The Consequences of Making Mental Illness Trendy on TikTok...

MERCH ▼



TikTok Is STILL Faking Mental Illness!! - Fake disorder cringe is still going strong, despite the hopeful decline it so seemed to be beginning. Unfortunately, the allure of clout has kids making up alters, pretending that their joining in on Tiktok dance trends is stimming, and acting like every quirk they have means they're autistic. It's beginning to seep into the real world, outside of the social media bubble and into the work force, and this glamorization could have a very worrying effect on how disability and accommodation in the workplace could end up becoming down the line. We know it's toxic, we know it's stigmatizing, but today, we need to talk about how this push for self-diagnosis could lead to devastating consequences for those who know that disclosing their diagnosed conditions is a sacrifice for help rather than a privilege.

FOLLOW ME ON ▼

► Snapchat - graciekinz97

Intro/Outro Music by Prod. Riddiman

[CJFreeza]

People need to understand that when you actually experience psychosis or a mental health breakdown going back to normal is never the same. You start to wish you could go back in time to when you were actually not crazy and just over reacting.

[yaboisneezy]

I have OCD and I HATE that everyone thinks it's just counting numbers and being organized. When I've explained it to people like I get intrusive sexual thoughts that I absolutely hate and it makes me feel gross and like I'm a monster but I understand that those things are intrusive and I don't actually think those things. Sometimes I can't sleep, I'm worried about the house being caught on fire because I am SURE i turned off the stove hours ago? So i gotta check again and again and again. I've gotten help with it and I'm on medication and I don't really have trouble with it as much anymore, its been lifesaving.

[awackygoblinwhodraws]

I’ve been officially diagnosed Autistic when I was a toddler. Having people infantilize me is awful and it doesn’t help that I look younger than I do. Having people fake Autism and state they wanna be infantilize makes me remember every time I was talked down to because I have autism

[nvdawahyaify]

My biggest accomplishment is that I can make inanimate objects sing(I can play several stringed and wind instruments).
I'm also really good at raising and training dogs.
I don't want people to just think of me as my disorders. I'm a person with thoughts, feelings and an actual personality.

[Bubbles_]

That woman in the thumbnail I genuinely feel so bad for she was trying to bring attention to the CHRONIC AGONY she was in to see if anyone coulf help because she was denied life changing treatment since it can mess with fertility and doctors wont do that to a woman in “child bearing age”

[StacyDoodles]

As someone who lives in the US, I would love to send some of these “my illness is quirky” jerkbags my medical bills from all the ACTUAL testing I had to go through.

[chelsietucker]

I celebrated my anxiety survey scores going down from 21 in September to 7 in my group therapy the other day, I don’t understand why people would want to suffer like that. I could barely function before I got treatment and it was the worst period of my life, why on earth anybody would want to be debilitated by their mental health is beyond me

[lillian_the_snail]

my biggest accomplishment is probably graduating from treatment. it was hard, but i’m really proud of myself for getting out of there! i went back to public school after leaving treatment, and i’m in college now. i’m really proud of myself ❤

[allexmussen]

The EDS one is so very annoying. Me and my mom have been looking for a clinic to help clear us that we don't have it. Everything we learn about EDS is terrifying and I can't imagine someone wanting to have their legs cave on themselves or to develop bruises all over

[me]

I was actually in consideration once for making my mental diagnoses public on my file for any job I applied for. One of the things that I had to consider was that while I would have been protected legally if I got the job I could very potentially be passed over for certain jobs due to my mental diagnosis. In the end, I choose to keep it private since I don't want to be judged on my mental issues. If it doesn't affect my work, no one needs to know.

[BrennaDraws]

While I get most of this, the 'livestream' one you're opinions came off a little ablist. Anyone with chronic pain can tell you that the 'pain scale' isn't accurate for them. People with chronic pain experience pain differently and it's been proven that the brain changes to adapt to the constant pain. My 5 is an 8 to most normal people.

My mum has had chronic pain for 20 years. She's had two major falls this year, one of those she broke her hip in two places and walked back to her arm chair and slept there before deciding the next day that 'yeah something doesn't feel right' and calmly asked for me to call the ambulance. She only needed a little help to climb onto the bed they offered her. She ended up needing surgery to fix it. None of us believed she'd broken anything, because while it hurt it wasn't 'broken bone' painful.

