One mother claimed her teenage daughter uses different platforms to search for mental health-related videos in an attempt to self-diagnose.
In an interview with CNN, Erin Coleman revealed her 14-year-old daughter would become convinced she had the same diagnosis as those she saw on social media.
Conditions included depression, autism, mysophobia (extreme fear of dirt and germs), and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
“Every week, she would come up with another diagnosis. If she sees a hint of herself in someone, she thinks she has it, too,” Coleman explained.
However, after undergoing testing for various medical and mental health conditions, her daughter was found not to have any of the issues she believed she had.
“Even now, she doesn’t always think [the specialists] are correct,” Coleman said.
Dr. Larry D. Mitnaul, a child and adolescent psychiatrist, noticed an “alarming” amount of teenagers who also use social media as a tool to self-diagnose.
“Teens are coming into our office with already very strong opinions about their own self-diagnosis. When we talk through the layers of how they came to that conclusion, it’s very often because of what they’re seeing and searching for online and most certainly through social media,” he shared, per CNN.
Furthermore, Mitnaul acknowledged how vulnerable teenagers can become due to the challenges they have to face during this time of their life.
“When I’m sitting down with a teen, that’s a time or window of their life where they’re experiencing a lot of different high-intensity emotions, and it can be jarring, unnerving and affect their sense of identity,” he stated.
Mitnaul added, “But it doesn’t necessarily mean they have a rare mood disorder that has fairly intense consequences, treatment, and intervention.”
Jennifer Kugler, senior program director of Behavioral Health Services at Acenda Integrated Health, referred to self-diagnosing based on social media as a “very dangerous trend, especially if the content used is inaccurate or misinformed.”
“Many mental health disorders can lead to fatal outcomes if not diagnosed and treated properly,” she said. “A person should never use information that they see or read about online to determine if they have a mental health disorder or to determine what treatment they need.”