OP of the thread... this was the kind of person i was complaining about, and the reason why the buttons even began to annoy me in the first place. plenty of people use the buttons for reasonable purposes. time zone, pronouns, et cetera. disclosing conditions in general isn't a full-on, blanket-statement Bad Thing, and as other people are discussing here, it 100% has its social place and can often be a GREAT thing, leading to conversations & friendships that may not have blossomed otherwise. Flight Rising has an awesome community in a lot of ways, and it's nice to know things about fellow players at a glance - but after a while, for me, it went Too Far. i place the blame squarely on the shoulders of the "Cosplaying Disorders is Cool" crowd. seeing the buttons now is like seeing a red hat in public - "is this going to say what i think it's going to say?" i feel awful for people whose conditions are popular targets for malingering. i wanted to start this thread with a tone that was exaggerated for humor, because i'm not trying to take a swing at people who actually have, for example, a dissociative disorder. but admittedly it is the DID fakers who have me reaching for my block button most often. i do a lot of giveaways on the forums, and i just plain Don't Want To gift stuff to people who choose to present themselves as FR user The(___)System (multiple real users like this) (one of them with that username style literally has a clan info section that says "we're a DID system but we wont really talk about that here" like??? if that was true then why name your entire account like that, shaking my damn head)
I block any and all self-proclaimed systems on sight. It does wonders for my mental health, because seeing them ignites a burning anger within me. Hell just earlier, I wrote a whole essay to myself just to vent my thoughts and feelings after seeing one such The(___)System user. I have very, very strong feelings on the matter, to the point where it's not really healthy. Hence, the loosey-goosey blocking.
If someone asks me to, I'll post what I wrote, but otherwise I'm not gonna dump it on anyone unprompted.
I have a DD, and I'm very. VERY careful about who knows, because of the knee jerk reactions TikTok and tumblr have created in folks wrt to folks with DD's. Only like... three people know- and my partner is NOT one of them, because of how people react to folks thanks to dumb ass teens on TT/tumblr.
I also don't spend any time on tiktok because it's a toxic cess pit. I use tumblr often, but I try to avoid most users that are plural or claim to be, because half the time, they have those asinine DNIs that are all "DNI if you have X person in your roster because I have the only REAL one."
That sounds awful, sorry. People constantly co-opting the condition in order to bully other people over shit like cartoon characters is wild to me and yet so goddamn common right now that I rarely see much pushback against it.
Because if you start calling these people out, they claim ableism and no one wins. Even if they're the ones screwing over the people who actually have said medical condition(s).
Also, I have seen people who have tried to push back, and others (who don't have the condition, whatever condition you are talking about) will come forth and go 'well, they are just children! they are exploring themselves! They are looking for attention! maybe one of them has it and can't get diagnosed, and seeing everyone else has it allows them to feel not as isolated!'
Trying to act like people pretending to have these conditions is a good thing, even though most of the time, those people have no clue about the actual condition, just the trendy parts.
I really hate how some people use the fact that they are children to sweep their bad behavior (applies to everything else other than pretending to have certain medical conditions too tbh) under the rug when it just means that they probably don't know any better, not that they shouldn't be disciplined in any way. They just end up being enabled and carry this shitty behavior into adulthood and wreck actual havoc.
There's literal teens getting arrested for pretending to have various medical conditions and essentially scamming people to donate to them ffs. It fucking sucks to be one of those people relying on crowdfunding to pay for their medical bills because of assholes like them.
very interested to know what you have to say as well!
bonus points if the person has a cohesive, themed system with a cast of fleshed out characters lol. like this is clearly a creative writing exercise for you. how fortunate for you that your trauma manifested an AeSthEtiC!
I wrote this all up in the bio of one of my dragons yesterday, then when I was finished I felt better and realized I definitely should NOT publish it in a dragon bio, so I cut and pasted it into a .txt file instead. Here goes:
"A sucker is born every minute and we'll never change that; some people are rhubes who will believe anything, that's just the way the world works. Don't taint your mental health because someone is lying on the internet for attention. Obviously they're a sad, desperate loser whose life isn't great, you don't need to join their ilk. Take care of yourself.
