I’ve read the recent posts here for the last week or two.
My thoughts….
With mental based illnesses, it must be hard to always determine an accurate diagnosis.
There isn’t a sure way to examine the body & brain to determine a good idea of what’s going on. So they don’t . With a majority of physical illnesses … the body’s activity and state will indicate what the issue is and thus an illness is identified,… off-course this can also sometimes be misdiagnosed … but i think in the history of the world and all of the people who have had a physical disease or illness a huge majority of diagnoses would be correct compared to incorrect.
With mental illness I think it works more like the following:
….experts come to a conclusion based on a set of indicators determined from previous research. This can only be determined through the patient communicating their thoughts and feelings and frequency of them, and how often they change, plus how they behave. . Also I think so many of the parameters involved , cross over, making it hard sometimes to determine.
Ones mental state… is, physically invisible…..Yes, the brain has chemicals…but you can’t physically / tangibly see thoughts, feelings and moods.
And that’s where I think if there is one…a miss-diagnosis takes place with mental illness and that the expert is nothing more than someone trained in the field , thus having a more valued opinion, which may or may not be precisely right. Sometimes the answer is clearer… but not always.
I was diagnosed 22 years ago with mild schizophrenia and already had general anxiety and OCD. (Christ…. the meds I’ve been on over the years and their side effects) …... - but just 6 months ago in an assessment I was told that the schizophrenia had been a ‘misdiagnosis’, I’m actually Autistic with ADHD.
But… what’s clear… is that in 2003 when I was told I have schizophrenia I was very unwell and went on antipsychotic medication (they actually eventually put me on beyond the maximum usually allowed dosage and had to get special permission to do so) along side the anti depressants I was already on.
Thing is (and what helps me understand) is that…Nuro diversity… wasn’t known about then - like it is now.
