught with harmful possibilities. Especially given the nature of the disease, right?
"Yeah, I've *been* in the situation where i had to be in the system to pay on a sliding scale. Lucked out. Lotta people don't."
Slight correction. Well, there were a couple times I was in the system because I had *no* money to pay. Lucked out once. The other time I was punished for no good reason and put in Ward 16. That's where they housed the criminally insane, back in the bad-old-days.
Similar situation here--not PTSD and OCD specifically, but other "neurodivergent" traits that significantly affect my day-to-day functioning. I never consciously embraced these traits as an identity, but I did somehow internalize the message that these conditions defined me; that they would be with me forever in their most acute forms and precluded a normal life. This mindset prevented me from doing any number of straightforward things (exercise, cognitive therapy, etc) that would have greatly improved my situation. Eventually I got there, and I'm happy enough with my current life that I don't exactly regret the bad times (since they were part of the road here). But there were several wasted years that probably wouldn't have been as bad if I had been quicker to fully embrace personal agency.
I don't know if it banishes mortality but it perhaps rationalises a fear of living. It's a great way to get attention for what you perceive as a vacuous life, it gives you cred and excuses any lapses in behaviour.
I worked in hospitality and I remember when the "I'm gluten intolerant" era started where tons of people suddenly developed an allergy to gluten, red peppers, cauliflower, uncooked tomatoes.. rarely anyone over 50 mind you. The result was that people who had genuine allergies or issues with food ended up being discounted because 90% of it was bullshit. I have the feeling it's the same here. So many people now claim to have PTSD, immunocompromised, ADHD, etc.. I mean we all have scars from life but it makes me nauseous as it trivialises those out there who really are hurting, who really are ill and require help.
I feel the same way about casual switch to non-binary or gender-nonconforming or trans identity. Not necessarily equating any of that with diagnosed mental illness, they're different things of course. But I know people who have struggled very seriously with who they are, mentally and emotionally, and some who have gone the physical transformation route. All to end up at a place where they finally feel like themselves, in the right pronoun that they finally feel fits them. I'm not going to pretend to understand any of this but I've seen the struggles. And then I see colleagues just casually changing their pronouns and their gender identity to supposedly "de-center masculinity" and I just want to scream. Great way to diminish the genuine struggles that a small minority of people have faced, all to prove some ideological point, join the latest fad. Maybe there's some good intentions there but it feels so fucking gross to me. And laughable. They get to skip the struggle part but get to reap all the identity cred available in prog circles.
It feels like fifty percent desperation and fifty percent grift to me. Two sides of the same coin perhaps.
Really critical thinking, and expression, is rarely found, and it's dying under a toxic mulch of misinformation.
Ernest Becker! Amen!
"People are so desperate to have an identity so that they can be special enough to banish the fear of their own mortality."
I think that you're on to something, but that it's more complex than that. After all, fear of your own mortality is hardly a new thing.
What we may be seeing is the result of raising kids in the highly monitored, heavily bureaucratized, maximally risk-averse manner that has come to be fashionable, especially among the striving class. A lot of these young people likely grew up with very little slack and with few opportunities to develop personal resilience. If the only relief comes from either protected identity categories or approved medical diagnoses, then we shouldn't be surprised when those things proliferate.
For the most part, no. People are looking for the sense of community that comes with an identity, the sense that they aren't alone and that others understand what they deal with. I think it's largely a mistake to do this with a mental health diagnosis unless the community is one that encourages health and recovery, but it is understandable.
I have more than one family member whose life has been ruined by untreated mental illness. Their lives would be no better if they'd romanticized their conditions, because not getting treatment is what's ruinous, not "stigma" or whatever.
From my own experience, the stigma that prevents treatment is stigma that can't be instagrammed away. A member of my family struggled deeply with untreated bipolar disorder, but the reason he didn't get treatment was that he was ashamed of his inability to take care of himself (and we're talking "living with multiple dead animals in the house" here, not greasy hair). None of this "neurodivergence" stuff would have helped him because there's a level of dysfunction where, frankly, mental illness stops being mysterious and photogenic and tragic in the cool way. Byronic heroes and manic pixie dream girls are sexy. An older man barricading himself in his room because he's convinced the doctors are trying to poison him isn't. "Break the silence" campaigns weren't made with people like him in mind, and everyone knows that.
