Confessions of a Highly Insensitive Person
On trauma, privilege, and the attention economy.
When I write/talk/joke about diagnostic inflation (y’know, how everyone seems to have a disorder now), I often get blowback for being insensitive.
Like, I’ll write about how therapy-speak turned victimhood into currency or the ego pandemic…
A sly side effect of disorders is they mean you’re special. Feeling lonely? It's not a passing phase—it's depression. Struggling to focus? That’s ADHD. Overwhelmed by all that stimuli? It’s your anxiety disorder. If someone disagrees, they’re probably gaslighting you. They don’t know the trauma you’ve endured. After all, a lady on TikTok said so!
…and get responses like:
“You’re sounding like a real jerk.”
“Maybe others are exaggerating stuff, but I truly suffer from...”
“It’s good that people now feel able to express...”
My response to all that:
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