Would you let me remove your appendix or do your next root canal treatment (yuk!) simply because I've experienced those procedures? Hopefully not. Absolutely not!
Our physical health is too important to trust anyone without proper training and qualifications. Right?
So why do we treat our mental health differently?
Don't get me wrong - social media has done wonders for mental health awareness, and I'm genuinely grateful for that. But it's also created some fascinating new phenomenon such as the rise of self-proclaimed experts, playing diagnosticians and therapists, without any proper training.
The result? A proliferation of unhelpful nonsense.
There's even an 'un-diagnosis' trend now - mostly young people declaring themselves free of specific conditions, while dancing. I recently watched a 13-year-old happily dancing and sweetly 'un-diagnose' herself from ADHD because "only boys get it" (spoiler alert: not true! Girls get it too).
In another video, a very confident influencer declared with authority that CBT didn't work for stress and anxiety, whilst explaining how our thoughts affect our feelings and behaviours...and a few other CBT's core principles J...Make up your minds guys! Any of my clients would laugh at the irony!
In fact, I don't want to be a spoilsport but not all of us have ADHD, OCD, BPD, or whatever's trendy on social media this month. Being organised doesn't equal having OCD. Getting cross when your teenager destroys their third overpriced phone in six months doesn't make you a psychopath (it makes you human!). Not liking noisy environments doesn't make you autistic. And no, absolutely no, we are not all on the autistic spectrum!
These conditions and disorders can only be properly assessed by qualified mental health professionals, and diagnosis is a process, not a ticking boxes exercise.
No qualified expert would support the idea that we can simply declare ourselves free of disorders and mental health conditions. As lovely as it would be, dancing declarations of freedom won't do the trick.
I regularly have people listing all their ‘conditions' and disorders before even telling me their name. What I tell them, my clients, and frankly anyone who'll listen: perhaps you have any or all of these, but what matters is that you are unique.
Your mind is far more complex and far more interesting than any list of labels and you deserve much better than social media diagnosis, un-diagnosis, clichés etc.
Isn't it worth trusting qualified professionals with our emotional and mental health, just like we do with our physical health? Our wellbeing deserves that level of care.
