Teenagers are self-diagnosing mental health problems because of social media

@Stopsnowing Yes, a diagnosis is hugely helpful to any autistic person of any generation. I'm in my 40s and was not diagnosed until a couple of years ago, not knowing what was wrong with me had a massive negative effect on my life and I was suicidal and self harming for decades. Language is labels, without labels we can't communicate.

i agree with Dolphin Wars. Dd is self harming and the Camhs helpline and the gp agreed she needed a referral but when the Camhs lady called me she basically said “what do you want Camhs to do about it” and tried to push dd back to school counselling. Dd has self diagnosed a lot of conditions and I think labels really help that generation. I do suspect asd and am wondering if it would be worth getting an assessment.

@orbitalcrisis I am not telling anyone what they should call themselves, but then neither should you, that is part of my point. You can’t speak for the whole autistic community, no one can and no one should as it becomes a doctrine.

@WinterSnowing I find your response very telling. Some people feel that they can belittle and ignore the majority of a whole section of society just because of a few idiots. Most autistic people are perfectly happy to let anyone chose their own terminology, even the term Asperger's is widely accepted despite it's very problematic origins.

We would just like to let people know that the majority of us prefer identity first language. This is not because autism is our entire identity, it is because it is a very important part of our identity that we want to be recognised. We are not trying to stamp out discussion, we are trying to be heard, which for a group that contains so many non-speaking people is very important.

Autistic people get to chose their own terminology and you do not get to tell us why we are doing it.

I have noticed this in the Twitter profiles of many young people, and also of some older people. A long list of various mental health conditions are listed, but the person doesn't seem to tweet on any of those or retweet anything to do with the conditions.

I have found this with my own child - I am still waiting for services for tourettes and have been told that this is because there are so many presenting, particularly in teenage years and girls.

Tourettes does not tend to arise in teenage years for most, and it is mostly in boys. My child’s tourettes causes physical harm to him, is quite different from those presenting in social media, and arguable should be prioritised.

Oh that buggered up the formatting but hopefully you get the gist.

It's a perfect conflation of so many current and under addressed issues:

1. Competition for resources- healthcare but also for adult attention (adults are drained trying to keep heads above water materially) - if I am diagnosed I get more!
2. A more competitive, unequal and therefore hierarchical, society - if I am special my status increases!
3. Lack of social security, decent work, supportive structures - I can join this loud community just by saying so!

And so on... To be honest I am surprised it isn't even more common, sounds quite appealing even to rational old me.

I do wonder about professional over diagnosing, considering our experience with DD. I have no professional nor much personal experience with psychiatry so I hate to speculate, but my friend who does feels a lot of people are over medicated. She no longer practices, which is a shame.

Helleofabore happy to hear your child figured it out! My daughter similarly moved away from friends who were "toxic" and that helped her immensely.

It makes a change from self-diagnosing autism.

How lucky for her that you listened to your friend!

I have watched my teen go through a worrying patch of fragile mental health. But it was a commonality with all their friends. The group had glamourised fragile mental health and were mostly trans calling out everyone they knew for hate. My teen just got so over the drama that they moved away from the group and found within about a month that they were feeling so much more positive about life and themselves.

It is heartbreaking that some teens have to detach from friends to improve their mental health, but it is actually a good lesson. I wish I had learned it at 15!

Well if Camhs was fit for purpose this wouldn't be anywhere near as much of an issue.

My teen DD did this. And for a hot second we believed it. We brought her to a therapist who believed her immediately and wanted serious meds prescribed. A psychiatrist friend cautioned us to get another opinion. The second opinion didn't agree with the diagnosis. So, we found another therapist who was wonderful and simply talked her through why she felt she had x conditions (of course, it had morphed from 1 into many). Within 6 months DD no longer believed she had any pathologies. A big part of her therapy was getting off social media.

A comment from the second psychiatrist has always stuck with me, "behavior and emotions in adolescence can mimic psychiatric conditions but we can't know for sure until they grow up or we watch them over time." In other words, our DD was behaving and feeling normally for a teenager.

She's now a young adult and has no mental health diagnosis. She's doing well.

I do find this interesting. I have two autistic teens. One doesn't identify as autistic the other does. Both are diagnosed.

I think it is now seen as somewhat cool to be neurodiverse and my DD has embraced it. My son just wants to be like everyone else (NT).

My daughter has several other diagnoses and whilst it is great that she feels able to talk about them and does not see them as negatives it does seem to overtake our conversations sometimes.

Definitely the internet has a lot to answer for both for positives and negatives.

“A teenager or adult who self identifies as autistic. Again, this in a way should be fine, except again and again this seems to be centering autism on a particular presentation of functioning people who have had no developmental delays in language or motor skills. If any parent dares to suggest that this is less severe this is met by fierce condemnation. It’s all OK as long as the terminology is right, but honestly no one seems to care about the kids who can’t speak who still aren’t getting services, no one fights or talks about them.”

I disagree with this part to an extent.
Autism isn’t just about language or motor skills delays, many autistic people, particularly women, spoke early, many of us have mild motor skills issues but not to the extent where they could be recognised - remember we’re still at a point where many teachers don’t believe a child could be autistic because they’re not Rain Man.

Autism assessment looks at social development, social interaction amongst others.
Whilst I agree that tiktok identity diagnoses are annoying, take up resources etc, there are many undiagnosed women out there who, until it was made mainstream, had no idea that a) women could be autistic, or b) their disabling traits could be anything other than laziness or uselessness (as we’re often brought up to think).

