Self-diagnosis, maybe particularly when it comes to mental illness, is typically rejected for reasons of it likely being inaccurate, one possibly being biased, emotions influencing judgment and who knows what else.
Anasognosia, or the lack of insight into one’s condition, so typical to schizophrenia, is argued to be a major factor in treatment non-adherence, which in turn, it seems safe to say, leads to worse quality of life.
I was thinking about the relation between the two. One can know very well that others, doctors and the like, judge you to have such and such a condition. Yet this alone does not amount to endorsing such a judgment, or you judging yourself to have this condition. To mark genuine insight, in contrast to acting/saying what others expect you to while having your own thoughts on the matter privately, isn’t some form of self-diagnosis involved?
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I suffer from lack of insight eventually if I go off meds.
What makes me angry is that I’ve been released from hospital in the past while being psychotic.
So bad doctors and hospitals combined with my own lack of insight are a scary combination.
During one stay at the Hospital I told my doctor, “I have perspective on my non-perspective.”…to which he simply replied, “That’s called insight”
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All I know is I thought what I was going through happened for everyone until I got to be 15 and a friend of mine online told me he had “schizophrenia” and I looked it up because the name was bizarre to me at the time and I was kinda surprised at how much I related to it from descriptions patients gave who have it and then no one listened to me, outright saying I couldn’t have it, until I got to be about 22 and figured out how I could see a psychiatrist finally, no thanks at all to anyone I know, and oh it turns out my suspicions were true and I didn’t even know back then I actually had way more symptoms than I was actually aware due to bad insight.
Some sort of insight that some isn’t quite right is kind of necessary leads to seeking help. If safely available. Misdiagnosises leads to the wrong medicine, and that’s not good. It leads to learned helpessness and fear and distrust of psychiatry and psychology.