My mom says there's nothing wrong with me but when I did some research on math dyslexia (dyscalculia) my whole life of struggling with time, directions, numbers, basic math made sense. Sometimes, if you see a persistent pattern of extreme levels that everyone else refuses to look at because they just want you to "try harder" finding that answer really does help.

Both things can be true. SOME people can continually read about illnesses and then imagine they have them, they love the drama. SOME other people can have legitimate mental health conditions which are undiagnosed and they struggle to get help with. Society is still coming to accept mental health realities.

... on the chance of being downvoted into a timeout again - it doesn't help you if you SELF-diagnose. Because for all you know, you might misdiagnose yourself and it might make things worse. Self-diagnosing doesn't mean that you recognize that something is off - that is only part of it. It means you actually decide that you have a certain disorder or mental disease and it might be something different. For example, one might *think* they have an anxiety-disorder and stay inside and avoid other people when maybe, they are not on any disorder and are a fairly normal person with normal insecurities. And hiding oneself inside might actually do real damage. So please - you don't wnat people self-diagnosing cancer, either but rather let a professional do that. They might also know the right way to treat it!

I think, at least in part, it's about people who use mental illness to explain quirks. Like "I'm organized so I have OCD." But you're not wrong. People with mental illness are often dismissed.

Seek help, be your own advocate, but don't just self-diagnose and call it a day.

They probably shouldn't diagnose themselves either. We have professionals for that kind of thing, and most pharmacies won't honor prescriptions written by children for their own medicine.

Go to a doctor if they can.

Yeah don't listen to this one. Self-diagnosis helps the doctor out. They don't accept your diagnosis as fact but they will know what questions to ask.

My mom said I was being an over dramatic teenager up until the point where she finally dragged it out of me that I’d tried to commit. She still maintains that I was overreacting.

They need to stop self-diagnosing and dial 988 (crisis suicide line to help you find real help) because self diagnoses leads to self medicating and they still won't be getting help they will be worse off. (From someone actually qualified to diagnose you)

Those are things like depression and anxiety. It's fashionable today to self diagnose with multiple personality disorder and other such disorders that are so rare doctors cannot confirm they are real yet now every teen on tiktok has 70 "alters"

Guess what? They still shouldn't be self diagnosing. In fact, if there is genuinely something wrong, they're likely going to make themselves full blown obsessive going down the rabbit hole to figure out what's wrong. They should probably look into copi ng mechanisms you address specific behaviors, but no one should be self diagnosing.

I lost my son to suicide. It is an epidemic esp among young males. Pay attention...very closely.

Not what he said, I don't know how old you are but it is statistically impossible that when my teacher asked about who had depression EVERY SINGLE GIRL in the class of 40 people raised their hand. When I asked a few of my friends in my class about it to try and comfort them and asked when they were diagnosed (find out how long they had been silently suffering) they all said that they found out last week because they didn't feel like getting out of bed on the same day because of the alignment of the planets! Being depressed is not the same thing as having depression. Don't diagnose yourself with something because you want to seem interesting, you'll just be the same as everyone else

That’s a lot different than what I think this is talking about. If someone says something is wrong, they should be heard and believed.

That was me, 15 years later it turns out it was severe depression.

Holy hell that comment hit home. I was told exactally that by parents as a kid. Now I'm 40 and struggling just to make it day to day.

Because people are over diagnosing themselves, we end up with kids that done get the diagnosis they need! That's the whole f*@$ing point of the statement!

I said I have bad social anxiety because of bullying and insecurities, i'm now classified as introverted.

I would like to state this to clear up a lot misinformation. First of all the reason mental illness shouldn't be self diagnosed because alot of them aren't 1st person awareness. 2ndly there's alot of fals information on the Internet when comes to medicine. Most accurate medical information come from $400-700 textbooks . You can't Google most of the stuff you learn in med school .People can state they're opinions on how they feel but varies by person, & most of the testing is physical. If you feel like you'e experiencing symptoms of a mental illness that doesn't deny your symptoms as invalid. Its okay to say your concerned about your mental health. But many people lie about mental illness, creating more stigma & misinformation.If you want to be taken seriously go seek professional help, because not seeking help is giving up without even trying find a solution. And you're "barely hanging on" call the suicide helpline.

A good parent, teacher, doctor, etc. will take the necessary steps to help a kid in distress...I know it's difficult, I have a daughter who is bipolar and I had to cut a swath through her school, take her to multiple doctors, have her evaluated and even committed to a behavioral health facility...don't give up!! Ask one more person for help...call the Suicide Prevention Lifeline...the number is 988

Get properly diagnosed from a medical professional who went to school for it.

Go to a doctor for an actual diagnosis to get help. I weap for the USA and their lack of socialized healthcare.

This is not about them, obviously

They need therapy.

Then there will be proper signs and symptoms and apts and a wonderful place called a hospital that they can go to. Trust me a kid that's hyperventilating throwing tables and rocking back and forth isn't being ignore because they just want attention lol it's the quiet more maintained ones who have it worse usually

This comment is hidden. Click here to view.

This comment has been deleted.

I see the latter far more often than the former

This... I have seen a lot of teens claiming they are bipolar as if it was something cool just because they don't know what they want.

I'm the same age as you. People were definitely engaging in self harm when we were school kids. You may not have known about it, but it definitely happened.