The breach of trust is at the core of every emotional duress, also referred to as a 'mental illness'. Understanding what that breach looks like is essential to rising above it.
I see that, and I think some extremes make living and functioning happily and healthfully within society challenging or worse. While self-diagnosing is beyond ridiculous, I think there's a place for such labels insofar as they can create a broader understanding and acceptance and avenues to find help. How do you find a solution if you can't define the problem? Like with narcissism, I think we all have it at varying degrees, but for some, it's harmful. I think the expansion of the definitions and symptom profiles of autism, ADHD, and many mental health challenges has been an enormous detriment to relieving stigma and finding healthy outcomes.
The problem with the labels is that it distracts and defines. Human nature latches on to such conveniences and that's how we both, lose sight of the human behind the behaviour and enable humans to embrace the label and abdicate accountability for the behaviour. At best, it can be used to describe the nature of the behaviour to a third party, like how we would say that someone may have narcissistic tendencies, but we can't go as far as saying that the tendencies define the entirety of the human. Same with people who behave arrogantly. Or selfishly. Everyone is just one label away from being dehumanised.
I get that, and I think it's a rather black-and-white way of looking at it. Labels are just one aspect of a person, you know? It's like, I'm a mother (label), but that's far from all of what makes me. We all have so many labels: a parent, a sister, a podcaster, a transplant recipient, a priest. Do you find these problematic? I'm not referring to self-diagnosing or diagnosing others.
Note how the labels you used as examples all describe actual roles that we play in the lives of others, while the labels that I am challenging the veracity of all relate to how we define people's behaviour within those roles...only problem is, we don't apply the labels for behaviour within the context of the role. We apply it to the human in their entirety, which again dehumanises us. Roles have labels because it allows for context and discernment. Emotions only get labelled to make it easier for us to manage others, or to decide how we feel about them. It does nothing to remedy the actual experience that we have with them.
I get what you're saying. My thing is that I don't apply such labels to the human in their entirety. Like if a person has diabetes, depression, alcoholism, narcissism, or ADHD, I see that as one aspect of a person. Instead of fighting labels, my problem is how they can be misused and abused. There are innumerable ever-changing aspects of everyone, and labeling certain behaviors and feelings is helpful. Denying that someone has narcissism, ADHD, or diabetes fails to address these issues and, therefore, help the person who is likely suffering as a result. I mean, sure, we're not all Neurotypical in that our brains work the exact same way, which I don't think anyone is saying, but to say autism, ADHD, dyslexia, OCD, etc., aren't real things is inaccurate and harmful. There's a continuum to everything, including neurodiversity, and to mindlessly toss these labels aside or act like the label makes the whole person do nothing but leave a person unseen, unheard, and unhelped. I don't feel the need to throw out the baby with the bathwater when it comes to mental health.
Physical ailments are not labels. So diabetes, for example, will not be seen as lumping someone into the diabetes label. It's a physical state that can be measured, diagnosed, and remedied through physical intervention.
Narcissism, ADHD, and every other defined mental illness is subjective and has zero objective criteria that can be measured clinically to determine its presence or its prevalence. This is not just my view, but a view shared by many practising psychiatrists in the field. There is zero science behind the mental illness textbooks, especially the DSM itself. Again, not my personal view, but the view of many practising psychiatrists in the field.
Neuroplasticity confirms that our brains don't work on their own, nor do our brains have agency to determine how it wants to deal with anything. It is entirely (100%) reactive to our experiences and new information that we expose ourselves through in the normal course of life.
So there is no mindless tossing aside of any labels. It's raising awareness of the fact that labels, when it comes to human behaviour, distracts us from the legitimacy of the emotional duress experienced by the human behind that label. Legitimacy of their experience. When we focus on that, we create opportunity to understand the unique contributing factors that gave rise to their emotional experience of whatever they encountered in life. The only value a label offers, w.r.t. emotional experiences or behaviour, is to describe how we are experiencing someone else's behaviour. It in no way provides any meaningful evidence to confirm that our experience of their behaviour is consistent with their experience of their own behaviour, nor does it confirm their actual motives or intentions behind their behaviour. At best, it allows for communication about the issue. At worst, it distracts us from their lived experience and directs our attention to what we think of how they're handling their lived experiences.
That is interesting how so much pain, etc., comes down to breeches of trust. Since you brought up neurodiversity, autism, and ADHD, beyond using it as a crutch, what are your thoughts on those topics? Do you believe they exist? Are legitimate labels? I'm just curious about your thoughts. Thank you, I hope you are doing well! 🧡
Neurodiversity is pretty much the new catch-all phrase to lump all people into a basket of predefined models of behaviour. It's a poor attempt to avoid accountability for having to embrace our deficiencies on the part of the one who is 'diagnosed' (most often self-diagnosed) as neurodivergent, while giving others a free pass to avoid trying to establish understanding or empathy with the struggles of those who behave in ways that fit the ridiculously broad criteria of what qualifies as neurodivergent.
We are all neurodivergent by design because of the trillions of variables of our lives that shape each of us uniquely. The problem we have in the mainstream mental health space is that we have a group of people who believe that it's their place to define what healthy human behaviour looks like, while dismissing the very humanness of the human experience by the human behind that label. We've lost the plot.
