saranitysstuff-deactivated20250:
i miss when DID was treated as a disorder and mental health issue instead of an identity label or something
Well, many mental health issues are hard to empirically measure on an individual scale and therefore identity labels, it isn’t alone in that regard at least.
Also, the doctor’s recommendation for anything considered a disorder will always be curing it, if someone is one of those who don’t like that idea when it comes to DID… then embracing a different view of what it is may be preferable.
i’m not going to speak about did because i’m not diagnosed with that nor am i an expert, and i know there’s controversy around final fusion and all of that.
but there are a ton of measures that can reliably and accurately diagnose mental health issues…almost all of which are unavailable online, making them exclusive to professional diagnosis.
take the ADOS for example, which is the “gold standard” for diagnosing autism spectrum disorders. while there is no biological test for autism (and thus the ADOS cannot be 100% accurate) it’s…pretty damn close to it. the sensitivity of the ADOS (the ability to correctly identify individuals with ASD, meaning a high sensitivity rate is good at detecting ASD) ranges from 80%-95% depending on the module (the ADOS has 4 modules - the ADOS module 1 is designed for children 31 months or younger, when autism is notoriously difficult to diagnose, which can contribute to a lower sensitivity rate). the specificity of the ADOS (the ability to correctly identify individuals without ASD) is 70-87%. for reference, scores in the 90-100% range are deemed as excellent, and scores between 80-89% are deemed acceptable. diagnostic accuracy findings across 14 studies of children assessed with the ADOS-2 found that both sensitivity and specificity were above 80%. the ADOS module four demonstrated 92% sensitivity at detecting the presence of ASD in those who received a clinical diagnosis.
and this is just the ADOS alone. with multiple different tests used to diagnose autism, if utilized correctly, the diagnosis can be made with almost 100% certainty. the ADI-R’s (another commonly used autism diagnostic tool) interrater reliability is 92%, with sensitivities and specificities of between 80 to over 90%.
so to me, to argue that all mental disorders are “identity labels” just because we don’t have biological, 100% accurate testing measures to detect them is…quite silly to me, considering how accurate most tools that professionals use to diagnose are…which is also why professional diagnosis is so important - the RAADS-R, a common self diagnosis tool available online, is firstly a screening tool and not a diagnostic test, and secondly, when used as a self-report screening tool, the RAADS-R was unable to discriminate between autistic and allistic individuals. the RAADS-R only had a 3.03% chance of detecting the absence of autism in their study sample. it also has poor predictive validity (neurotypicals often scored higher on average than autistics when administered).
also, you don’t know that a doctors recommendation for a disorder will always be to cure it. that is not how doctors have been treating autism for many years at this point. the point of therapies like ABA, occupational, and speech language therapies are not to cure autism. they are meant to treat debilitating symptoms that interfere with daily living (motor issues like toe walking which can cause permanent damage and disability due to a tightened achille’s tendon, speech and communication issues such as speech delays and learning to use AAC, and learning to advocate for oneself, all of which are not promoted as cures for autism and are not taking anything away from the autistic individual).
disorders are not an identity label. we have these measures for a reason and we can see through literally millions of pages and articles of research that these disorders are clinically distinct entities that need accommodation and treatment. just because you accept it as part of your identity does not make it an identity label nor does it mean that these tests are invalid