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Comment by bjornsing | Hacker News Reader

So what is an identity if not “a way to understand their behaviour and experience of the world”? I think the problem the GP raises is inherent in the whole diagnosis concept, and that it’s generally a bad idea to label large parts of the personality spectrum as some kind of (incurable) illness.

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Not the gp, but I think the difference lies in mindset. There’s the “victim” mindset where you know the diagnosis and it becomes a convenient scapegoat for your symptoms. “I can’t do that because I’m X.” You see yourself as unable to escape the diagnosis and enter a state of learned helplessness.

The desired outcome is an enlightenment mindset. “Ah, so that’s why I act that way. Well now that I know that and have x, y and z methods for addressing it, I can overcome/adapt”. As you can imagine it’s a lot more work to achieve this mindset.

I don’t know… I think it’s kind of unfair to lay this on people who are already struggling, when it’s quite clear that most healthy adults are unable to adapt that mindset when it comes to (other’s) psychiatric diagnoses…

I can empathize with your position, and it would be nice if there was a way to help from the “outside”. But the truth is that the only way to make meaningful change is to internalize the change and do it yourself.

I say this not as some sort of holier than thou proclamation. I struggle with this daily myself. Posting on hacker news helps reinforce what I should do to help myself :)

> There’s the “victim” mindset where you know the diagnosis and it becomes a convenient scapegoat for your symptoms.

Spend some time to think about that sentence. The diagnosis is not a "scapegoat", it's literally an explanation for the symptoms.

Why should they have to try to "escape" the diagnosis?

Now combine this with the 21st century "victim industrial complex" and we have a recipe for disaster.

Actually, I do wonder. Are these independant variables, or is the search for victimhood driving the "mental illness" trend?

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