October 29, 2022

"A great concern is that adolescents may be making faulty self-diagnoses and treatment plans in the absence of professional insight."

Said Corey H. Basch, a professor of public health at William Paterson University of New Jersey and lead author of a study of #mentalhealth on TikTok, quoted in "Teens Turn to TikTok in Search of a Mental Health Diagnosis/While social media can help people feel less alone, using it to evaluate symptoms has several downsides" (NYT).

Unsurprisingly, the article doesn't mention teenagers who identify as transgender, but that subject comes up in the comments. Someone writes:

Where do you think kids are getting the idea they are trans or non-binary? The only difference is how it is treated in the US. Rather than question, everyone is told to go along with it, leading to unnecessary medication and surgery.

The conditions discussed in the article are:

  • depersonalization disorder
  • O.C.D ("People go, ‘Well, if I have the symptom, I have to have the disorder’ — but it’s not that kind of relationship... [but] if you’re organized and you have structure and you like things a certain way and you’re functioning, you don’t have obsessive-compulsive disorder — you’re organized")
  • depression (“It’s incredibly easy to misdiagnose... You might have symptoms that look like what an adult’s depression would look like, but as a child or adolescent it very well could mean something completely different")
  • misophonia ("I think it empowers youth to know it’s not just them making something up... [but] a little bit of information can be dangerous")
  • attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

ADDED: Right after publishing this post, I saw that 2 new comments over there also raise the issue of gender dysphoria:

1. "How is it possible that this article did not address the 500% increase in teen girls self-identifying as the opposite sex? Indeed, teen boys are affected too, but as we know, teen girls are particularly prone to social contagions (anorexia, bulimia, cutting, recently seen facial tics)."

2. "Why is it that there is an article about this but not about teens diagnosing themselves with gender dsyphoria after immersion in social media like TikTok? Let's please connect the dots in a commonsense way. Gender dysphoria appears to be socially influenced, which is why exploratory therapy and proper assessment before any medicalization is so key. Thank goodness jurisdictions like Florida, Sweden, Finland, and the UK now understand this and are prioritizing the mental health of such gender distressed young people."

21 comments:

Lucid-Ideas said...

The only thing shocking is that this is shocking.

Mike Sylwester said...

Are we supposed to think that TikTok is only place where such "self-diagnosis" happens?

What about YouTube?

What about websites and blogs?

What about books, magazines and newspapers?

---------

Why the focus on TikTok?

Dave Begley said...

The Left and part of the medical profession are engaging in pure evil by allowing and even encouraging kids to undergo irreversible medical procedures. Kids! The Left used to protect minors.

Today’s Democrat part is Satanic. No question about it.

Sebastian said...

"How is it possible that this article did not address the 500% increase in teen girls self-identifying as the opposite sex? . . . Why is it that there is an article about this but not about teens diagnosing themselves with gender dysphoria after immersion in social media"

Because gender dysphoria is different. As "professional insight" must now affirm, on pain of professional excommunication.

Prog ideology says the trans craze is not due to social contagion. Prog ideology rules. But in this case, as the heterodox questions show, not quite securely. Which makes the prog apparatus double down.

Mike Sylwester said...

If a person thinks he has a problem, then it's smart to research possible explanations on the Internet, in a library, etc.

Who doesn't do that?

It's a lot faster and cheaper than going to a doctor.

Usually, going to a doctor happens later.

gilbar said...

Where do you think kids are getting the idea they are trans or non-binary?

it used to be you tube... NOW, it's tiktok. They are being taught What to say that will allow the doctors to do the billing... It's ALL ABOUT THE BILLING

H said...

Any responsible editor would have removed any reference to Gender dismorphia or trans-sexuality because including those in this article would seem to imply that trans people are suffering from a mental illness. That kind of message would get the author and possibly the journal cancelled.

traditionalguy said...

