To wonder how helpful this can truly be, if at all? TW discussion of self injury

[toworrywearegoingtheopposite]

I’ll start off by saying I have had mental health problems most of my adult life and probably since I was a child. I have two diagnoses and I’m neurodivergent. I’ve had episodes where I’ve hurt myself on and off since I was 11 (now 33) and I’ve had a lot of therapy to help me understand myself. I’ve been told that my diagnoses are lifelong, that I will have good and bad periods and that I need to keep to meds and a care plan (that’s held by several agencies and persons) etc.

My tiktok feed is frequently full of young women in psych hospitals, some in PICUs, etc. Usually lots of very visible injuries, discussions about ward life, room tours etc. Some of it’s almost glamorised and made to look pleasant - rooms very personalised, wish lists for gifts, a lot of comments ‘I wish I could get an inpatient stay’, ‘your room looks amazing’…

Now I get that especially in young women, undiagnosed autism has a lot to answer for - I work in healthcare and I’ve sat in meetings where we have discussed very complex cases and several times have concluded, x needs an autism assessment, and I genuinely think that is beneficial and that understanding and supporting neurodiversity especially in education and work benefits everyone. I often wonder if the boom in young women with a dx of EUPD is in fact autism - my mum was diagnosed with BPD 40 years ago - spent most of her twenties in a psych hospital - and she is almost certainly autistic.

So it’s not that I don’t think these girls are genuinely needing support but … a) how is keeping anyone on a psych ward for months on end helpful - it’s an artificial environment, the longer you are there surely the harder it is to reintegrate to ‘home’ and b) how is it helpful for young women to be able to use TikTok especially to document being an inpatient?

I honestly think at 16 when I did not have the support I do now, had I been exposed to that I would have wanted to be an inpatient - I would have wanted the break from my very challenging home environment… and I would have watched what they were doing and wondered if that was the way to get help.

It’s almost like at times it’s the new ‘thinspo’ if anyone remembers that.

I don’t know what the answer is because least restrictive practice etc applies, but I honestly can’t see how it benefits anyone… you do get the same with physical illnesses and other stuff and I equally wonder about that - a lot of very vulnerable people with a very open forum.

Have we gone too far in the opposite direction? Theres no shame in mental illness but glamourising it isn’t the answer either.

(and yes I get that by engaging I’m part of the problem!)

I don't think we have gone far enough.

I think that ND needs to be way more normalised earlier, that schools needs to set up in a way that creates the environment that works for them. A lot of the anxiety and subsequent mental health issues I see in ND youth are as a result of a system and environment built for NT youth.

See that I can’t disagree with, I we think we need to diagnose autism etc much earlier and then we could maybe prevent this situation from happening but it’s more the fact that there’s a lot of girls/young women with huge scars on their foreheads - that when questioned, ‘oh it’s just my self harm’. Normalising that to that extent just makes it seem OK when surely it isn’t - it’s not something to be ashamed of as such, but worry it must influence others…

Yep normalising self harm is not ok. We definitely need better interventions earlier with ND kids to prevent the mental health issues.

State schools are an absolute shitshow for ND children.

No it's not ok to normalise it.

Get off TikTok op, you've triggered the algorithm and that's what's it's going to feed you.

I agree with you. I see and hear people almost boasting about their mental health diagnosis regularly. People seem proud of it. Not that it’s something to be ashamed of, I’m not saying that. I just feel it’s another way for young people to feed into this victim mentality.
I absolutely believe people should seek help and people need to now it’s available for them though.

You likening it to thinspiration is exactly what I would say is happening, in the 90s and 00s, body image was all about ribs, size 0 & looking 'angular'. Therefore anorexia boomed, bulimia boomed, and the NHS was left scrambling to formulate a response to a new epidemic. The same is now happening with neurodiversity and mental health problems. Some schools seem to have a competitive nature around how many diagnoses they can self ascribe, and how many self harm scars they collect, when my experience is those truly 'hurting', hide their self harm. It's very worrying but I'm not sure what can be done, the constant, and I mean CONSTANT oversharing about mental health is great in that people don't feel 'alone', but it's also now become a trend.

I think all social media is a curse on society, and whilst it’s definitely here to stay, the impact it has on glamorising and exacerbating mental health issues in the vulnerable (and I’m including young and impressionable in that), I don’t think will ever fully be realised.

I absolutely agree that mental health needs to be spoken about openly, but the content that people are being exposed to does not do that in a manner that is healthy.