> If just having a label to apply alleviates the negative emotion, isn't it a placebo?

You could use the exact same line of reasoning to ask "if just talking about an issue with a professional alleviates an issue, isn't that a placebo?"

And the answer is obviously, "No, talk therapy is an extremely well-known mental health intervention with an extremely high effect size on average"

Anxiety and depression are disorders in the way you think about things. If you provide someone with a different and effective way of thinking about things, your are directly treating the disorder. The "maladaptive pattern" flowchart[1] might be a meme, but it's also a very real concept in psychology.

From a more personal point of view: while a label can defining be used in a confining way where it serves as an excuse to not "have to" do a thing (and I certainly know people like that), I find it's very useful to have something concrete to point at and say "this method that other people claim works great won't work for me because my brain doesn't work like that, I need to find a way to alter the method to make myself successful".

[1] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/maladaptive-pattern

Yea placebo is probably the wrong word here. And I agree with you. Often just recognizing something removes it's power. I'm glad the commenter experienced the change they did. Just makes me wonder in this case, the root of it seems like self acceptance - a major theme in (at least my own) therapy. Perhaps a label is a powerful shortcut.

I'm not the author of the post you critique.

I suspect if you just have a "label" it doesn't do much. But the label now makes information a keyword search away. Hence their commentary:

instead I can learn from and lean on hundreds of thousands of other people who have to cope with the same thing.

Which would lead to learning strategies to deal with the day to day rather than struggling to find your own way.

Knowledge is power. But power still has to be used to mean anything.

Once you've learned the strategies that work for you. Then I guess the label loses it's power.

> the label now makes information a keyword search away

I think this can become a double-edged sword in some cases. When applied to certain problems, especially ones with no clear-cut solution, additional knowledge can end up being misleading. (Disclaimer: this is only my experience, and I do not intend to speak for others!)

Example, I always used to frame issues I worked with in the language of ADHD, because I believed that was what best described my pathology. My lack of efficiency at work was an issue of a faulty "executive function". My ability to work uninterrupted for extended periods of time was "hyperfocus". My inability to accept criticism without feeling dejected is an indicator of "rejection sensitive dysphoria".

Yet, after I got therapy that worked for me, I realized three things in short order:

- In my own view, there were no deficits in my executive function. It had been intact the entire time. It was actually uncontrolled stress that was causing my executive function not to operate at its maximum capacity. Hence my problem had not been one of executive function, but of stress relief.

- "Hyperfocus" was merely another way for me of saying "putting sustained attention on an activity to cope with unchecked stress." I no longer consider myself to hyperfocus (which I define as working 3+ hours straight at a time, only stopping for food in between), but at the same time I don't perceive I've lost any of my abilities. On the contrary, I gained the ability to participate in and actually enjoy a wider variety of activities more consistently (cooking, cleaning, socialization, exercise, reading, and many others), as well as start and stop each activity when I please, without losing too much time to activities I only used as a coping mechanism for stress (doomscrolling, social media, etc.). In a sense, my interests became more balanced, even though I still carry the same level of passion for a few niche activities (arguably even stronger for some).

- Criticism does not hurt me as strongly as it did before, when I am aware the criticism is coming from a constructive place and is not merely the feelings of the other party making themselves clear in dramatic fashion. If it's the latter, I now have the ability to ignore the other party and move on. I am now also motivated to avoid going to places where people are likely to criticize me unconstructively. I understood that this was the way to deal with criticism in the past, but I was unable to internalize how to act and feel about criticism until now. Hence, I am no longer dysphoric in this way, if I ever was.

So at least in my view, after I gained a sense of inner peace not having to deal with runaway stress anymore, several problems that I used to see as pathological - having terms such as "executive function" and "dysphoria" - turned out not to be any kind of pathology at all. They were only the aftereffects of excessive daily stress.

In my case, these terms weren't the most helpful for me to understand and work on the real issues underlying my core self, and thus get back a much greater return for the effort I expended - which was much less effort than spending months, years and a lot of money on recurring therapies tailored towards framing my problems in an ADHD-centric way.

> additional knowledge can end up being misleading

Absolutely! But with a label you have:

- meaningful options you didn't have before

- hope drawn from those around you who have found ways to cope.

- knowing that you are not alone

The label doesn't fix you. But it's a good starting point. Answers don't jump out and grab you; you have to filter and verify.

And from the rest of your post it seems you managed to do that. And by having your experience here you have provided valuable context for others in a similar scenario. Thank you.

Totally agree it was a good starting point. I have made a lot of friends in the communities I gained access to via diagnoses and we're still good friends to this day. It's all part of a journey with multiple stages.

Think of it this way: The shape of a hammer compels you to hammer things down with it, but with sustained effort and creativity you can use it for chiseling marble instead.

To reach where I am now, I had to undo some amount of (but not all!) progress I'd made in one direction (since I had bought into the therapy circuit for treating ADHD already) and actively resist attempts to pathologize my own behaviors.

People say "don't treat ADHD like an identity" like it's easy, but the nature of a label compels you to treat it like an identity sometimes. Especially in the society I live in where awareness and destigmatization of conditions is pushed on social media all the time. And especially when your life lacks other meaning and you crave an identity to anchor yourself onto ("just don't make it your identity" sounded like "just don't be depressed" innumerable times to past depressed me, and I saw little reason not to take hold of a new identity for myself). This is a function of depression so I don't blame anyone for it, but I ultimately felt better served by other movements as far as making tangible gains in my mental health.

To use the metaphor again, the art of chiseling was unlikely to make itself known in my current state, but deep down inside I preferred to be there than where I was, so I had to deliberately seek out a teacher and undo the preconceived notions about myself in order to get there. In reality that was just finding another form of therapy that was more effective for solving my problems.

I think you hit the nail on the head with the "normal things have 'ADHD' translations" bit. It reads the same as trans to me - a counterculture subculture where you get to feel good about things you feel bad about.

You stop for food?

I mean if I was so hungry I felt like falling over and dying, or my concentration was so impacted by hunger I had no choice but to eat.

It would be a placebo if it was intended to do nothing, but it's not, it's intended to help explain what's going on. It's not just a label, it's got meaning, and it's a way to find out more and find other people dealing with similar things.