MeriBeri🍒 @MariBari@witches.town

It has been... 20 minutes now, they have still not gone back to their apartment or left.

The reason they've been out there for so long?

...they saw a mouse in their apartment.

They've been trying to contact pest control services for over 45 minutes.

A single mouse.

A single. Mouse.

😒

Honestly I'm so glad I'm not a straight girl... I cannot fathom their train of though in this situation

I should probably also mention

They've been there for like half and hour >.>

It is not, in fact, my landlord, but two people who I don't recognize.

Does not change the fact that they're having a full-volume conversation with someone while literally leaning against one of my apartment's walls.

Again, I have to ask... why???

Someone who sounds distinctly like my landlord is have a phone conversation outside.

On speakerphone.

About three feet away from my apartment door.

Why???

I'm having really bad stomach cramps right now and I don't know what's causing it... Probably the fact that my belt has been crushing my abdomen for the better part of an hour, and I ended up powerwalking uphill to get to my first class on time 😖‼️

@Kaelyrhn Hello! 👋

So, the clear solution is to give people the tools required to understand and describe their own symptoms so that they can receive accurate care from healthcare professionals.

Despite this, however, there's a huge stigma against self-diagnosis, especially in discourse. The belief is that a patient who self-diagnoses is effectively feeding into their own perception of their illness.

I'm going to argue that the opposite is true. Self-diagnosis is the *most effective* way for people to understand their symptoms and receive effective care. A patient who doesn't understand their symptoms cannot get an accurate diagnosis.

Okay I'm gonna try to paraphrase this as best as I can;

From my experience-- and the experience of many, many members of neurodivergent/marginalized communities-- psychiatry is largely based off of the medical model of disability, which necessitates clear, precise definitions of mental illness in order to provide a functional diagnosis.

Many, if not all, of these definitions are entirely based on the patient's own symptoms. The problem arises that patients need to provide a personal account of their own symptoms, and many people don't have the necessary knowledge base to define and describe their symptoms accurately.

I'm processing the best hot take I've ever had about why self-diagnosis is important for psychiatry to be effective in providing medical diagnoses but it's super long and I don't know if I can fit it into its own post