By Kusumanjalee Thilakarathna
The Internet and social media are good sources for educating ourselves on mental health and related issues. In my practice, I have met many clients who come in for sessions with a self-diagnosis following free online mental health tests.
One such recent client came in for counselling with a fixed mindset that he has “adult ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder)”. He was well-equipped with knowledge on ADHD, as he had gone through many articles on ADHD affecting adulthood. He was thorough on how this could tarnish his success.
While being so adamant about finding symptoms to prove he had ADHD, he happened to overlook his dependency on his mobile phone. What he didn’t come across on the internet is the fact that there is a chance for individuals with ADHD to develop a smartphone or internet addiction, and that a phone addiction can also easily be confused for ADHD.
Social media and awareness
In recent years, it has become more and more common for individuals to open up about their mental health. Countless posts and resources shared on social media, and the improved use of the internet, can be the key reason that encouraged this openness. We can also see the latest social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram being used to share personal stories and motivational posts on conquering mental health issues. At the time this article was written, 40,535,432 posts had been shared on Instagram under the hashtag #mentalhealth and 18,136,382 posts under #mentalhealthawareness.
The content that is being shared on social media is helping normalise the discussion of mental health and break the stigma behind it. Mental health content on social media can feel extremely validating and normalising for an individual with mental health concerns as they see someone else sharing experiences similar to their struggles.
We never know who is struggling and who the posts might help. But we do know that getting to know that someone cares, or finding out that “I am not the only one” helps to relieve feelings of isolation. Sometimes social media platforms even provide a chance to do that anonymously. We can see a lot of social media groups forming and allowing people to share their agonies anonymously to seek advice and support anonymously through the group admins. Facebook now has the option of posting anonymously on groups.
The risk
Certainly, the improvement in mental health discussion has contributed largely to reducing stigma, and helping people gain the insight they may have no other way of accessing. However, along with this has come an increase in people self-diagnosing based on unregulated information.
We see many untrained individuals offering advice, for a fee, using social media as their method of advertising. Unqualified individuals promoting themselves and offering support or mental health training to individuals is another issue that can be observed on social media platforms, especially in the Sri Lankan context. In a country where there are no standard measurements to recognise qualified mental health professionals, “unqualified helpers” sponsoring advertisements on social media is no reason to be surprised.
Mental health practitioners are now worried about the growing prevalence of people diagnosing themselves based on unregulated information. I recently met another young adult client who has diagnosed himself as having depression, and he has been treating himself with a mood stabiliser purchased with the help of a pharmacist known to him. When referred to a psychiatrist, he refused to get the help of drug intervention, as now he believes that medicine cannot help him stabilise his moods or combat disturbing thoughts.
There are many other risks to self-diagnosing with social media or the internet. Self-diagnosing can lead an individual to receive the wrong treatment and interventions down the line. If they eventually see a mental health professional, they may correct the diagnosis. But the diagnosis can still have an impact, as mental health is strongly informed by the history and the information shared by an individual.
There are high comorbidities across mental health conditions. Like in the client’s story mentioned at the beginning, there is a chance an individual may overlook certain important factors that a trained professional will not miss. While he may or may not have correctly identified himself as having ADHD, he may miss important markers of other mental health disorders, such as depression, mania or screen addiction.
What we can do
While
we can gain so many benefits from mental health conversations on social media, we have to always stay a little curious about the information shared on the internet. Don’t take each piece of information as a fact and don’t use the facts you gather to have a complete picture of your mental health.
It is also important to remember that the diagnosis is not the end result of assessing the symptoms of your problem. Unlike physical illnesses and ailments, mental health treatments do not solely depend on diagnosis or putting a label on the condition that you might be having. If a person becomes more focused on the diagnosis, especially without professional guidance, it can bring a person more harm than good.
If you have already identified symptoms online, you do not have to worry – you can consider it your first step towards helping yourself. Book an appointment with a mental health professional, or with your family doctor if you don’t have access to a mental health professional, and start discussing what you have been experiencing and you will soon be on the right track.
(Kusumanjalee Thilakarathna is a mental health professional and has, over the past ten years, contributed to several Sri Lankan media publications in both English and Sinhala languages. She mainly focuses on topics related to psychology and counselling in her writing)
