#wish it wasnt so hard to insist on professional advisement in good faith. deep sigh. the economy

[officialspec]

genuinely curious, and probably will agree but on your tags for the post about mental illness terms being used trivially you said that it’s basically impossible to self diagnosis dissociation- genuinely i want to know why you think that

my stance is that its pretty much impossible to distinguish dissociation from other potential symptoms in any meaningful way without professional guidance, for a few reasons:

for one, its a widely misunderstood symptom even in actual psychiatric circles, and on top of that any legitimate information you might be able to find is surrounded by 100 times more tumblr-infographic-style misinformation and for most people it is straight up impossible to tell the difference

you (general) might be inclined to think 'i know not to trust infographics i would be able to tell', but the sheer volume of misinformation has saturated the field so completely that its plastered on very official looking websites, and even some more trustworthy sources, so a discerning eye wont save anyone

the average person simply will not be able to sift through the hogwash to any legitimate resources without direction from someone who knows what theyre looking for, no matter how savvy they might be. no one is immune

if you do somehow manage to separate the wheat from the chaff, the next issue is that dissociation is a wildly nebulous human experience, and the way it presents overlaps with about one million other things that are all managed in completely disparate ways. a treatment for dissociation might make someones actual problem much worse, or drive them to hopelessness if it doesnt change their symptoms at all. its a huge risk that i just dont think is worth it

this answer is already long as hell but ending on the usual disclaimers that im aware diagnoses are prohibitively expensive and also i cant stop anyone from doing anything. but i will have opinions about it. as is my right