4 ms·

This sounds useful for torturers and interrogators. In most situations medical professionals can just ask someone if they’re feeling anxious.

feoren 4y ago
> In most situations medical professionals can just ask someone if they’re feeling anxious. Except they literally refuse to believe your answer. You can swear up and down "I was not anxious, I actually felt great" and they fire back with "many people don't know when they're anxious. You can be anxious without realizing it." It's completely unfalsifiable, like the old asylums where everything you could ever say is just more confirmation of whatever mental illness they already decided you have. If they don't know what's wrong with you and you don't have symptoms that very specifically fit their pre-determined list of the 100 things that might ever be wrong with anyone, then some use "anxiety" as a catch-all, regardless of whether you claim to have it or not. Everyone feels stressed occasionally, so there's no objective way to self-report it. My "very anxious" might be your "normal Tuesday night". They capitalize on this to make it completely impossible to argue with their "diagnosis" so they can get you out the door with a magic pill to fix all your woes, while they move on to the next patient they can give 3 minutes to out of their overbooked 12-hour workday. I would do the same if I were completely overworked in a trainwreck of a system run by incompetent hospital administrators and faceless insurance companies.
- LoganDark 4y ago
  > Except they literally refuse to believe your answer. You can swear up and down "I was not anxious, I actually felt great" and they fire back with "many people don't know when they're anxious. You can be anxious without realizing it." It's completely unfalsifiable, like the old asylums where everything you could ever say is just more confirmation of whatever mental illness they already decided you have. My doctor did this with depression. If you question it then you just don't know you have it. If you insist that you don't have it you're just in denial. I just had to take the antidepressant until it started causing sudden emotional breakdowns and then nope the fuck out of there and tell my doctor that's not the problem. Guess what, the real problem was indeed exactly what I came to him claiming I needed treatment for. It was ADHD. Stimulant medication fixed every issue. But he didn't believe me the first time, and led me down a path I knew was wrong for a whole month.

feoren 4y ago

> In most situations medical professionals can just ask someone if they’re feeling anxious. Except they literally refuse to believe your answer. You can swear up and down "I was not anxious, I actually felt great" and they fire back with "many people don't know when they're anxious. You can be anxious without realizing it." It's completely unfalsifiable, like the old asylums where everything you could ever say is just more confirmation of whatever mental illness they already decided you have. If they don't know what's wrong with you and you don't have symptoms that very specifically fit their pre-determined list of the 100 things that might ever be wrong with anyone, then some use "anxiety" as a catch-all, regardless of whether you claim to have it or not. Everyone feels stressed occasionally, so there's no objective way to self-report it. My "very anxious" might be your "normal Tuesday night". They capitalize on this to make it completely impossible to argue with their "diagnosis" so they can get you out the door with a magic pill to fix all your woes, while they move on to the next patient they can give 3 minutes to out of their overbooked 12-hour workday. I would do the same if I were completely overworked in a trainwreck of a system run by incompetent hospital administrators and faceless insurance companies.

LoganDark 4y ago
> Except they literally refuse to believe your answer. You can swear up and down "I was not anxious, I actually felt great" and they fire back with "many people don't know when they're anxious. You can be anxious without realizing it." It's completely unfalsifiable, like the old asylums where everything you could ever say is just more confirmation of whatever mental illness they already decided you have. My doctor did this with depression. If you question it then you just don't know you have it. If you insist that you don't have it you're just in denial. I just had to take the antidepressant until it started causing sudden emotional breakdowns and then nope the fuck out of there and tell my doctor that's not the problem. Guess what, the real problem was indeed exactly what I came to him claiming I needed treatment for. It was ADHD. Stimulant medication fixed every issue. But he didn't believe me the first time, and led me down a path I knew was wrong for a whole month.