The current tsunami of Margaret Sanger style attempts to render young people infertile is the alternate profit model for Planned Parenthood Clinics. The child bearing enslaved Africans along with most world races other than Sanger’s race were deemed weeds in need of medical extermination. American Eugenics laws that she pushed were where the demonic Nazis got most of their their ideology. All Hitler did was add the usual European scapegoats, the Jews, to Sanger’s CDC
type list of less than human races designated as dangerous weeds in need of castration.

Carol said...

Yeah every user on reddit seems to have 5-6 boutique "disorders" now. And if you can't get the Dx from your doctor, by God there's an online psych NP who'll be happy to prescribe.

Meanwhile in Transworld the whole flipping contagion is splitting into a hundred pieces, aka "xenogender" where you decide you're cat gender, mermaid gender, galaxy gender, etc., above and beyond plain boring fluid gender.

Really messing things up for the *real* transgenders who suspect xeno is some kind of transphobic cis subversion.

Hilarity ensuing! Lesbians hardest hit.

n.n said...

Professional insight, plausibly. Career objective, probably. Fragile bodies and minds, indubitably. Sociopolitical bias... nothing will change, yeah.

Wa St Blogger said...

Where do you think kids are getting the idea they are trans or non-binary?

Used to be that kids would try and find out what Hogwarts house they belonged to.

Joe Smith said...

If liberal kids from liberal families are unable to reproduce, I see that as a net positive...

Enigma said...

I'm waiting for more to exhibit the bleeding hands and feet of stigmata. We need more living saints. A lot more saints. Thungbergian saints.

BTW, when will Greta be canonized? I hope she doesn't need to be a martyr to ascend.

ALP said...

I see people seeking health information (mental or physical) on the internet all the time! For example, reddit's r/cholesterol. Numerous posts asking what their cholesterol test results are, as if their own doctor refuses to talk to them.

tim in vermont said...

Without reading the comments, you will never get more than what they want you to think.

PM said...

The NYT is throwing shade on TikTok et al to deflect its own responsibility in exactly these matters.

Jupiter said...

"The Left used to protect minors."

What? When was that?

Lurker21 said...

There doesn't seem to be a healthy, sensible balance. When I was growing up if a young person sought help, they went to a professional from another generation who had no idea what they were going through. Now it seems that we've moved to the opposite extreme, and therapists want to be trendy, with-it, and affirming of whatever contemporary ideology dictates. Growing up was always hard and still is.

I wonder, though, if "misophonia" really is a widespread complaint.

tim maguire said...

H said...Any responsible editor would have removed any reference to Gender dismorphia or trans-sexuality because including those in this article would seem to imply that trans people are suffering from a mental illness.

Exactly. Cowardice. They didn't miss the connection, they saw it and chose not to write about it.

Robin said...

I wonder, though, if "misophonia" really is a widespread complaint.

REcently, the mother of one of my daughter's good friends told me that her 16 year old was suffering from misophonia and wouldn't eat dinner with the family. Surprised, I asked my daughter if the girl displayed the same issue with the group of friends, and she laughed and said that it was not a problem at all socially. This kid is on all the social media platforms, so it would not surprise me in the least to find out that somewhere on tiktok it says this is a great way to avoid family meals.

That said, the fact that they completely elided over gender dysmorphia is mind-boggling. Teenagers in my daughter's group wrote a supportive play about coming out as non-binary, and there was a very telling moment when the character coming out said forcefully that this had "nothing to do with online groups grooming them," which is what the parents believed. In the next scene, the character talks to their "online only friend" on discord for help on what to say to parents, teachers, and in-person friends. It's been discussed by de-transitioned young adults that much, if not most, of their information came from online sources - anonymous, supposedly well-intentioned individuals, including how to talk about what they want and are supposed to want. The play was a disturbing confirmation of this, despite its supportive messaging.

Kirk Parker said...

Enigma,

I'm totally fine with the idea of canonizing Greta... as long as they use an actual cannon.