Awareness surrounding mental health has rapidly increased, specifically over the past few years with the surge of social media, meaning society has become a lot more educated on their wellbeing. However, this has resulted in the spread of misinformation across many media outlets people rely on to see if their bad day is going to turn into multiple. Ultimately, it diminishes actual mental disorders because people minimise the severity of them by mistake.
An example of this, which is becoming an increasingly more common mistake, is people confusing intrusive and impulsive thoughts. An intrusive thought is an unpleasant, involuntary thought, image or idea that can be very distressing for an individual; however, an impulsive thought is acting on impulse without forethought. Intrusive thoughts can develop into a mental condition, such as anxiety, or become so detrimental to an individual's health that they need to go into therapy to cope with them.
Yet, many people claim that their impulsive thoughts are intrusive. For example, one user on TikTok posted a video of them sticking their hand in to a pot of Vaseline and captioned it “when my intrusive thoughts take over”, with hundreds of users laughing and agreeing. A lot of individuals have struggled with intrusive thoughts have taken offence to this, commenting ‘if I posted a video saying my intrusive thoughts, I think you’d be traumatised’. People spreading misinformation can result in those struggling with intrusive thoughts to not be taken seriously and unfortunately, not get the help they require.
Additionally, many people claim to have anxiety, when in reality they are just feeling anxious. It is completely normal to feel nervous before an exam, starting a new job or when going to the doctors. However, it is not the same as having anxiety disorder; anxiety disorder is defined as having a constant feeling of fear and worry, even at moments that don’t warrant those feelings. Many sufferers have stated that they have been called ‘dramatic’ or ‘hysterical’ when having anxiety attacks because it has become so generalised to have anxiety. Whilst it is an amazing progression for society to feel comfortable enough to discuss their emotions and allow themselves to be in a vulnerable position, mistaking anxiousness for anxiety can be very damaging to the community. Of course, it can be hard to distinguish between what needs to be evaluated by a mental health specialist and what doesn’t, but it is best to research a disorder if you believe you have it before providing people with wrong symptoms.
Furthermore, for decades people have been misusing obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) to describe their characteristics. OCD is a mental health disorder characterised by repetitive actions that feel impossible for an individual to stop. It can be extremely distressing for someone who suffers with it and very disruptive to their everyday life. Although, many people who like things to be neat and tidy often refer to themselves as ‘OCD’. For example, in shows such as Modern Family, Mitch says “sorry I’m just kind of OCD about these things”, or in Friends, Monica likes everything to be clean yet is constantly referred to as having OCD. Characters apologising or being ‘OCD’ when they don’t even have the disorder, enforces a negative stereotype on it which can worsen an individual’s mental health even more.
If you believe you are struggling, the most beneficial thing you can do is research what you believe you have before telling everyone things that aren’t necessarily true.