#disorders

[neurospicyyy]

• Fidgeting and stuttering do NOT always indicate that someone is nervous.

• Avoiding eye contact does NOT always mean someone is lying.

• Having a hard time focusing does NOT always mean someone is lazy.

• Carrying around a stuffed animal or blanket does NOT make someone childish.

• Poor motor skills is NOT a direct indication of intelligence.

Not everyone fits into your box. Deal with it.

[yousaveeveryonebutwhosavesyou]

The brain is an organ. Mental illnesses are illnesses of that organ. Brain scans show that there is a physical difference between a healthy brain and a sick brain. Telling someone “You’re not really sick. It’s all in your head.” is like telling someone with asthma “It’s not real, it’s all in your lungs.” The brain is an organ that can malfunction as much as any other organ.

[will-pilled]

It gets so... tiring hearing people speak about those of us with cluster B disorders like we're a completely different species who is incapable of reading and hearing the things they say. They speak like we're not even here.

Do they even feel love?

How to spot them.

They're so hard to manage.

I am a person. I am right here. I can hear you. You can just ask us instead of speaking like you're studying aliens. You can just... speak to us. You realize we're the same species right? Like, we have feelings, right?

You realize we're prisoners of our own mind, right? That we don't choose to suffer like this? We don't choose to need extra support? You know that, right?

You can just.. speak to us like people.. because it gets so tiring, and people can only withstand being treated like another species for so long before they get mad.

I'm just.. tired.

[kiindr]

reminder that you're not "OCD" if you just like things organized and in their place.

OCD is a complex mental health condition characterized by obsessive thoughts that give rise to intense anxiety and compensatory compulsive behaviors to help soothe this anxiety.

it can completely take over someone's life and make it extremely difficult for them to get through each day.

please do not casually misuse this term.

if you're skeptical that you might have it, please go to a professional to get proper assessments and diagnoses.

[ray-of-melancholy]

Its "mental health matters" until someone has a trauma response that's not disordered in a way you like to romanticize

-🕊

[sadsickandstoned]

Or worse, I wake up (😠😠) and am LATE to work

[crazycatsiren]

I have nothing against the word "disorder". I personally don't think it's a bad or negative word.

I have autism spectrum disorder and bipolar disorder. And that's ok.

If you want to avoid the word "disorder" for your neurodivergence/mental illnesses, I respect that. You just don't get to decide for me that I can't use "disorder" for my conditions.

[queerfemboybf]

the words disability and disorder are not inherently bad words full stop.

[furiousgoldfish]

Me? Having the symptoms of a disorder I have? It's more likely than you'd think.

[stories-by-starlight]

If you’re against fakeclaiming, feel like this should apply even when you don’t like the person.

People you don’t like being around, or irritated by.

People you disagree with.

Ex-friends and Ex-partners.

People who hurt you before.

Amount of times have seen people who claim be against fakeclaiming suddenly talk about how someone “probably didn’t actually have [x]” or “was probably just faking [x] for attention” the moment they don’t like them anymore has caused a lot of distrust.

Don’t like the treatment that not being fakeclaimed is a privilege must earn by being likable. Earned by never messing up, never be “too much”, never disagree.

Not say every person who ever done this is wrong about being against fakeclaiming, or that they bad people. Just think is something worth think about.

[mysidaesm]

How fakeclaimers tell if you are faking a disorder!!!!!!

-you have a less than super common disorder

-you dress in any way that isn't casual

-youre queer in some way shape or form

-you act "cringe"

-youre a minor/you are young

-you show symptoms

-you don't show symptoms

-you don't follow stereotypes

-you follow stereotypes

-you use popular social media

-you have more than one illness/disorder/etc

-wait what does any of that have to do with anything

-im starting to think that fakeclaimers are just bigoted

-who could've guessed

[wtfuglydemonalt]

Just saw a post talking about DSPS (Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome) and how stupid it is. Here's some important reminders:

Disorders are not discovered for the sake of disabled people.

Disorders depend on what is seen as desirable/undesirable in a society at their specific time period.

Disorders are a tool. Not the symptoms themselves, of course, but the classification is. It works to give people who have those an "other" status, separate them from "normal" people.

Not to mention the pathologization of completely normal things, like mentioned above. It is normal for people to have later sleep cycles, hell, DSPD's own description mentions how it's normal in teenagers. But it doesn't fit the work cycle set by capitalism, does it? It doesn't matter if humans evolved that way due to protection needs in the wild, if you can't abide by the set rules then there is something wrong with you. In their eyes, anyway.