One of my eternal frustrations with mental illness activism is how it prioritizes the needs of those who can advocate for themselves--those with mild (if any) mental illness--over those who cannot. "Nothing about us without us" is a lovely goal, but untenable when half of the "us" cannot be at the table.
Wow, C MN...that sounds terrible. I'm sorry he's had to endure that, and that you've had to as well.
I think there's something about victimhood that attracts people the same way. I don't believe people *truly* want to be the target of a crime, but they do enjoy the moral authority that brings. Then they get to say, "As the survivor of a sexual assault..."
I can't believe I'm admitting this, but I am the survivor of a sexual assault, and I don't feel authoritative because of it. I feel nervous, angry, and ashamed, and I wish to hell it hadn't happened, but I definitely don't feel authoritative. Nor do I use my experience to win Twitter arguments--I usually just have nightmares about it.
As you can imagine, I don't feel the need to indulge those who want to sorrow-brag about their problems.
I want to recognize your courage here, writing about your experience.
As someone who is also a survivor of sexual assault, I was helped immeasurably by EMDR. Talking was only a little bit useful. EMDR actually helped - for me. If you ever decide to involve health care in this aspect of your life, there can be useful therapies.
I think assaults are not all identical and neither is living with the aftermath. You can maintain your values about communication and not sorrow-brag, and still get health care for it if you wish. Finding the right professional can take research & time though.
Best of luck to you.
For similar reasons, it's been so weird for me over the last decade watching autism receive this makeover as being damn near a superpower. I had a family member who was diagnosed with autism in the 80s. It didn't make him a member of the X-Men. It made him have a life that was both short and terrible.
The weirdness of watching spoiled little rich girls run around trying to get the same diagnosis that ruined his life - and caused so much pain to his family - is astounding. As is the glorification of his disease. Some might even call it disrespectful.
Right. The whole “spectrum” notion is true of, like, every human condition. But at some point, some conditions become debilitating. And claiming the status and expecting special accommodation is pretty shitty if your place on the spectrum (again, of whatever condition) is not truly debilitating. I have an autoimmune issue, but it’s very mild. I don’t need a disability placard or FMLA. It’s nice for people to realize why sometimes I might be grumpy because of arthritic pain. But that’s not the same as a person with this condition who, say, needs a kidney transplant. I do not “feel their pain.”
Everything has to be a spectrum now. Screw that. I'm on Team Catgories
But are they ordinal? :-)
It's a spectrum between cardinal and ordinal
I’ve come out as non-ordinal
I don’t know. A few years ago I realized, “Oh, I’m probably a bit autistic.” I don’t talk much about it nor do I expect anything. (Nor have I felt official confirmation of the diagnosis necessary, because what would it change?) It’s more a “note to self” and as such a useful heuristic that has brought situations into focus.
THIS is how a mature adult processes a possible diagnosis. And I never thought I’d say that about you, Jeff G.: mature.
I just texted this to a friend as we discussed this topic not five minutes ago: “You know, I’m as guilty of Dr. Google diagnosing as the next guy, and if having certain suspicions or thoughts that you might be/have some level of x or y helps you manage your life, then cool. But it’s the bit about claiming an identity that nags. Instead of just thinking “huh. I could very well be on the autism spectrum, maybe I could use some strategies that autistic people use to cope “
I actually have thought my 60something uncle is autistic. He has severe cerebral palsy but a brilliant mind. A lovely, caring person. But the way he processes the world and relationships is very different. Not great with social cues.
Thx. And I should add as a complement to the above, if it caused me more than a certain level of distress, I would seek treatment rather than claim it as an “identity.”
People who think strangers should just "live their true lives" haven't had families ruined by untreated mental illness.
