Comment by mcmoor
2 years ago
I still thought "X is a spectrum" is essentially the same as saying that everyone have it, which I don't think is a useful assertion. There should still be a threshold somewhere, something that of course psychology won't try to draw.
The threshold for any disorder is usually “is it causing a significant and negative impact on your ability to live a normal life”. And while there are a lot of squishy terms in that statement, it’s about the best we have. We know even less about the workings of the brain than we do about the workings of your body and anyone with a chronic and rare health issue can tell you just how little we know about the workings of the body. So these sorts of “standard normal life” and “significant impact” fuzzy phrases are our best tool.
Everyone is late sometimes, are you so chronically late that you’re losing or at risk of losing your job despite doing things that normal people would do (e.g. getting up earlier, setting alarms etc), that could be (along with other symptoms) an indication of ADHD.
Everyone is sad sometimes, even deeply so. Are you so down that the very act of getting up and making yourself food seems too much? Are you so hopeless that even doing something you love makes you feel nothing? That (along with other symptoms) might indicate you have depression.
Everyone has things that they want to have “just right”, whether it’s a well organized tool box, a clean car or a spotless mirror. Do you find yourself needing to ensure that every dish in your cabinets are sorted properly by size and weight, every day, even if it means missing that important meeting with a friend you haven’t seen in years and even though you already did this yesterday and only used two plates since then? That might (along with other symptoms) indicate that you have OCD.
It could be, but that's why I think that the "self-diagnosis != diagnosis" statement is important