discourseful:

transjupiter:

someone called me ignorant for saying selfdx-ers are people who just wanna pretend they have “cute” and “quirky” illnesses

literally what else is it

here’s reasons people actually might self diagnose:

-they can’t afford to go to a doctor to get an official diagnosis

-they don’t have time to go to a doctor

-they have been told by a therapist/other mental health professional who can’t technically diagnose that it’s extremely likely they have a certain illness, but for a multitude of reasons may not be able to go to another doctor to diagnose officially

-they are a minor and their parents refuse to have them see a doctor – this might be combined with any of the other reasons I’ve listed

-their symptoms are extremely obvious

-they’ve put years into trying to research the illness(es) they believe they have and for whatever reason can’t access a diagnosis and are self-dxing as a means of finding coping mechanisms that align with what they believe they have (say, a traumatized person looking into PTSD coping despite not being able to get a diagnosis)

-they have been repeatedly midiagnosed and no longer trust mental health professionals

-they have been repeatedly mistreated by mental health professionals

-etc

like. fucking yeah there are people who over diagnose for attention or whatever, i have known people who do and hate it a lot, but there are PLENTY of reasons someone might self dx that are pretty easy to figure out if you take a minute to apply critical thinking instead of going “kek all self dxers are attention whore snowflakes” or whatever it is you’re trying to go for here