I didn’t realise I could be autistic until my son was assessed, I then realised that I was too - the self ID bit for women particularly is inevitable - however I could not call myself autistic or allow myself any slack or strategies to help until I was diagnosed. I can assure you though, despite no language delays it is disabling, and you do a disservice to many autistics to suggest otherwise.

This has been happening since the Tumblr days.

Mine do no use any Sm other than to arrange a drink etc with close mates
They just do not get it at all

A friends DD has been undergoing testing for autism. She announced to her class that she had several other conditions and was later found to be watching various social media channels and mimicking they symptoms. One minute she would be sat chatting with friends and the next would be having a panic attack or making noises saying it was Tourette’s.

I find the terminology very telling. Autistic is some people’s main identity and therefore the need to be ‘autistic person’ rather than person with autism. However there has never been a consensus on this, yet the ‘autistic person’ is pushed as if it what everyone wants, because autism as identity first is what the social media, self identity, able to articulate and function adult community has pushed for. It has become more of a closed ‘tribe’ where you are either IN or OUT (see all the actually autistic and autistic only people lobby) where terminology leads, who have to be autistic to join. Open, challenging discourse is discouraged and stamped out.

It is similar with transgender. There is a HUGE push for language and terminology. Cisgender, use of pronouns, compelled speech. This seems to be very, very important and so much so that workplaces are insisting on this terminology. And the terminology is everywhere and now quite complex. I actually have no idea about half of it, but as a teenager growing up in social media if you don’t know what non binary is, or pan gender or whatever, if you can’t use interchangeable pronouns, then you are called out and ridiculed. Not part of ‘the group’. Workplaces and even the census now carries this terminology.

Words have power, and we are giving power to those groups demanding validation through the use of words.

For me the key is that those self identifying do not require a lions share of services or should be centering energy, resources and care on those who self identify.

Whether this is autism, transgender, tourettes.

I would have no problem with teenagers or adults thinking about ‘I might have ADHD traits or autistic traits, or I might feel quite more like a man sometimes’. These are all useful ways to explore ourselves, to think, experiment, find who we are.

But what is happening is that there is a very fierce ‘ownership’ and pushing of self identification as the most important, the most needing of the others validation and also of resources. Resources, time and space that are literally being taken from others who do need it, most of the time far more than those who self identify. This is true of every area:

• A man who wants to dress as a woman, that’s fine. However it doesn’t stop there, they need to BE a woman, in every sense, including going into women only areas because apparently their self identification is more important than women’s needs.
• A teenager or adult who self identifies as autistic. Again, this in a way should be fine, except again and again this seems to be centering autism on a particular presentation of functioning people who have had no developmental delays in language or motor skills. If any parent dares to suggest that this is less severe this is met by fierce condemnation. It’s all OK as long as the terminology is right, but honestly no one seems to care about the kids who can’t speak who still aren’t getting services, no one fights or talks about them.

People are taking onboard identities that are to do with often quite serious mental health issues, or developmental issues, and running with their version of them but insisting that their version is now the most important one.

@FunnyTalks The preferred language thing came up because rather than telling people the best language to use, they actually asked autistic people what they prefer. It wasn't full circle, they'd never been asked before. But tearing people down for using language that many autistic people use is not on, pointing out what the majority prefer can be helpful though. It even happens in the autism community, it's considered better to tell people so they don't inadvertently upset anyone, but as with everything, some people do take these things too far.

“Just me wondering as there is no way to know for real but I wonder how many parents find themselves with a child as described in the linked article”

Not what you’ve asked, but I most definitely recognise it in dd.
She is autistic, which I’m sure is at the root of all the MH issues, and the obsessive nature, but I’m 99% certain that the issues are largely identity led, driven by competitive mental illness amongst her peers when she was still at school.
I’m sure there are parents who struggle to recognise it, or who validate it, because these issues often come with suicide threats (rather like trans issues), and it’s very difficult to stay rational when your child is threatening to kill themselves. It takes a while to understand and to disengage from it all. Im sure part of the problem is the approach from MH services which requires the patient to reflect on themselves and their issues - I’ve seen how damaging this can be. In most cases teenagers need to do the opposite, focus on anything other than themselves and how shit they feel.

I am also autistic and clearly
remember very intense feelings of not being right as a teenager, wrong body, wrong life etc. Luckily at that time we weren’t overly encouraged to focus as much on ourselves as teenagers are now, and no one took my feelings seriously - which in hindsight is what I needed - no teen needs their fixated issue validated, that helps no one.

My DD is diagnosed dyspraxic. She started secondary and has made a number of ND friends. She started wearing a disability lanyard and then She came home telling me she needed an assessment as she thought she was autistic (she had an all round assesment in primary and there was no cause for concern) She and a friend spend time making cards for their sunflower lanyards listing all their symptoms.

I want to support her but equally this has only really kicked off in secondary. I don't know if she just feels more comfortable being open about it (which is great) but how do I know what is real and how much is feeding off other people. One of her friends has school refusal issues and I really want to ensure we don't go down that path.

Sometimes it is actually the case though! As a person who reached adulthood before working out I was neurodiverse, I can confirm that my life had all but completely unravelled. There are many reasons it might not be picked up in childhood, sex being one.