I see that, and I think some extremes make living and functioning happily and healthfully within society challenging or worse. While self-diagnosing is beyond ridiculous, I think there's a place for such labels insofar as they can create a broader understanding and acceptance and avenues to find help. How do you find a solution if you can't define the problem? Like with narcissism, I think we all have it at varying degrees, but for some, it's harmful. I think the expansion of the definitions and symptom profiles of autism, ADHD, and many mental health challenges has been an enormous detriment to relieving stigma and finding healthy outcomes.
The problem with the labels is that it distracts and defines. Human nature latches on to such conveniences and that's how we both, lose sight of the human behind the behaviour and enable humans to embrace the label and abdicate accountability for the behaviour. At best, it can be used to describe the nature of the behaviour to a third party, like how we would say that someone may have narcissistic tendencies, but we can't go as far as saying that the tendencies define the entirety of the human. Same with people who behave arrogantly. Or selfishly. Everyone is just one label away from being dehumanised.
I get that, and I think it's a rather black-and-white way of looking at it. Labels are just one aspect of a person, you know? It's like, I'm a mother (label), but that's far from all of what makes me. We all have so many labels: a parent, a sister, a podcaster, a transplant recipient, a priest. Do you find these problematic? I'm not referring to self-diagnosing or diagnosing others.
Note how the labels you used as examples all describe actual roles that we play in the lives of others, while the labels that I am challenging the veracity of all relate to how we define people's behaviour within those roles...only problem is, we don't apply the labels for behaviour within the context of the role. We apply it to the human in their entirety, which again dehumanises us. Roles have labels because it allows for context and discernment. Emotions only get labelled to make it easier for us to manage others, or to decide how we feel about them. It does nothing to remedy the actual experience that we have with them.
I get what you're saying. My thing is that I don't apply such labels to the human in their entirety. Like if a person has diabetes, depression, alcoholism, narcissism, or ADHD, I see that as one aspect of a person. Instead of fighting labels, my problem is how they can be misused and abused. There are innumerable ever-changing aspects of everyone, and labeling certain behaviors and feelings is helpful. Denying that someone has narcissism, ADHD, or diabetes fails to address these issues and, therefore, help the person who is likely suffering as a result. I mean, sure, we're not all Neurotypical in that our brains work the exact same way, which I don't think anyone is saying, but to say autism, ADHD, dyslexia, OCD, etc., aren't real things is inaccurate and harmful. There's a continuum to everything, including neurodiversity, and to mindlessly toss these labels aside or act like the label makes the whole person do nothing but leave a person unseen, unheard, and unhelped. I don't feel the need to throw out the baby with the bathwater when it comes to mental health.
Physical ailments are not labels. So diabetes, for example, will not be seen as lumping someone into the diabetes label. It's a physical state that can be measured, diagnosed, and remedied through physical intervention.
Narcissism, ADHD, and every other defined mental illness is subjective and has zero objective criteria that can be measured clinically to determine its presence or its prevalence. This is not just my view, but a view shared by many practising psychiatrists in the field. There is zero science behind the mental illness textbooks, especially the DSM itself. Again, not my personal view, but the view of many practising psychiatrists in the field.
Neuroplasticity confirms that our brains don't work on their own, nor do our brains have agency to determine how it wants to deal with anything. It is entirely (100%) reactive to our experiences and new information that we expose ourselves through in the normal course of life.
So there is no mindless tossing aside of any labels. It's raising awareness of the fact that labels, when it comes to human behaviour, distracts us from the legitimacy of the emotional duress experienced by the human behind that label. Legitimacy of their experience. When we focus on that, we create opportunity to understand the unique contributing factors that gave rise to their emotional experience of whatever they encountered in life. The only value a label offers, w.r.t. emotional experiences or behaviour, is to describe how we are experiencing someone else's behaviour. It in no way provides any meaningful evidence to confirm that our experience of their behaviour is consistent with their experience of their own behaviour, nor does it confirm their actual motives or intentions behind their behaviour. At best, it allows for communication about the issue. At worst, it distracts us from their lived experience and directs our attention to what we think of how they're handling their lived experiences.
That is interesting how so much pain, etc., comes down to breeches of trust. Since you brought up neurodiversity, autism, and ADHD, beyond using it as a crutch, what are your thoughts on those topics? Do you believe they exist? Are legitimate labels? I'm just curious about your thoughts. Thank you, I hope you are doing well! 🧡
Neurodiversity is pretty much the new catch-all phrase to lump all people into a basket of predefined models of behaviour. It's a poor attempt to avoid accountability for having to embrace our deficiencies on the part of the one who is 'diagnosed' (most often self-diagnosed) as neurodivergent, while giving others a free pass to avoid trying to establish understanding or empathy with the struggles of those who behave in ways that fit the ridiculously broad criteria of what qualifies as neurodivergent.
We are all neurodivergent by design because of the trillions of variables of our lives that shape each of us uniquely. The problem we have in the mainstream mental health space is that we have a group of people who believe that it's their place to define what healthy human behaviour looks like, while dismissing the very humanness of the human experience by the human behind that label. We've lost the plot.