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Too many people misuse terms like anxiety disorder, panic attacks, OCD, and phobias, it's starting to tick me off. Everybody feels an amount of fear and discomfort doing certain tasks, everybody performs odd rituals or behaviors at some point, yet these people use it so casually, such that I nor others cannot take these seriously anymore; I cannot distinguish which one's are serious and which one's are from whining. 

I pretty much call bullsh** on "phobias" people claim to have on random things these days. Most of them are not even clinical phobias, and as far I understand things like "phobias of telephones" is seriously a symptom to a much bigger problem, like social anxiety. I am incredibly afraid of making/taking phone calls, it causes me to lose half my day and endless coldsweat, but I highly doubt I have a phobia of it. Labeling it just feels like an excuse to not deal with and further investigate your issue, and in a many cases, labeling is used for being a special snowflake. 

Actually, I just call bullsh** on a lot of recent labeling, labels other than illnesses but I will not specify them due to it being a sensitive topic. People try too hard to give a special name for themselves, when rest of the population is actually pretty much the same one way or another. They fail to notice these small details in everybody else, when it's sometimes, but not always, present in a different group of people. I see this as a response to feeling of underappreciated, which under circumstances I can understand, but there's a point where it's just plain stupid and honestly, purely from the ignorance of the world around you. 

No, feeling uncomfortable in a social situation doesn't necessarily mean you have anxiety disorder, being hyper sometimes doesn't make you ADHD, having mood swings doesn't mean you have bipolar, being a perfectionist doesn't mean you have an OCD, being sad doesn't mean you have depression, having inappropriate emotions in a serious situation doesn't mean you are emotionless, feeling great amount of discomfort or dislike doesn't mean it's a phobia, panicking does not mean it's a panic attack, having urges to do stupid crap doesn't mean you have a tic, watching horror and gore movies without feeling affected doesn't mean you are psychotic. Are people this incapable of handling normal amount of stress such that they have to label everything? If you are concerned, get a proper diagnosis by a doctor, instead of looking up quizzes and articles from the interwebs, making assumptions by yourself without objectively verifying it with enough resources, switching on your "victim mentality" to put blames on everything else but your own self. 

Granted, I also had a phase where I thought I had phobia of phones, anger management issues, abandonment issues, schizophrenia, insomnia, psychosis, apathy, whatever you name it, and many phases where I avoided admitting my faulty behaviors and judgment from lack of taking responsibilities, willingness, and just common sense. 

I mean, blaming on things and people, or coming up with random labels to sloppily paint over your issues does nothing in the long run. As much you may emotionally require it, what would putting blames going to do? The situation's not going to fix itself, and it's your job to do what you can to resolve your part. What would giving yourself hundreds of labels going to do if you don't even know your real problems? And what do I mean by label? Covering yourself with stickers for the rest of the world to see; you come up with as many as you can think of. It rarely helps you solve them, and honestly, just makes it sound a lot worse and overwhelming to yourself, unless you need these labels purely for diagnostic reasons and for doctors and people to know how to help you. Even then you can't expect people to automatically tend to your needs and be nice to you. If you want help, then get it yourself, don't use it as a means of manipulation or pity. 

Humans really do anything to throw pity parties and gain attention, and it saddens me that this end up shunning the people with actual problems. I know at some point everybody grows up, but the process is slow and having to watch this pathetic charade happen in and out just pains me, and all I can do is ...be patient, let them be, offer as much advice as I am qualified for (which is not a lot), try to ignore them and move on. I am sure I am not the only person wanting to punch the sh** out of stupid people. God, I wish I can make clones of these people, break their egos and beliefs into shatters and bitch slap the fu**ing sense out of them over and over. 

However I know it's not my place to "fix" people; I can't stop people from using words like cancer and rape in funny contexts or stop them from behaviors that encourages the association of pity party to something serious. All I can do is accept that this is how people grow up, and let higher, more qualified powers to take care of them instead; that would be a more mature, more healthy thing to do for myself. It's just that people abusing the terms like stickers and making it diverge away from what's actually serious bothers me and affects me at the same time. What if I said I had depression, but people assume I am just "sad" and will get over it or I am making an excuse? What if a friend said she has OCD, but people think it's funny to mess around? What if somebody has a phobia, and nobody takes him seriously until he vomits and passes out? What about people calling somebody bipolar just a "moody bitch"? I mean, this all could result from people naturally just not knowing about the disorder or illness, as they are not professionals. Perhaps I am particularly afraid of this happening and I am getting rather sensitive towards people misusing the words, because it's one thing to be invalidated, it's another to be invalidated for something serious. It could be totally uncorrelated, but it's still annoying to hear people diagnose themselves million things and make rude humors out of them, isn't it? 

Yes, people are annoying, but there's not much I can do about it, except encourage education and support educative communities, I guess. 
This isn't a preach, this isn't a PSA. It's just a rant to help organize my thoughts. There are way better things to do then grit my teeth for stupid things people do and wanting them dead. 
Perhaps I might get back to it when I can phrase it better or make better sense out of it. But I am done with ranting for now. 



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AntiGravityFox's avatar
THANK YOU, SOMEONE FINALLY SAYS IT. 

I've incorrectly assumed things about myself as we all have, I kept thinking I was bipolar or had some major social anxiety, but once the diagnosis was actually clear (Aspergers), I could finally stop mislabeling these things. I hate when people use these terms loosely and assume that "I'M AN INDIVIDUAL SO IM BETTER THEN EVERYONE HERE AND MY PROBLEMS ARE BETTER THAN EVERYONE ELSES NO MATTER IF THEY'RE REAL OR NOT"

It may have been just a rant journal, but damn it's nice to finally see someone else thinking the same thing.  And I really hope you feel better soon, it can be hard dealing with moronic people, but I truly hope you feel better soon.