There's a big movement within psychology of people who are against the DSM-5 and CID-11. People should get the help they need without being marginalized.

If you are disabled in any way, psychologically, physically, developmentally... please know there's nothing wrong with you, no matter how much society wants you to forcefully fit their bullshit standards.

[yousaveeveryonebutwhosavesyou]

I HAVE FUCKING NO ONE. I STAY IN MY FUCKING ROOM AND JUST PRETEND. PRETEND THAT MY LIFE IS DIFFERENT, THAT IM DIFFERENT, THAT THINGS ARE DIFFERENT. I DONT WANT TO PRETEND ANYMORE. I JUST WANT TO BE HAPPY. I WANT TO HAVE FRIENDS. I WANT TO HAVE PLANS. I WANT TO HAVE MEMORIES. I WANT TO HAVE FUN AND LAUGH AND HUG. I NEED A HUG. I NEED HUMAN CONTACT. I NEED SOMEONE TO CARE. I NEED SOMEONE.

[disabledunitypunk]

A Conversation About Demedicalization and Disorders

Let's talk about demedicalization. What is demedicalization? The Open Education Sociology Dictionary defines demedicalization as "The process by which a behavior or condition, once labeled 'sick', becomes defined as natural or normal." It is the process of normalizing a trait of the body or brain or behavior as a normal variance of human existence, rather than a pathological variance in need of treatment or correction.

Put simply, it is no longer looking at something as a sickness in need of treatment, but rather just another way of existing.

Some background info that is needed: the social and medical models of disability.

The medical model posits that the existence of disability is predicated on inherent pathological differences in the bodymind, that it is active physical limitations, some of which can be treated or "corrected", that make a person disabled.

The social model, on the other hand, states that is is a societal lack of access and accommodations that disables a person, and that a person would no longer be functionally disabled were these access barriers to be removed. Keep in mind that this does not mean they believe that people would not still have "impairments" that affect how they are able to function, but that it defines disability as the disadvantages caused by an ableist society treating impairments as needing to be "fixed" rather than accommodated. I defines being abled as being able to participate in society to the full extent an impaired individual wishes to.

I believe in a mixed social-medical model. I believe that some conditions are inherently disabling and that seeking medical treatment for them, while it should be up to disabled individuals, is helpful and good. My ADHD, for example, will still limit my participation in society to the extent I want to, without medication. You could consider medication an accommodation, but there's also the example of my chronic pain and fatigue and POTS that often keeps me housebound or bedbound. There may not be a treatment for that, and I cannot fully participate in the world around me because of that.

"Ultimately, the social model of disability proposes that a disability is only disabling when it prevents someone from doing what they want or need to do."

I am actively prevented from doing what I want or need to do by an inherent feature of my body that no amount of accommodation can allow for. However, some of my conditions would not be disabling with proper accommodation - my autism, for example, I don't generally consider disabling because the people and structures around me DO accommodate for it.

So why is demedicalization helpful or necessary, and how is is applied?

Well, three psychological examples: autism, psychosis, and schizophrenia.

Autism is currently, in the DSM, called autism spectrum disorder. However, autism is a neurotype, and many autistic people do not feel that autism inherently causes them distress or dysfunction, and is therefore not disordered. That is why many of us call ourselves autistic people or say we have autism, rather than ASD. There has been a push for years for the diagnosis itself to be changed to not contain the word "disorder", and to allow for informed self-diagnosis.

Informed self-diagnosis is also an important part of demedicalization, especially of neurodivergence. It says "someone doesn't need a doctorate to know themselves and their own experiences well enough to categorize and classify them. Good research and introspection is enough to trust a person to make the call, and labeling oneself as a specific kind of neurodivergence is harmless, even if they later find out they were wrong.

Psychosis is the next example. There is a growing movement that I've talked about before: the pro-delusion movement. Not everybody experiences distressing delusions, and even when they are distressing, this movement says that only the individual experiencing them has the right to decide whether they should be encouraged or discouraged. It states that it is a violation of autonomy to nonconsensually reality check (tell someone their delusions are not reality) someone, and that as long as a person is not harming others, they can do as they like with their delusions.

This is an example of demedicalization. Treating delusions as something not to be suppressed with medication or ignored or "treated" or "fixed", but as simply another, morally and "healthily neutral" way of existing outside homogenous neurotypical norms.

Finally plurality. Now what's key here is that demedicalization does not mean saying a thing can NEVER be disordered. In fact, that's why I made this post. I saw someone the other day say that they felt their aromantic identity was disordered. Initially, I balked, thinking they were internally arophobic, but I listened to what they had to say. Essentially, they expressed that the identity was never inherently disordered, but that it caused them distress and dysfunction and so they experienced it as such, and crucially, that wasn't a morally bad thing or something they felt they had to correct.

