One of the hardest things for me was having a diagnosis and reading mental health research. Mental health patient information is usually well written and sensitive. Psychiatric literature isn't.
This is perhaps why I'm so at ease with the language. I'm mad and crazy and a loon. I'm a manic depressive or a schizoaffective or a dual diagnosed or a mixed affective. These are 4 diagnoses from 4 different psychiatrists. Two didn't give me a diagnosis.
Someone who does have a diagnosis might find themselves reading about traits they possess. When it comes to the spectrum of personality disorders this is to be expected. They're deemed to be extremes of normal traits.
What's strange about the prototype of mental illness, I.e. the idea from way back when psychiatry was invented, was that true mental illnesses were abnormal. This is the psychiatric understanding traditionally. Schizophrenia and bipolar symptoms weren't experienced by normal people.
The divide between what is mental illness and isn't has changed over time as have diagnoses and definitions. This is one of the big problems and how so much ill against humanity can be done in the name of mental healthcare, for example to forced lesbian treatment clinics in Ecuador. Here women are being tortured to forcibly change their sexuality. This is all possible because of the prototype of mental illness, the one which seems to allow 'treatment' - change - for someone who is deemed abnormal enough to be called mentally ill.
Real mental illness comes not only with extremes of distress but can also have devastating life outcomes. People with schizophrenia account for 20% of the completed suicide rate in the UK. 10% of people with this diagnosis will kill themselves. Many are poor and/or on benefits.
What has developed as a concept is the idea that these mental illnesses can also have milder forms which are normal and not associated with the poor outcomes of full blown, true mental illnesses.
Schizotypy is a term for...well...what I think is either functioning schizophrenia or sub-clinical symptoms and experiences associated with schizophrenia which do not lead to poorer outcomes unless schizophrenia is diagnosed. The latter statement is probably accurate. It is not a mental illness. It is something many normal people are.
Hypomania is a state of mania which is also sub-clinical though I think is being more commonly diagnosed as bipolar. The mania of hypermania means a person loses touch with reality and can be at risk. There is usually a signifcant aftermath. Hypomania can be a positive and useful state. It can be controlled and self-managed as long as the person remains insightful and able to 'surf the wave' (for want of a better expression).
Frequent mental disorders is another new concept where recurrent subclinical symptoms are treated if they're expressed too regularly, e.g. not enough for depression or long enough but if over 5 times in a year then the pattern of symptoms would be a frequent mental disorder. I don't think it is part of any of the reference diagnostic criteria though so don't worry, yet.
Reading mental health literature can make a person feel like they're mentally ill. The effect of expectations and the placebo effect are poorly understood concepts which can affect our mental health and thoughts because of reading about it.
There's also the fascinating case where a media story changed the presentation of anorexia in Hong Kong as detailed in Ethan Watters book about the Westernisation of mental illness (The Americanization of Mental Illness). An anorexic dropped dead in the street so it hit the headlines. The media searched the internet to find out what her diagnosis meant but hong kong psychiatrists found people usually present with symptoms which were different from the reference DSM or ICD criteria. The papers ran with the Western symptoms which most Hong kong anorexics didn't present with. After the story widely publicised the symptoms local psychiatrists found more people began to present with Western symptoms.
So...reader....don't worry. You're probably normal I'm afraid to say.
Sent from my smartphone
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