This is the most important part. Right here. Everyone should be fighting for cheaper health care and more beds. Hardly anyone is. Sure as shit the Democrats aren't.
Your are so right, and I am grateful for your honesty. I flew in from the Middle East to put my closest friend in the hospital when her bipolar mental disorder rendered her incoherent and unable to live by herself. I sat her her room as she wept for hours in her misery. It took years for her to recover and she was never the same. Fortunately, as a tenured professor, she had great medical insurance and job security but she still suffered enormous pain and there was nothing to celebrate. Thank you again for speaking the truth.
I liked your piece and a lot of it resonated with me, someone who got caught up in that stuff for a bit. The reason people are saying it make sense to seperate scitzofrenia etc from autism ADHD etc is that the the later can be thought of as a difference that has many parts some of which genuinely are NOT bad. For example, if an autistic kid is obsessed with trains I don't think it makes sense to claim that he can't get any joy out of the way he's unique. Obviously that shouldn't be extended to his social difficulties etc but it is possible that some developmental disorders (as opposed to other mental illness) have PARTS that are not bad (and maybe good) in addition to the parts that are bad. Depression, etc are a disease that impacts a specific part of cognition in a negative way but things like ADHD or autism are better thought of as a "brain that processes things differently but not always incorrectly" and theres a fundamental distinction there. I think it's possible to acknowledge that without leaning into the cult of validation.
Look at it this way. If you're depressed you're always going to be struggling for as long as you are depressed. When you're struggling less you're less depressed. With autism or ADHD you will always have the same "amount" of autism/ ADHD and sometimes you'll be happy sometimes sad sometimes struggling etc. But one is more structural in a sense.
The people who have no impairment therefore have no right to the accommodations that we extend to the disabled; the impairments are the fundamental moral and legal justification for the accommodations.
Isnt it possible that one aspect of their life would be impaired and another aspect of their life would differ from the norm but not be an impairment but both of those two aspects are a result of a condition that is defined by being different from the norm? For example maybe someone with autism needs accomodations in loud sensory environments but is also really weird about trains or something but likes the weird train shit while still genuinely suffering from the sensory shit? It's a mistake to collapse every aspect of something into one category and then try to assess it on that basis.
But they deny that there is any impairment; they're offended if you represent their condition as a negative at all.
Yes that is bad. I don't think all that many people are doing that though. A lot of the "mental illness as identity" doesn't deny it's an impairment but it instead says "give yourself to this impairment and wear it like a soft blanket define everything by it so nothing can hurt you with the cold truth of culpability for your actions or a sense of duty to others.
I wish you could have been there, in the half-dozen times I've been told by people in the mental health community that my psychotic disorder is "a blessing and a curse."
Yeah that's fucked up and not something I can speak to. I'm just talking about what I've witnessed in social media communities. Like I said, I agreed with most of your piece. I probably shouldn't have said I don't think all that many people are doing that and instead qualified it with "what I've witnessed in social media has trended more toward this other thing imo"
I'm sure some people do this but even the most hardline social model of disability people accept that there's impairment, they just distinguish between impairment and disability. I don't think the distinction really holds up all that well but they don't pretend that, say, schizophrenic episodes don't impair people at all beyond social discrimination.
How far does that go? Somebody who uses a wheelchair needs special accommodations. Does that mean we install elevators on all the hiking trails in national parks?
No but we probably should have them in all subway stations
Funny you mention, where I live we’ve had a long deliberation over whether a new segment of the CA Coastal Trail -- through dense woodlands on the side of a steep hill -- should be wheelchair-accessible. The accessible option would have required felling >3x as many mature trees ... to the point where some parts would have ceased to function as forest.
Trees won, this time.
I think this really gets at something. It seems to me a lot of this rhetoric that Freddie objects to started with autism and expanded from there. I agree with him that it is dangerous to apply it to other mental illnesses.
But autism is a tricky case for exactly the reason you say. People can be both impaired in some respects and arguably enriched in others.