Even the doctors were shocked and horrified that she was walking on broken bones. If we didn't adapt to the pain we'd unalive ourselves, and many infact do.

[aubzily]

I used to date someone like these people. I’d love to tell my story if you’d like! Essentially, they downplayed my OFFICIALLY DIAGNOSED conditions saying that I didn’t know how it felt to really suffer from them because they had it worse (they were only self diagnosed). Anyways, fun times. Would love to share more if you’d like. And yes, this person is on TikTok and has a decent following.

[nonamedeviant]

When I was 12 years old I had a stroke and had blood swimming in this liquid surrounding the brain. I was a 10 and later 9 on a pain scale. I screamed and cried, asked my parents to kill me to stop the pain, and that was with the strongest painkillers I could get. That's just disrespectful to lie about stuff like that.

My biggest accomplishment (at least for now) is that I played in a musical when I was 14 :>

Edit: I look more into the situation of Tara (girl in TikTok video) and she did actually experience level 10 pain, in fact many times, during "suicide headache" that are part of her illness. When she was in hospital to treat the head ache she made a TikTok when she was felling a bit better saying she want to see a concert (I think) instead of being in hospital. It's fucked up what happened to her.

[meganhughes]

As someone with major depressive disorder.. WHY IS IT NOT BLUE. it's obviously blue. I've never been more sure of anything as I am that depression is not green it is blue

[royalcupcake]

As someone diagnosed w/ hereditary EDS, I can confirm it’s so much fun. Getting diagnosed with gastroparesis by having an esophageal manometry, Barium swallow, and a gastric emptying scan were so much fun. And then being scared of eating certain foods and drinking water bc I might choke on them? The best. And then having POTS and doing a tilt table test and passing out bc of it, and then having to take meds three times a day for maybe the rest of my life, honestly so great. Not to mention AMPS. Being unable to be touched by my mother or walk across a store without sobbing from pain for two years before finally being bad enough to go through a very intensive desensitization program for 4 weeks? So quirky~
Honestly when people talk about having EDS when they haven’t experienced a single one of these is super annoying. I’m not saying a person can’t have EDS without these issues, I’m just saying that they’re very common, especially POTS. Having your dad, someone w the same problems, having to pop your hips or shoulders back in when they dislocate, and learning how to reposition your joints when they sublex on the daily is amazing. And it sucks to see someone who may just be hyper flexible talk about having EDS when they don’t. Just being hyper flexible is great, but it doesn’t mean that you have a connective tissue disorder, something that comes along with a million other not very fun or quirky things. It’s genuinely something that affects my daily life, I can’t eat certain foods because I tend to choke on them, I have to put thickener in my water because my esophagus doesn’t react to regular water. I’ve had to deal with this throughout highschool, and let me say, constantly being in the nurses office to take meds and have lidocaine patches on, as well as carrying around thick-it, definitely doesn’t help one adjust to becoming an adult.

[SequoiaSolitude]

Yeah you shouldn’t actually tell your boss about serious mental illnesses (especially DID and others like it ) because even though they shouldn’t you’ll still face stigma for having it . I’m officially diagnosed by doctors and they recommend me not telling that to employers, also my biggest achievement recently would be spending a night away from friends/family . I know it seems small but I have a lot of paranoia around it so I’ve not been able to do it before

[Summer-sxxl]

Don’t forget that mental illness can be heavily stigmatized in the interview process. I only told my manager after a month of work after he got dragged into long discussions involving my special interests. Also, being able to mask extremely well can be a big issue. I like being able to pass, but I didn’t get the help I needed until it was almost too late.

[emilyreda]

People with health issues (both physical and mental) deserve help and support. Romanticizing health issues (both physical and mental) doesn't help because it ignores the reality of what people who live with them deal with.

[bygonebunny]

As somebody who thought I just had some social anxiety issues but actually got diagnosed with ADHD and AVPD and dysthymia, has gotten asked why I haven’t applied for disability, and got a letter in the mail that my insurance deemed me “medically frail” because of my mental illnesses it’s so weird to see people who act like they want them. They have no clue of what they speak.

[decvralow]

I sure do love being talked to like a baby and having people exclude me from everything just because I’m autistic :) :) :) it’s so fun!!!