Anonymous asked:
re: mental illness contagion--for the most part it seems like unhappy/confused teenagers and people going through temporarily stressful phases might frame this as mental illness more than they would've otherwise, but i doubt that it'd affect actual rates--it'll only fuck up their life enough to be worth Identifying As Mentally Ill for significant periods of time if they're already unstable enough to be susceptible to that, in which case it'd probably have happened anyway (tho mb framed diff)
I realize this ask is super old and I forgot to reply to it at the time, but see Scott’s recent post
(I don’t know anything about psychiatry, I just have feelings about this because I feel like I started having feelings kind of similar to symptoms of depression, anxiety, OCD, etc. only after going to college and getting on tumblr, and thus being immersed in cultures where those things were common. I’ve been trying to conceptualize my feelings as vague somatic complaints lately and would totally recommend it. (e.g. ”How are you feeling?” “Oh not that great–the idea of food makes me feel nauseous, and I’ve had this weird tightness in my chest all day that makes it hard to breathe.”))