[rule]
Ugh I have a lot of feelings about faking mental disorders and it's probably not a good idea to vent them out in a dragon bio but whatever. It's too hard for me to interact with this community and never speak up about this, because it greatly affects my blocking habits! I'll try to keep it civil.
First, I like nuance. I'm learning more and more in the adult world that nothing is ever black or white, all good or all evil, and you can't ever align yourself to an extreme in a healthy manner. (Except maybe those monks who meditate alone on the tops of mountains for years straight to achieve enlightenment? Supposedly they do pretty well for themselves. Good for them!) Second, the corporate internet has rotted the brains of millions of people, young and old, such that it makes it difficult for them to use critical thinking skills, nuance, and scepticism. I'm recovering from that brain rot myself! I believe, perhaps naively, that people are not naturally stubborn, reactive, aggressive, defensive, and hypervigilant. Therefore, when people act in this way, I do not think it is a moral failing on them as a person, but rather that their behaviour is a product of their environment.
So. Faking mental disorders. It's a topic that's immediately threatening to many, many people. See my second point. It is difficult now to discuss these things without feeling like you have to defend yourself from attacks on all fronts, like you have to shout your stance the loudest because you can't ever let yourself falter or doubt yourself because your stance is your everything, it is your shield and your lifeline, and if it's ever endangered you feel like YOU'RE in danger. That's how debates turn into arguments. (I think that, in recent decades, this phenomenon has become very prevalent all over the world: opinions aren't just opinions, they're badges, they're passports, they're sacred things that you swear allegiance to- but I won't go any further on that topic)
In general, I dislike people who fake them. However, it does not mean I believe that all people who fake them are evil, or that anyone faking them is doing it deliberately for malicious reasons. I believe that they do a lot of harm, but I also believe that most people faking them do not have bad intentions. Most probably don't think they're faking it at all. Look how much stigma there is about mental health! Look how hard it is to get mental health care, in any country! Consider how complicated the human brain is! Of [i]course[/i] people are going to be misinformed. Of course they're going to try to figure things out on their own and build their life around information they don't know isn't true. Or maybe they get misdiagnosed by a well-meaning but under-prepared professional, and they build their life around that. [i]Good[/i] information is not easily accessible.
I'm running out of steam. I'll make some bullet points of why I think faking disorders is a thing people do. - They were experiencing mental health issues and were misdiagnosed by a professional with X when they actually had Y. - They were experiencing mental health issues and weren't able to see a professional so they did as much of their own research as they could. Unfortunately.... ---...they experienced an anchoring bias that caused them to focus on X, the first thing they learned about, so they neglected to consider Y, which they actually had. ---...they experienced a confirmation bias towards X, which they had previously considered prior to this, so they neglected to consider Y, which they actually had. ---...they trusted the wrong sources, who fed them misinformation about X and Y, so they believed they had X and it couldn't possibly be Y. (This one is really, REALLY bad!!) -They developed in a social environment where many of their peers had X (or faked/performed/mistakenly thought they had X), so they were more likely to think that they had X too. Often followed by confirmation bias. -They knew they had Y, but felt like their mental health issues were too severe to "just be Y" / felt like they weren't receiving the proper care for their mental health issues when they "only have Y," so they searched for some other condition they could possibly have that would validate their feelings / make professionals take them more seriously. Often followed by confirmation bias. Really, confirmation bias is a big player in all of these.
From personal experience, I once faked a mental disorder for the last two reasons. I didn't know any better! My research wasn't thorough enough. I stretched definitions out of desperation. I was in a bad place and I didn't know why.
Okay now I'm really all out of steam. This is why I block people willy-nilly if I suspect they're claiming to be X when they're actually not. Be nice to people. Take mental health seriously."
yeah this is all very reasonable. i don't think fakers are bad people either, i think it most often indicates some kind of unmet emotional or mental health need.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
Re: Unpopular Opinion...
