The internet told me that I had cancer

I’m very critical of self diagnosis.

As I wrote then, I’m not immune. I subscribed to a mental health website to play about with their diagnostic questionaires. It did correctly diagnose me with bipolar I disorder, but also with a whole host of other disorders that I definitely don’t have.

When I’m depressed, I think that every ache or pain I have is due to terminal cancer. I look up the symptoms and clasp my hand to my mouth. Of course, I don’t have cancer but the internet tells me I do. Ovarian cancer, if you’re curious.

I love the internet. I spend a lot of time online reading up on things I’ve become interested in. This tends to vary often. The internet hasn’t completely replaced books for me. I still buy about three books every time I pass a charity shop. And nothing is like sinking into your bed with a book and a cigarette. However, the internet is a valuable resource. I know the life stories of my favourite authors because of the internet. Not everybody has a black and white sleeved biography nestling amongst snug little How To manuals in the bookshop.

I’ve found out more about bipolar disorder from the internet than I did from doctors. So it’s easy to see why people trust the internet.

What I don’t like about the internet is that there’s a dreadful illness for every paranoid symptom. It reduces complex mental illnesses to a multiple question ticky box fest.

I have come across a lot of “self diagnosed” people with mental illness. Sometimes they’re right, sometimes they are very clearly wrong. My rule of thumb is that if you or someone close to you suspects that you have a mental illness, get thee to the doctors. Discuss your concerns. Don’t paste the little Personality Test box under your forum signature as some sort of badge of honour. It may seem harsh of me to say so, but it irritates me. Wear that badge in the real world and you’re not going to get the same reaction.

These tests can be useful if you suspect a problem, but they mean nothing unless you do something about it.

How accurate are these tests? It’s variable. Some of these little, “Are you…(insert mental illness)” quizzes are meant to be for fun (don’t ask me how having a mental illness is for fun). Some are more credible than others, such as the Psych Central screening tests. The problem is that these tests always come back with something.

So, I’m going to do a few of these tests and see how accurate they really are. I’ll do a few for bipolar, a few for schizophrenia, a few personality disorder tests and a few anxiety/OCD tests. I am not going to do any for clinical depression because periodically, I do get depressed and it’s worthless of me to test it right now. I’ll say right now that the bipolar tests are likely to come back correct since I do have rather extreme symptoms in episodes of illness.

What I Do Have:

Bipolar I disorder, rapid cycling: This is pretty much certain now. I’ve been diagnosed with this by four different doctors and I have never been misdiagnosed as suffering from clinical depression.

Body Dysmorphic Disorder: Although I was diagnosed with this years ago, I’m not sure it still stands. A lot of help from friends, Rob and the old psychotherapist mean that I am pretty much living with this one okay, but I am still going into therapy for it (and bipolar disorder) in the future. The biggest problems that I have with it now is attacks of social anxiety, which means I don’t go out much and when I do, I drink quite a lot to cope with it because I’m so nervous.

Anxiety/panic problems: However, this is mostly consistent with my moods, and I don’t really suffer badly from anxiety or panic when not in an episode of mania, depression or the whole shebang. I consider my anxiety and panic to be part of my bipolar disorder, and not a separate illness.
What I definitely don’t have: I don’t have any personality disorders, I don’t have any OCD-type problems (excluding constant skin picking, mirror avoidance, make-up and social anxiety associated with BDD), I don’t have schizophrenia, clinical depression (not right now, anyway), anxiety or panic disorders (debatable, though), ADD, ADHD (however, the manic side of bipolar disorder can look a bit like it) and the like.

Jury’s out on: Borderline traits. This isn’t a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, it’s reference to self-harm and suchlike. One psychotherapist diagnosed me with this, but I have noticed since that it’s no longer on my CPA or discussed, so I think the other doctor I saw might not have agreed. I personally don’t agree with it, either.

First up:

The “Are you bipolar?” tests. These apparently tell you if you’re on the “spectrum”, which ranges from mild to severe. This first one is the Psych Central test. Unlike most other bipolar tests, it considers the depressive end of the spectrum. It also wrongly states that bipolar II is “mild” bipolar disorder. It’s not, it’s just milder mania.

