In Defense of Self Diagnosis

To echo what the other commenters said: it is absolutely fine - and I don't think anyone on TiA would disagree with this - to gain awareness of the existence and nature of mental illness, and to use that awareness to (as you said) acknowledge to yourself at least that you need help. What do they say to people at AA - something like 'acceptance is the first step'? By analogy, I don't think anyone would have any problem with looking up the symptoms of a physical illness on a website like WebMD to help you ascertain if you need to seek professional help; and seeking help for mental illness should be no different to seeking help for a physical illness. If you want to use an anonymous, or pseudo-anonymous forum like Tumblr for this, and to tap into an online community of people who might be going through what you're going through, that's a-okay in my book (it's not something I personally would do, but different strokes for different folks).

That said, this all has to be done with the massive proviso that you can't self-diagnose yourself. No-one can, not even the best trained psychiatrist in the world. We all need a more objective source than our own self-awareness (though again, as you and I both said, acknowledgement/awareness of a problem is the first step to recovery). As you said so acutely mentioned, you only have a 'suspicion' that you have NPD. Plenty of Tumblrinas don't have such humility when it comes to self-diagnosis, particularly towards Personality Disorders and what in the mental health 'biz they call 'complex' problems like Bipolar Disorder; all of which psychiatrists would admit are really hard to diagnose, let alone treat (and some psychiatrists don't even think exist, but that's another story). Additionally, some of these disorders can't be diagnosed concurrently, which makes it even more stupid when you see a Tumblrina saying they have self-diagnosed with like ten different mental disorders at once.

Here lies the rub for me, and why I think you shouldn't 'self-diagnose': it's something that really needs to be left in the hands of professionals. By analogy again, I can notice a lump on one of my balls. I can't however self-diagnose testicle cancer, which needs to be done by an oncologist. And that's why I don't think people who self-diagnose should be given 'the benefit of the doubt' as you say. Yes they're suffering (most probably) and they have realized that something is not right in their own mind. That doesn't take away from the fact that no-one can self-diagnose, especially when it comes to complex and multi-faceted medical problem like mental illness, autism, or a personality disorder.

What is also not okay is to glamorize suffering and mental illness, as plenty of people on Tumblr and the internet do. Mental Illness fucking sucks (and I speak from some personal experience here; though I realize what I've said so far might sound fairly detached and clinical); it's not cool, or a 'quirky' part of your personality that makes you oh-so more creative, deep, and interesting than normal people. I know this isn't what you were claiming/are necessarily doing (I have no idea, after all I've never seen your blog), but it is what a lot of the self-diagnosis crowd on Tumblr do. And I think that's pretty fucked up, not to mention insanely offensive to people who have been properly diagnosed with a mental illness. To hazard a guess, this is what I think most of TiA really have a problem with when we see a 'self-diagnosed' post on TiA (though I'm purely speculating here, obviously).

Finally, I should say - and maybe I shouldn't have left this until the end, but hey this post is long enough as it is, and I don't want to edit it anymore - that I'm sorry to hear you've been depressed, and you've been going through shit at the moment. I really hope you get the help you need, and that everything improves. :)

/r/TiADiscussion Thread