(Anonymous) 2023-08-08 02:56 am (UTC)(link)Re: Unpopular Opinion...
(Anonymous) 2023-08-08 09:31 pm (UTC)(link)plenty of people use the buttons for reasonable purposes. time zone, pronouns, et cetera. disclosing conditions in general isn't a full-on, blanket-statement Bad Thing, and as other people are discussing here, it 100% has its social place and can often be a GREAT thing, leading to conversations & friendships that may not have blossomed otherwise.
Flight Rising has an awesome community in a lot of ways, and it's nice to know things about fellow players at a glance - but after a while, for me, it went Too Far. i place the blame squarely on the shoulders of the "Cosplaying Disorders is Cool" crowd. seeing the buttons now is like seeing a red hat in public - "is this going to say what i think it's going to say?"
i feel awful for people whose conditions are popular targets for malingering. i wanted to start this thread with a tone that was exaggerated for humor, because i'm not trying to take a swing at people who actually have, for example, a dissociative disorder. but admittedly it is the DID fakers who have me reaching for my block button most often. i do a lot of giveaways on the forums, and i just plain Don't Want To gift stuff to people who choose to present themselves as FR user The(___)System (multiple real users like this) (one of them with that username style literally has a clan info section that says "we're a DID system but we wont really talk about that here" like??? if that was true then why name your entire account like that, shaking my damn head)
Re: Unpopular Opinion...
(Anonymous) 2023-08-09 01:12 am (UTC)(link)If someone asks me to, I'll post what I wrote, but otherwise I'm not gonna dump it on anyone unprompted.
Re: Unpopular Opinion...
(Anonymous) 2023-08-09 05:05 am (UTC)(link)Re: Unpopular Opinion...
(Anonymous) 2023-08-09 07:26 am (UTC)(link)I also don't spend any time on tiktok because it's a toxic cess pit. I use tumblr often, but I try to avoid most users that are plural or claim to be, because half the time, they have those asinine DNIs that are all "DNI if you have X person in your roster because I have the only REAL one."
Like... what?
Re: Unpopular Opinion...
(Anonymous) 2023-08-09 07:39 am (UTC)(link)Re: Unpopular Opinion...
(Anonymous) 2023-08-09 08:00 am (UTC)(link)Because if you start calling these people out, they claim ableism and no one wins. Even if they're the ones screwing over the people who actually have said medical condition(s).
Re: Unpopular Opinion...
(Anonymous) 2023-08-09 12:25 pm (UTC)(link)Also, I have seen people who have tried to push back, and others (who don't have the condition, whatever condition you are talking about) will come forth and go 'well, they are just children! they are exploring themselves! They are looking for attention! maybe one of them has it and can't get diagnosed, and seeing everyone else has it allows them to feel not as isolated!'
Trying to act like people pretending to have these conditions is a good thing, even though most of the time, those people have no clue about the actual condition, just the trendy parts.
Re: Unpopular Opinion...
(Anonymous) 2023-08-10 01:17 am (UTC)(link)There's literal teens getting arrested for pretending to have various medical conditions and essentially scamming people to donate to them ffs. It fucking sucks to be one of those people relying on crowdfunding to pay for their medical bills because of assholes like them.
Re: Unpopular Opinion...
(Anonymous) 2023-08-10 07:11 am (UTC)(link)It must fucking suck*
Re: Unpopular Opinion...
(Anonymous) 2023-08-09 02:18 pm (UTC)(link)bonus points if the person has a cohesive, themed system with a cast of fleshed out characters lol. like this is clearly a creative writing exercise for you. how fortunate for you that your trauma manifested an AeSthEtiC!
ok you wanted my rant about it
(Anonymous) 2023-08-09 04:02 pm (UTC)(link)"A sucker is born every minute and we'll never change that; some people are rhubes who will believe anything, that's just the way the world works. Don't taint your mental health because someone is lying on the internet for attention. Obviously they're a sad, desperate loser whose life isn't great, you don't need to join their ilk. Take care of yourself.
