(2023-02-05) Meditations On The Selfdiagnosis

Default Friend: Meditations on the self-diagnosis. I constantly think about self-diagnosis and the Internet.

It’s something that’s been on my mind since the days of LiveJournal and MySpace. I remember thinking there was no way fifth graders needed Lexapro. I remember thinking: there is no way all my friends are clinically depressed

My parents were big believers that kids didn’t know shit—especially when it came to self-knowledge. In some ways, I was lucky; almost every phase was quashed from the get-go.

I feel like so many people have forgotten that what MySpace, LiveJournal and their accompanying mass media feedback loops did for self-harm, clinical depression, eating disorders, and bisexuality is what Tumblr did for transgender identity, autism, the always nebulous “chronic illness,” and BPD. (social contagion)

Much of the existing commentary about self-diagnoses is probably right. It’s advertising-driven; it’s Munchausen’s-by-Internet; it’s a way for lost souls, these days more often adults than teenagers, to find an identity to anchor themselves in; it’s a symptom of our culture’s never-ending thirst for new excuses-cum-products to push. See the Great Adderall Mill Epidemic.

But I think there are three other vital aspects of self-diagnosis:

We love labels, and we hate uncertainty. We are constantly searching for explanations—for reasons things are the way they are—for closure.

Stereotyping (in this case, medicalizing) is a useful tool in our arsenal for this insatiable desire for “sensemaking.” It’s also a tool that we have a complicated relationship with.

You start watching videos about NPD. Well, that sounds like him.

Now here’s the shelf with advice on how to manage NPD partners. Here’s the product you need to survive. Here’s the book that will explain everything

It is so much easier for your ex-boyfriend to have had NPD than for you to sit with the sadness

If he has NPD, though, there is no uncertainty and less discomfort

Two, people develop affinities for the aesthetics that surround these disorders. Aesthetics embrace you on the Internet. They are dark forests you can very easily get lost in.

Borderline Personality Disorder, for example, often has a particular texture: BPD is Lana del Rey.

these images don’t just make up the pieces of an identity; they feel like a place where you can easily lose yourself.

In some cases, the Internet conditions us to display the symptoms of these disorders.

It’s not that people are faking it. They don’t see how their environment impacts them, and a lot of conventional wisdom hasn’t caught up with how technology has changed.

What’s striking is that, as with most Internet-induced behavioral patterns, it’s more easily undone than it appears on the surface. Take away the filter of the Internet, and the behaviors start to melt away.