One of the most disconcerting things I saw on the support groups is that people have self-diagnosed themselves. It's only natural to want to know what your health or mental problems may be, but self-diagnosis can be dangerous. The Internet has made it much easier to see what the symptoms of a disease or mental condition are. Deciding for yourself is easier and doesn't cost anything, but in many situations you may be wrong.
For example, a women asked if she was analyzing herself too much. She was wondering if looking over information about symptoms in connection with possible mental issues before her appointment with a therapist was bad. The thing she said to justify looking into herself was that she had taken psychology classes.
Advice from Bunny given to the women questioning her self-diagnosis, with the user name Morgan on Supportgroups.com:
"Most of the time when you self diagnose, 9 times out of 10 you are wrong. The best thing to do is to not get consumed with diagnosis'. It takes "Doctors" years to figure out diagnosis'. That means chances are, you wont figure it out.
The best thing to do is put the diagnosis books down,,, get paper and a pen and write down everything you can, describing the symptoms you currently have, the symptoms you have had in the past, and when they started. That's all your part is. Now,, the doctor can do his part. And you have to let him do his part or your appointment wont go so well, and the doctor will not tell you that either."
Morgan replied, saying:
"Thank you Bunny,you made a good point, and i'll keep that in mind. I have just always suspected certain things that were wrong with me, and I just want to see if i'm wrong when I go to see the counselor."
This advice seems legitimate. Bunny was giving advice for Morgan to step back from the situation and realize that she should not jump to conclusions. Looking at symptoms instead is good advice. This ensures she will not have problems with incorrect self-diagnosis. Even though there is a potential to self-diagnose on these sites because you are allowed to join whatever, and however many, groups you want there are still people to communicate that you should pause before carrying out self-diagnosis. The community is there to help out users once again.
I completely agree with you on the dangers of self-diagnosing, Beth. I think that when people are afraid they might have an illness, especially mental, it is way to easy to jump to conclusions. I know when I go on Web-MD and look into something as simple as a sore throat for myself, I get wrapped up in my symptoms and the infinite possibilities of illnesses I could have. It's in our human nature to worry about our mental and physical health, and we will inevitably convince ourselves of the WORST possible outcome. My glands feel swollen and I have a deep cough? I MUST have an STD! (Sounds a lot like UHS haha). Support groups can be extremely helpful, just like you saw with Bunny's advice, but it is true that people can get carried away, especially when they feed off each other's fears.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to agree with both of you completely here. I too am guilty of attempting self diagnosis. Sometimes I don't even go as far as WebMd, I just simply google a list of symptoms. It seems ridiculous now that I actually think about & after reading your post. But with such information (reliable or not) at our fingertips, it's difficult to avoid doing it. I guess now maybe I'll think twice before doing it. But... I probably still will.
ReplyDeleteHaha that UHS comment, Natalie... I'm going to say that a random google search maaay be more accurate than UHS. Really though.