[rule]
Ugh I have a lot of feelings about faking mental disorders and it's probably not a good idea to vent them out in a dragon bio but whatever. It's too hard for me to interact with this community and never speak up about this, because it greatly affects my blocking habits! I'll try to keep it civil.
First, I like nuance. I'm learning more and more in the adult world that nothing is ever black or white, all good or all evil, and you can't ever align yourself to an extreme in a healthy manner. (Except maybe those monks who meditate alone on the tops of mountains for years straight to achieve enlightenment? Supposedly they do pretty well for themselves. Good for them!) Second, the corporate internet has rotted the brains of millions of people, young and old, such that it makes it difficult for them to use critical thinking skills, nuance, and scepticism. I'm recovering from that brain rot myself! I believe, perhaps naively, that people are not naturally stubborn, reactive, aggressive, defensive, and hypervigilant. Therefore, when people act in this way, I do not think it is a moral failing on them as a person, but rather that their behaviour is a product of their environment.
So. Faking mental disorders. It's a topic that's immediately threatening to many, many people. See my second point. It is difficult now to discuss these things without feeling like you have to defend yourself from attacks on all fronts, like you have to shout your stance the loudest because you can't ever let yourself falter or doubt yourself because your stance is your everything, it is your shield and your lifeline, and if it's ever endangered you feel like YOU'RE in danger. That's how debates turn into arguments. (I think that, in recent decades, this phenomenon has become very prevalent all over the world: opinions aren't just opinions, they're badges, they're passports, they're sacred things that you swear allegiance to- but I won't go any further on that topic)
In general, I dislike people who fake them. However, it does not mean I believe that all people who fake them are evil, or that anyone faking them is doing it deliberately for malicious reasons. I believe that they do a lot of harm, but I also believe that most people faking them do not have bad intentions. Most probably don't think they're faking it at all. Look how much stigma there is about mental health! Look how hard it is to get mental health care, in any country! Consider how complicated the human brain is! Of [i]course[/i] people are going to be misinformed. Of course they're going to try to figure things out on their own and build their life around information they don't know isn't true. Or maybe they get misdiagnosed by a well-meaning but under-prepared professional, and they build their life around that. [i]Good[/i] information is not easily accessible.
I'm running out of steam. I'll make some bullet points of why I think faking disorders is a thing people do.
- They were experiencing mental health issues and were misdiagnosed by a professional with X when they actually had Y.
- They were experiencing mental health issues and weren't able to see a professional so they did as much of their own research as they could. Unfortunately....
---...they experienced an anchoring bias that caused them to focus on X, the first thing they learned about, so they neglected to consider Y, which they actually had.
---...they experienced a confirmation bias towards X, which they had previously considered prior to this, so they neglected to consider Y, which they actually had.
---...they trusted the wrong sources, who fed them misinformation about X and Y, so they believed they had X and it couldn't possibly be Y. (This one is really, REALLY bad!!)
-They developed in a social environment where many of their peers had X (or faked/performed/mistakenly thought they had X), so they were more likely to think that they had X too. Often followed by confirmation bias.
-They knew they had Y, but felt like their mental health issues were too severe to "just be Y" / felt like they weren't receiving the proper care for their mental health issues when they "only have Y," so they searched for some other condition they could possibly have that would validate their feelings / make professionals take them more seriously. Often followed by confirmation bias. Really, confirmation bias is a big player in all of these.
From personal experience, I once faked a mental disorder for the last two reasons. I didn't know any better! My research wasn't thorough enough. I stretched definitions out of desperation. I was in a bad place and I didn't know why.
Okay now I'm really all out of steam. This is why I block people willy-nilly if I suspect they're claiming to be X when they're actually not. Be nice to people. Take mental health seriously."
Re: ok you wanted my rant about it
(Anonymous) 2023-08-09 06:06 pm (UTC)(link)Re: ok you wanted my rant about it
(Anonymous) 2023-08-09 06:20 pm (UTC)(link)