Do psychiatrists hide their mental illnesses?

[Irishbell]

It struck me today that so many humans have narcissism, borderline or other types of cluster B personality disorder, post traumatic stress disorder, attachment disorder, psychopathy, ASD, anorexia, ADHD, psychosis, Depression, Bi-polar OCD the list goes on and on.

If you listen to the symptoms of any of the above ^ you can relate to greater or lesser degree to many of the symptoms and not only that but see these in others.

Now, what I’m wondering is this… do psychiatrists see the traits of the many different pathologies in themselves and hide it cleverly or do they know how to medicate for their particular type?

Is there a danger that we are over pathologising everyone at the moment?

Maybe there are more instances of anxiety and depression because the way we live our lives is so at odds with our needs as a species?

Why would they hide it? I know several psychiatrists who have had treatment for their own mental health. They can’t medicate themselves though! Your question is a little strange to me.

Not well 👀🤣

They can’t medicate themselves!
But, yes, like the rest of the population they can suffer from/ have any of the above but would likely need to have developed good strategies to deal with a mental illness/ personality disorder if they’re going to function well enough to be in work.
I’ve known several with mood disorders and one (undiagnosed, but agreed with my suggestion) psychopath.

I’m a mental health nurse and I don’t know many people who work in mental health who DONT have their own diagnosis of something. It’s usually why people go in to do it. I have bipolar.

As far as I know part of the training is about your own MH issues and many go into that area due to MH issues in themselves or close friends and family and watching them suffer.
I think if you knew so much about MH you wouldn't be quick to diagnose and would know the subtle differences so I don't think you would over diagnose yourself or others in fact I see there is a reluctance to diagnose and it's a lengthy process.. it's only on MN that everyone is a narc.
Normal individuals can show some narcissistic characteristics however to be a narcissist requires a higher threshold than we see to throw around on social media so easily and flippantly.
I don't think they would need to hide it and many if not most psychiatrists have their own counsellors. Also, if they hide it then other colleagues would know.
If their MH makes them dangerous or a liability they would soon be reported for something they've done and could be struck off the register if so bad. In face, they would struggle to gain qualification or hold down a job or keep regular clients so it sort of self eliminates if their MH is that bad.

Yeah they would need a different doctor to sign off and prescriptions they can't self prescribe and if they do they would be creating more problems for themselves risking their licence

Thank you for your replies. I just got pondering about it and thought that we have such a long way to go as a society in terms of internalised ableism and people throwing labels and diagnoses around Willy nilly. If society isn’t ready to understand these various conditions with compassion, then it might be better to just pretend they don’t exist.