Self Diagnosis/ Diagnosis by Google

It's been a long time since I've blogged anything mental healthy. 

I've been thinking a lot about my diet and how it might seem a little crazy to other people.  I've also been thinking a lot about my control issues.  The two things are tied to each other.  I blame a lot of it on Celiac disease. I didn't need to be hyper aware of what I was eating until I needed to avoid gluten.  So I now have a long list of foods I will never eat again, and a short list of foods that I will eat.  I was watching a TV show about eating disorders and extreme diets; quelle surprise to see my exact diet diagnosed as an eating disorder.  Hmmm.  Is eating unhealthy food required for good mental health?  They were going on and on about how being a control freak went hand in hand with eating disorders.  Made me start to thing about that.

What's psychology girl to do?  Go online and do a questionnaire of course!  The verdict?  Strong tendency towards bulimia.  Maybe, but don't you have to barf all the time?  Celiac disease use to make me barf, and now I have a huge aversion to tossing my cookies.  I refuse to drink to excess just to avoid it.  The person with my diet in the tv show was diagnosed with anorexia.  I was surprised when the results for me came up bulimic.  So maybe it has more to do with the person and less with the diet.  Fuck that, I'm not going to start barfing. 

So then I thought I would do a couple more questionnaires and see how I'm fairing! 
1) I do not suffer from a social anxiety.  - Interesting, because I actually kinda thought I did!
2) I don't suffer from anxiety in general.  
3) I have some depressive symptoms - Interesting, I've never felt so good!  So then I took another test and answered 'yes' to 1 out of 10 questions.  So I'm good.
4) OCD - I answered 5 questions out of 8 questions 'yes'. "Your score is 63%. You have indicated that you have several symptoms that fit the criteria for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)".  I already knew that hello deodorant :)
5) PTSD - (Post traumatic stress disorder) answered yes to 45% of the questions. 
6) I also don't have any personality disorders.  Although the first time I did the questionnaire I had three different personality disorders!!  Then I realized I answered some questions wrong.  What a relief!
7) Schizophrenia-  not a bit. 
8) bi-polar - nope

The questionnaires are interesting, but the results don't mean I have any of these illnesses.  I did find it interesting that I scored higher on some scales and lower on others and that I got completely different results depending on the questionnaire.  There were very few questionnaires that I didn't have at least one positive response.  For example, the depression scale asked if I sometimes had a difficult time sleeping.  Everyone has trouble sleeping from time to time.  And one of the anxiety scales asked if I had headaches and neck pain.  My answer was "often," but that's because of my car accident, it has nothing to do with anxiety, but a questionnaire doesn't know that.    

On the surface, the results make me look like a bulimic, obsessive compulsive troubled by her past.  That's like a character from a book!  I'm not nearly that interesting.  And no, I don't believe that I really have any of these illnesses.