My score on this test was 60, which, according to the site indicates:

Based upon your responses to this bipolar screening quiz, you appear to be suffering from severe symptoms associated with a bipolar disorder. People who have answered similarly to you typically qualify for a diagnosis of Bipolar I Disorder and have sought professional treatment for this disorder.

True dat, but I feel the test left out some crucial questions.

1. The test did not ask for how severely these symptoms impact on your life. This is basically the yardstick for diagnosis. If the symptoms don’t really affect your life (for example, everybody has mood swings but not everybody has manic depression) it’s unlikely that you have a disorder.

2. There was no mention of psychosis.

However, the Psych Central test is a little bit more credible than the rest.

Next:

Healthy Place bipolar screening test.

It’s a ticky box affair. It gives no result, just:

If you checked several boxes in these lists, call your doctor. Take the lists to show your doctor. You may need to get a checkup and find out if you have bipolar disorder.

This isn’t at all helpful. Firstly, what’s “several”? I could have ticked two from mania, two from depression and that would qualify as several. Having some manic and depressive symptoms, for example:

I have lots of energy.

I feel really mad.

and

I don’t feel like talking to people.

I don’t sleep well at night and am very restless.

is swings and roundabouts. It’s not very astute at detecting depression or mania.

Anyway, no more bipolar tests. We all know I have manic depression, it’s not going to prove much.

Onto a test for schizophrenia.

Here’s another test from Psych Central.

This scored me at 3, which means it’s unlikely that I have schizophrenia. So, that is true.

Glaring problems with the test:

1. Does not go into the “negative” symptoms of schizophrenia, only into the psychotic symptoms. Some types of schizophrenia do not predominately feature psychosis.

2. Schizophrenia, like bipolar disorder, can be episodic. Instead of “I have”, it should be “At some point I have”.

Here is one of these useless “fun” tests from Quizilla.

Terrible spelling and grammar left as is.

 

You are a Hebephrenic Schizophrenic.

Hebephrenics are usually disorganized, have child-ish behavior are silly and have entirley innapropriate behavior. Delusions and hallucination occur but they are not major features of the illness.
Hebephrenics can experiance more bizarre hallucinations then others, though it is not common for it to happen. Hebephrenics may act like a small child, peeking behind corners and such.

That’s “for fun” but some people take these seriously.

Personality disorder tests

These are a lot more crap than the schizophrenia and bipolar tests. You’re almost guaranteed to get a disorder. Let’s see what I have:

Here is a “credible” test from the Department of Psychiatry. Will it come back with nuffin?

Nope, I actually got Avoidant Personality Disorder because of:

Envy

Avoidance

Social inferiority feelings

Hmmmmmmmm.

And here’s the famous personality test thing I see on people’s signatures all the time.

I got this:

Disorder | Rating
Paranoid: Moderate
Schizoid: Low
Schizotypal: Moderate
Antisocial: Low
Borderline: Moderate
Histrionic: Moderate
Narcissistic: Low
Avoidant: Moderate
Dependent: Low
Obsessive-Compulsive: Low

Which isn’t as bad as I was expecting. It’s the questions I have the problem with. Some of these things are just, y’know, life. Sometimes people do feel socially inferior, sometimes people do get depressed. It depends on how they affect your relationships and your life.

I feel that these kind of tests don’t work well on people who have pre-existing mental health problems. For example, being paranoid is part of manic depression (at least, the psychotic, or extreme, part). As is being depressed. And “dressing eccentrically”, well, for me, that’s pure poverty!

ADD/ADHD tests

Here’s the Psych Central one.

It is highly likely that you are presently suffering from adult attention deficit disorder, according to your responses on this self-report questionnaire. You should not take this as a diagnosis of any sort, or a recommendation for treatment. However, it would be advisable and likely beneficial for you to seek further diagnosis from a trained mental health professional immediately.

Look, it even has a little graphic to proudly display on your website!

Woo! I can’t wait to show my friends.

I don’t have ADHD, by the way. I do have constant manic depression related thought-problems that mean I have racing thoughts often and find it difficult to concentrate.

These tests are only a rough guide. They can be useful but the internet can’t replace trained professionals. They will almost always come up with something. They’re fairly tokenistic, too, as you can see by the nice little graphics you’re given to show your mum. Without meaning to insult anybody’s intelligence here: Don’t take them seriously.