Several videos about borderline personality disorder suggest symptoms that are everyday experiences \u2013 such as feeling anxiety when people change plans, experiencing mood swings, a fear of abandonment and mirroring people\u2019s behaviour to be liked.<\/p>\n
Another video purports to show how depression manifests in the workplace as a lack of concentration, feeling tired, having low energy levels, a loss of appetite and irritability.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile some of the \u2018symptoms\u2019 overlap with depression, these can be attributed to a range of afflictions and struggles,\u201d said Liam Modlin, a therapist and psychology researcher at King\u2019s College London.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
One video said that people with bipolar disorder experience mood swings because their emotional pendulum swings more widely and rapidly than most. However this is a misunderstanding, since people experience extended mood changes over periods of weeks rather than rapid \u201cmood swings\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an example of misappropriating a mental health diagnosis to wrongly explain or justify behaviour,\u201d said Dan Poulter, a former health minister and NHS psychiatrist. \u201cA person with bipolar disorder may find this trivialising of their experience of living with a debilitating and serious mental illness.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another popular video suggests that when someone is about to die by suicide they become \u201calmost bipolar\u201d \u2013 \u201clanguage [that] can further stigmatise mental health\u201d, said Prof Rina Dutta, a consultant psychiatrist and psychiatry professor at King\u2019s College London.<\/p>\n
Another video claims signs of abuse are constantly apologising; breaking down during small disagreements; needing reassurance; struggling to be open; being hypersensitive to criticism, and hiding feelings.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe behaviours it describes, while potentially present in abusive dynamics, are not exclusive to abuse and may occur in a variety of other contexts,\u201d said Modlin. \u201cBy presenting these signs without sufficient context or diagnostic nuance, the video risks encouraging viewers to self-diagnose or mislabel complex relational struggles as abuse.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
This was the most common form of misinformation contained in the videos.<\/p>\n
One video promotes a method it said was cheaper than therapy and had fewer side effects than antidepressants that could enable people \u201cto heal from trauma in an hour\u201d and involved writing about the traumatic experiences for 15 minutes non-stop.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo research suggests this is sufficient for cure, definitely not in an hour, and there is risk of independently forcing oneself back into this traumatic mindset without the support of an experienced therapist,\u201d said Amber Johnston, an accredited psychotherapist.<\/p>\n
Another clip suggests that crying is self-soothing and good for processing emotions, including by stimulating the release of cortisol. \u201cCortisol changes related to crying are complex and cannot be distilled down in this way,\u201d said Amy Durden, a psychotherapist. \u201cCrying can bring relief but not always. It can be self-soothing but if the person crying judges their crying negatively, they do not experience this benefit and may feel acute shame.\u201d<\/p>\n
Several videos featured glib quotations that the experts viewed as unhelpful such as: \u201cIf you\u2019re not changing, you\u2019re choosing\u201d, while another popular quotation said: \u201cWhen you feel like everyone hates you, sleep. When you feel like you hate everyone, eat. When you feel like you hate yourself, shower. And when you feel like everyone hates everyone, go outside.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a huge oversimplification of how to address complex emotional states,\u201d said Durden. \u201cIt seems to be pulling from behavioural activation in CBT, but without any context or individualisation.\u201d<\/p>\n
A specific breathing technique for treating anxiety was promoted in another video. \u201cThere is no single, universally effective breathing technique that is helpful in all cases,\u201d said David Okai, a consultant neuropsychiatrist. \u201cIf performed incorrectly, the exercises can be the equivalent of hyperventilation, which can be extremely unpleasant and exacerbate anxiety.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another video suggests depression is caused by alcohol, tobacco, MSG, caffeine, sugar and hydrolysed wheat. Modlin said that although lifestyle factors can contribute, \u201cthis framing is overly simplistic and potentially misleading\u201d, since there are complex interwoven factors, including genetics and neurobiology, psychosocial stressors, childhood adversity, medical conditions and personality styles.<\/p>\n
Other clips promote supplements including saffron, magnesium glycinate and holy basil extract to ease anxiety. Although the psychiatrist Famia Askari said there are some studies showing benefits to some of these, there is not sufficient consensus for these to have become part of clinical practice \u2013 they are also manufactured supplements, in contrast to the \u201cnatural\u201d claims that featured.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
Two videos recommend admission to psychiatric units based on personal experience, including one suggesting someone had considerably improved after six days, and another offering a template for children to ask their parents to have them admitted.<\/p>\n
Poulter said this was \u201cmisleading\u201d and can \u201ccreate misconceptions\u201d about the benefits of inpatient admission. \u201cInpatient admission can in fact create and reinforce maladaptive coping mechanisms,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is also very rare that someone would be driving themselves into mental health hospital in the way depicted by the video.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another video depicts someone in a hospital gown in what appears to be a psychiatric ward stating: \u201cI was too honest with my psychiatrist.\u201d This could be harmful as it is \u201cpotentially encouraging people to not be honest and open with healthcare professionals about their mental health\u201d, said Poulter.<\/p>\n
In another clip, a woman gives her strategies for managing anxiety, including eating an orange in the shower. \u201cThere is no evidence-base for eating citrus in the shower as a means to reducing anxiety, and I would worry that this would lead on to an ever-increasing spiral of unusual behaviours,\u201d said Okai.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"1. Pathologising normal emotions Several videos about borderline personality disorder suggest symptoms that are everyday experiences \u2013 such…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147533,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4317],"tags":[105,218,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-147532","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-mental-health","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114604022371086856","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}