Congratulations you have a new psychiatric disorder!!

I rarely get pissed off but this just pushed me over the edge.

Apparently in the world of medical assessment there has come a time where we have to make a choice. Are we sick and able to deal with it without complaint? Or are we sick and want the doctors to freaking well do something about it? Apparently we can no-longer have both without being told we are mentally ill.

I repeat. If we complain about being ILL, then our doctors may be given the option of labelling you with a psychiatric disorder. Yeh. That well and truly pisses me off. MEGA amounts.

The American Psychiatric Association wants to have the power of licensing the application of a mental health diagnosis to all medical diseases and disorders. In laymans terms this means that if you think about your disease, you think too much about the terrible pain you are in because of your disease, you know you are ill, the doctors know you are ill and yet they can't find what is wrong with you, then you are automatically placed into the catergory of having the proposed psychatric diagnosis of 'Somatic Symptom Disorder'.

They diagnose this as thus:

“Criteria A, B, and C must all be fulfilled to make the diagnosis:

A. Somatic symptoms: One or more somatic symptoms that are distressing and/or result in significant disruption in daily life.

B. Excessive thoughts, feelings, and behaviors related to these somatic symptoms or associated health concerns: At least one of the following must be present.

(1) Disproportionate and persistent thoughts about the seriousness of one's symptoms.

(2) Persistently high level of anxiety about health or symptoms

(3) Excessive time and energy devoted to these symptoms or health concerns

C. Chronicity: Although any one symptom may not be continuously present, the state of being symptomatic is persistent (typically >6 months).”

So you have have a disease or illness that is distressing or disrupts your life (YAY- you fit criteria A), your disease or illness also in your distress makes you think about your disease or illness, (say you have non epileptic seizures and you are worried you're going to die as I did- YAY You fit Criteria B) and then if this continues for say 6 months, or more than congratulations you have the whole freaking set and are the proud owner of a new psychiatric disorder...

Do you see why i'm pee'd off. I have ME and Conversion Disorder, I have symptoms that cannot be defined or diagnosed through one specific test. Yet my illnesses disrupt my ife, distress me and cause me to spend excessive time worrying that I need to conserve energy for the next day and it has so far lasted 6 years.....

I might as well diagnose myself now then eh, American Psychatric Association...

Yes this deals predominately with pain and symptoms without explaination such as MEGA SHOCK; ME, but if you have a pain in your head, back, arms, legs or ANYWHERE and the doctors can't find out whats wrong with you then they are at fault not us! They need to find the cause not stick another psychatric label on someone because they haven't got the answer. And if they want the answer they need to spend more on biomedical research!

BUT APPARENTLY THATS NOT HOW MEDICINE WORKS ANYMORE!!!

As a good friend of mine (who won't mind being quoted) said:

'My guess is that the pharma companies will just have another cash cow for all the drugs they have that are fast running out of patent time- you have SSD- here take this little green pill that we have marketed to doctors for the treatment of patients with SSD a brand new psychiatric catergory.'

So here is where you good people come in, this is still being debated and decided on, in fact its in its final stages RIGHT NOW.

"The DSM-5 Web site (www.dsm5.org) is open to a third and final round of feedback. For six weeks, patients and their loved ones, members of the profession, and the general public can submit questions and comments via the Web site. All will be read by members of the appropriate DSM-5 work groups."

I URGE everyone with an invisible disorder to register their feedback, we CANNOT under any circumstances allow this to happen!! The medical boards cannot be allowed to put us with legitimate medical conditions in a group and label us with a psychiatric disorder!! We are NOT mental. We are ILL. And becoming stressed and upset and having your time consumed by the stress and distress of our disorders is NORMAL.

Please! If you do nothing else today, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE submit your comments on the website above!! They need to know how wrong and damaging this could be for all of us. Because we all know as soon as America signs up and categorises us as thus, the UK won't be far behind!!