Right. Like depression always sucks. But autism is so complicated and people might be extreamly weird in a way that they have no problem with while ALSO being weird in ways that cause legitimate suffering. Freddie is collapsing those categories into "the autism impairment" but that doesn't work with things that are defined as a neurodevelopmental difference the same way it works for something like depression where the diagnostic criteria is defined EXCLUSIVELY by the impairment.
The question is to what extent the expansion of the criteria for autism is driven precisely by prerogatives that insist that disabilities have benefits as well as drawbacks.
I have no doubt that blind people probably have compensated in some fashion by tuning their other senses. But would anybody choose to go blind just to pick up an improved sense of hearing? Of course not. Being blind is still being profoundly disabled.
It's important define terms. There are "benefits" that exist as compensation for a deficit and there are "benefits" that proceed from a common underlying factor that causes benefits and drawbacks. Those two are different things and worth distinguishing.
I am not myself Deaf, but my understanding is that there is a non-insignificant portion of the Deaf community that believes it is not an illness/disability in need of a cure and that they have a rich and unique culture that has value and would be lost if they were all able to hear. There is even divisiveness over whether parents of Deaf children should be getting them Cochlear implants.
If someone says "I'm glad I have ADHD because I completed this amazing project" then I'm not sure if they even meet the criteria. ADHD means focus issues that interfere with your life. You neglect deadlines and housework and bills and relationships and self-care, even when there are *significant* negative consequences.
Broken relationships, getting fired, fuck-ups that cost thousands of dollars. The consequences get worse as you get older and have more responsibilities. "I forgot to pay my bills lol" becomes "I fucked up so bad that my husband wants a divorce."
I won't deny that hyperfocus is a rush, but I would still cure my ADHD in a heartbeat and that's why I can't celebrate having it.
Yeah I guess I have mixed thoughts. Because I think being really shitty at a bunch of things forced me to compensate and get good at other things the same way a blind person's hearing improves. But in both cases it's an actual impairment that's causing the other "good thing" it isn't the thing itself that's good. I'd also probably cure it if I could but what I really wish is I knew how to deal with it when I was younger before I fucked up so many relationships and academics .
as someone with ADHD this is complete bullshit. ADHD is not a gift and only creates disadvantages there is absolutely nothing about ADHD that is advantageous. It's also not an identity. I have run into so many parents over the years that claim their kid is "gifted" with ADHD. When asked why they say this they tell me they don't want their kid to feel bad about themselves. I explain that they are the ones that think their kid is less than and that's why they say gifted because they're disappointed their kid is disabled so say he's gifted to justify his worth to themselves and others. Also telling a kid with ADHD they are gifted while they continue to fail at life makes them feel worse about themselves.
You don't think it's true that ADHD causes issues with your working memory??
On it absolutely does. It is an executive functioning disorder.
Any good reactions to your piece that you would recommend?
Yeah I’d like to see that too. I’d be surprised and disappointed to find out that the coverage with universally negative.
Agreed. Although my "good" was perhaps too broad for my intentions. I'd also love to see a response that includes some criticism Freddie finds worthwhile.
I think one of the problems you have run into is how unherd frames things.
Your review came with the heading:
"Mental illness doesn’t make you special. Why do neurodiversity activists claim suffering is beautiful?"
I am not sure if a real human being decided to write this, or if this is robot headlining, but it in no way captures the thought of your writing. You weren't even attempting to answer that question with your column. No wonder people got defensive.
Next time you write for unherd, see if you can have creative control over the headline, as well. (And please report back here if the answer was -- no. This will mean something, though I am
of many minds as to what, as of now.) I'd like to write a column for them, but not if they get to control the framing of the article with their title.
I get that solidarity is important, but combining all mental health related concepts into a single bloc has become
basically incoherent. After mass shootings, I see friends on social media talking about how mental illness doesn’t cause mass shootings and how they know this because they had a single depressive episode four years ago. “Neurotypical” is a bizarre concept that somehow includes, say, a piano prodigy, a guy with an average IQ but a photographic memory, and an intellectually slow woman with amazing people skills, but doesn’t include a guy who gets nervous in some social situations.
