#im Trying to break them up well enough that theyre not unreadable walls of text but ik they might still be hard for some people

[avpdpossum]

“your self-diagnosis will never be as good as a professional diagnosis” yeah, my self-dx isn’t “as good” as a pro-dx would be, it’s better!

most psychs have spent maybe a few days maximum learning about the absolute basics of my diagnoses, while i’ve spent years taking in every bit of information i can find, including lots of information from the same sources they’d be using and more — chances are i know more about my diagnoses than the average psych ever will

psychs who do have more knowledge got that knowledge from deeply stigmatizing sources, and most have never bothered to learn from the people who actually live the experiences they claim to be experts in (ex. “npd experts” who actually just specialize in “evil abuser disease” or people like martin kantor)

a psych will never be able to know what’s going on in my head the way i can because they can’t read my mind, so even if i was able to articulate my internal experiences really well (which i’m not — i’m a semiverbal avoidant with often disorganized thoughts/speech; explaining something like that is hard if not impossible for me), hearing it secondhand can’t compare to the 20 years i’ve spent living it

the vast majority of psychs operate based on sanism and profit motive — they’re more than willing to take obscene amounts of my money, only to deny me a diagnosis based on not meeting some shitty stereotypes or say there’s no point in giving me a diagnosis if i don’t want a cure or give me the diagnosis and then have me put in a psych ward because my diagnoses make me one of those ~scary mentally ill people~ that none of them want to deal with

a misdiagnosis from a psych could potentially lead to me being put through intensive therapies or put on medication for the wrong thing, which can have very bad results, and the label might stay on my medical record even after being proven wrong; if my personal assessment is wrong, nothing happens — no one gets hurt, i just go “oops, nevermind”, keep whatever useful things i learned from it in my “toolbox”, stop using the label itself, and move on with life

coming to my own understanding of how my brain works and using the labels that actually make sense to me means i actually get to have some autonomy for once — i get a community of people who understand my experiences and a better understanding of how to manage my symptoms and accommodate myself, without having to fear things like forced treatment or intensified discrimination

the idea that my neurotype makes me incapable of self-awareness and introspection is ridiculous — some people might feel that way about their own situations and need to rely on outside assessment as a result, but that experience is not universal

my understanding of my own mind is NOT second-rate compared to a psych’s, and i don’t need to put myself at risk just for a stranger to tell me what i already know

#sorry for how long my posts have been recently djsjd #like i said in the post articulating stuff is hard so sometimes it takes me A While to explain things well enough to post them #im Trying to break them up well enough that theyre not unreadable walls of text but ik they might still be hard for some people #poss.speaks #personal #discussion #not avpd #(well...its not Not about avpd but its not Directly related) #self diagnosis #pro self diagnosis #pro self dx #psych critical #anti psych #anti psychiatry #time for the Generic Disorder Tags™️ #avpd #actually avpd #actually avoidant #avoidant pd #avoidant personality disorder #cluster c #npd #actually npd #actually narcissistic #narcissistic pd #narcissistic personality disorder #cluster b #stpd #actually stpd #actually schizotypal