[grumpy-de-sre]

Yeh I kinda threw that out there and wasn't the clearest but yes I'm 100% in agreement that everyone is somewhere on the spectrum and I guess we need to reach a place as a society where everyone is okay with that and that there are thresholds where intervention and disorder verbiage makes sense and thresholds where perhaps a conservative approach is sufficient (and these can change over an individuals life).

Totally true that the DSM uses concrete cutoff values in an attempt to limit subjectivity, given that, what do you think is driving "overdiagnosis"? Eg. given we have guidelines in place?

> I think it's unhelpful if folks who (for example) like their TV to be set to an even number talk about 'their OCD'.

I guess we can agree that a tiktok mental health awareness is a poor substitute for a proper education (broad, balanced, evidence based etc). The sad thing is tiktok awareness is popular because people just aren't getting good information elsewhere.

At the same time I don't think gatekeeping is particularly good, the folks who struggle the most are often the quietest.

[d1sxeyes]

> what do you think is driving "overdiagnosis"? Eg. given we have guidelines in place?

This is a super interesting question, and I don't know the answer.

My personal, completely unsupported opinion is that people now feel more pressure than ever to be perfect, when people are not. It is therefore logical that when people look at themselves and find imperfections, they try to find a 'cause' or a 'reason' that they can blame those imperfections on. I suspect that once you have convinced yourself that your imperfections are caused by something, you have a sort of Baader-Meinhof effect of the mind which causes you to see more and more 'symptoms' and attribute more and more negative things to that 'cause'.

Agree on both the TikTok mental health awareness and gatekeeping points however.

[grumpy-de-sre]

And to top it off, the same pressure to be perfect can also exacerbate underlying risk factors, and cause a legitimate increase in illness.

Agreed, plus the controversial take, some young adults seem to take an odd pride in strongly identifying with their diagnoses, an in-group effect if you will.

Either way back to the original article, talk is cheap, action is harder. If we want to actually improve mental health we're going to talk less and do more, eg. reducing the pressure on young people (housing/education reform anyone?).