#until this year because i rarely hear anyone discuss tourette's and tics at all

[thecoolertails]

i wish more people understood that mental illnesses aren't categorically defined in a way that's based in science or biology and that the lines we draw between them are ultimately arbitrary. we assign labels to collections of symptoms and behaviors based on their occurrence with one another, and like anything that tries to sort the infinitely diverse tapestry of human experience into neat and rigid categories it often falls short of capturing the full extent of what it attempts to represent. this isn't to say that these labels are useless (they're absolutely not) but to treat them as definite and concrete facts of reality can be both harmful and counterintuitive to actually helping people who experience these symptoms

not to mention that many mental illnesses and conditions are defined heavily by societal expectations and perceptions of the individual, and that what we consider to be someone who is mentally well or typical vs who is mentally unwell or atypical is biased by hegemonic cultural ideals in ways that can sometimes be regressive, bigoted, or otherwise harmful or close-minded. if neurodivergency and mental illness are viewed from a biologically essentialist lens and the dsm is treated like a an infallible scientific text, it completely removes the ability to notice or contest labels and definitions that are flawed, outdated, or those that should be disregarded altogether.

a well known example of this is how homosexuality was once classified as a mental disorder, but there are stealthier examples that are still officially recognized to this day (such as Oppositional Defiance Disorder, which is disproportionately diagnosed in Black children and other children of color, as opposed to many white children with the same symptoms who are instead diagnosed as autistic)

anyway my point is that while modern psychology and psychiatry can be useful tools for understanding ourselves and each other, it's important to understand that at the end of the day it's still a pseudoscience and is not exempt from human error or social bias. at the end of the day we're all both more alike and more diverse than what those tools can show, and to fully understand ourselves and each other, we can't be entirely bound by them

#thinking about this because i don't fit diagnostic criteria for tourette's but i experience tics and i had no idea that's what they were #until this year because i rarely hear anyone discuss tourette's and tics at all #i also experience obsessions/compulsions but (especially now that im older and ive gotten better at dealing w them) i wouldnt say i have ocd #my tics were also way more prevalent when i was younger but thinking about tics triggers them #so they've actually gotten worse lately as i've learned more about them -_- what a bothersome irony that is #my posts #neurodivergency #neurodiversity #mental illness