Because here's I think what gets left out of discussions on demedicalization: demedicalization also means no longer treating disorders as something that inherently have to be treated or fixed, that disorders can simply exist as they are if the person with a disorder so chooses; and that anything can be labeled a disorder if it causes distress and dysfunction without being inherently disordered AND without needing to be treated.

And conversely, this means that if you experience something as disordered, demedicalizing it means that you do not have to meet an arbitrary categorical set of requirements to seek treatment, but can do so based on self-reported symptoms. Treatment cannot be gatekept behind a diagnosis that only a "qualified professional" can assign you.

This means if someone wants to, they can label their autism as disordered, but it is never forced on anyone. If someone feels ANY identity - neurodivergent, disabled, queer, alterhuman, paraphilia, whatever - is disordered, they can label it as such, but they also don't have to. There are no requirements to follow through with "treating" anything you label a disorde, either. No strings attached, just the right to self-determination and the right to autonomy hand in hand,

So, back to plurality. You essentially end up with three aspects of demedicalization. You have nondisordered plurality being normalized, you have dissociative disorders that systems can choose not to pursue treatment for without judgment or coercion, and you have disordered systems that can pursue treatment for dissociative symptoms without receiving a difficult-to-access diagnosis. Based on their experiences, they can choose to label themselves as having DID, OSDD, UDD, or related disorders, or to forgo the label and simply seek treatment for whatever distress or dysfunction the disorder is causing.

"But without a specific diagnosis, what if they pursue the wrong treatment and it harms them?"

This is where the importance of recognizing self-reported symptoms as valid comes in. If an OSDD-1b system that hasn't labeled themselves or receives a diagnosis reports that they don't experience amnesia, they won't receive treatment for amnesia.

And since symptoms can mask, if a DID system reports not experiencing amnesia, they simply do not become aware of it or receive treatment for it before they are ready, which is a good thing because recognizing certain symptoms before you are ready to deal with them can be destabilizing and dangerous. More awareness of dissociative disorders will also make it easier for systems to adequately recognize those symptoms, and this isn't saying that someone else can't suggest it to the system experiencing it. It's simply saying the person experiencing a disorder takes the lead and is centered as the most important perspective.

I consider myself to have several disorders and several forms of nondisordered neurodivergence. My BPD is disordered but I am not treating it because I have healthy coping skills already. Same with my schizophrenia. My narcissism, on the other hand, is simply a neurotype. My plurality is both - the plurality itself isn't disordered, but I do have DID on top of it.

A last example, this one physical, of demedicalization: intersex variations. The intersex community has been pushing to recognize that intersex variations are natural variations in human sex, and not medical conditions that need corrected. This doesn't mean that any unpleasant symptoms related to an intersex variation can't ever be treated - in fact, it's important to the community to have that bodily autonomy to access whatever reproductive healthcare is needed - but it does mean treating our sexes as inherently normal and NOT trying to coercively "correct" them.

So in summary, demedicalization is fundamentally about autonomy. It is about considering natural human variations as such, rather than as sickness to be cured, about letting people determine for themselves whether any aspect of themselves is disordered, and the decision on whether or not to pursue treatment for anything being theirs alone. It is about trusting people to be reliable witnesses and narrators of their own subjective internal experiences, and about never forcing anyone to change any aspects of themselves, disordered or not, that aren't harming others. In short, it is about putting power back into the hands of disabled people. And that is what this blog is all about.

[recovery-nuovame]

My meme ™️

[defectivegembrain]

Thing is I try and I guess I sort of get the objection to words like "disorder", but. When I say things like that I don't mean half the things people tend to assume it implies. I don't mean "this thing is fundamentally Bad", I don't mean "I need to be fixed", I most certainly don't mean "I hate myself". I mean there's something fucky with my brain and I'm impaired and I need you to acknowledge that. And I think that's okay, I think it's a part of life that some people are like that and it's overall not a problem to be solved.

And I want to be sympathetic to others' feelings, but when people start objecting to such words I can't help but feel they've missed the point. I don't have a "difference" that's bland and meaningless it doesn't tell you anything about who I am or what I need. Everyone's different but I can't do some things that most people can and "different" does not convey that. And I don't think acknowledging that means saying I'm worse or less worthy than other people. I resent that assumption. And I resent the assumption that when I say disorder I mean something that shouldn't be. I think disorder is a fundamental part of humanity actually.