See also “allistic”, which has become one of my pet peeves. It tells you literally nothing about a person except that they’re not on the autism spectrum.
People yell on Twitter about how “allistic people do this!” and “allistic people do that!”, and usually it’s some extreme extrovert thing, or a trait associated with John Nerst’s “wamb” (https://everythingstudies.com/2017/11/07/the-nerd-as-the-norm/). But, of course, in actuality you can be a shy nerd and still be “allistic”.
This drives me batty. I have ADHD and I’m in a small chat group with some others who do too, to share strategies, vent, etc. It helps me, but what doesn’t help me is when someone in the group generalizes a behavior as being “neurotypical.” What I’ve come to realize, actually, is that ADHD is a “spectrum” or whatever and no two people (in my group anyway) are experiencing it the same way…which makes all of the ADHD cult identity stuff so obnoxious and false.
It sounds like (once again) you’re being attacked by people with poor reading comprehension, and subpar critical thinking skills. The American culture of “quick fix” and “it’s never my fault” thinking conditions people to attack rather than to experiment with self-awareness. Capitalism conditions us to think and behave in this self-defeating and unproductive way.
As is always the case at least half of the people are reacting to the headline and nothing more.
Hey, if it wasn't for people with poor reading comprehension and subpar critical thinking skills the internet would be a ghost town.
That’s true. It already feels to me like a dusty Main Street with tumbleweeds a-blowin’, in terms of what I can get out of it.
We live in disturbed world. We do not know the causes of these issues. Maybe these issues always existed and people were just called possessed or witches.
Today, people want special recognition for their condition. It makes since. If they are just an upper middle class white teenager, they are the target of systemic hatred from the CRT regime. In one quick move, they can jump up in the privilege line.
Conditions may be real, but instead of developing skills to deal with them, they identify with their conditions. They excuse their own bad behavior. And develop personality disorders.
Life is hard enough without this. Mental health issues are not to be desired.
I think there are autistic people whose disease doesn’t cause them any problems in itself, and who would have no issues living life if it weren’t for non-autistic people treating them poorly. It seems like describing this type of person is the origin of “neurodiversity” and the concept fits quite well.
Why every useful concept has to be expanded beyond its limits into a big blob, I don’t know.
Why do non-autistic people treat autistic people poorly, in what ways do they treat them poorly, and how much of this is due to social expectations that are - inadvertently - breached by the autistic person?
In other words, someone in a wheelchair has no problems at all with buildings, until a staircase treats them badly.
It's almost tautological to say that a disease that often manifests itself in social relations - autism is one such disorder, borderline disorder would be another - only flares up when another person enters the equation. Thus the concept of neurodiversity makes sense as a *descriptor* but not as a statement of *value*. That someone's neurological makeup is different, and that that makeup presents challenges, is a fair description. Where this falls down is saying that "it doesn't cause them any problems, except for those problems it does cause, and those are because of other people treating them poorly", because:
1) Clearly it does cause problems
2) Such problems as it does cause are surely, *surely* not monocausal
3) If they are monocausal, then the contention that non-autistic people are that cause would... well, if there are ten poker players at a table, and one loses every single hand, is it because the other nine are world champions?
Note that item 3 doesn't mean we need to treat society as a poker game and punish the tenth person, the autistic person. It does suggest that if they find themselves struggling in society, it's not a slam dunk that it's because they're being treated "poorly." There are ways of seeking accommodation that don't begin with pathologizing the behavior of the neurotypical... but the neurodivergent community resists this as a vampire does sunlight because then they'd have to acknowledge, well, the disease that they have is a disease.
As something inspirational, I offer this youtube from a fundraising event five or so years ago for Autism research and services.
I was in the audience, and I still get chills watching it. And it made me a Katy Perry fan for life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3yhHKZ9RHQ
First, I thought your review was excellent, but please realize that my narcissism is special :)
Second, I could never do what you do. It must be withering to deal with unfair characterization and criticism on media platforms these days. Sometimes, things need to be said, and I’m glad you say the things . . .