Abstract
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The rise of neurodiverse “fakeclaiming” on social media is harming neurodivergent people, writes
Often accused of “fakeclaiming” for attention, these content creators have divided the internet. Subreddits (subforums on the website Reddit), such as r/DIDcringe and r/fakedisordercringe, have sprung up to scrutinise and debunk such accounts. Even within the neurodiverse community, opinions on who is legitimate and who is faking it for attention run wild.
Allegations of fakeclaiming are not isolated to the DID community. In recent years psychiatrists have seen an increase in self-diagnosis in young people, for conditions that run the gamut from autism to ADHD to Tourette’s to PTSD. The 2021 study TikTok Tics: A Pandemic Within a Pandemic concluded that the uptick of social media influencers claiming to have Tourette’s Syndrome was an example of “mass sociogenic illness” and advised that clinicians “remain abreast of social media sources as they have now become essential in managing patients in the current environment”.
Sometimes referred to as Munchausen’s by Internet (coined by Dr Marc Feldman in 2000), the phenomenon of faking illness for internet clout is not new. Feldman says he first became aware of such a user in 1997, when one of his students spoke to him about a monk documenting his journey with terminal cancer on an online forum. When the alleged monk’s illness lasted much longer than Feldman would have anticipated, he engaged in a series of private emails with the user, only to learn that the whole thing had been a hoax.
TikTok user EizaWolfe is no stranger to accusations of fakeclaiming. Speaking to Teen Vogue in 2022, Wolfe said she was professionally diagnosed with DID at age 19 and turned to TikTok to raise awareness, only to be called fake by viewers. She claims that at one point she posted medical documents to prove the legitimacy of her diagnoses, only to redact the post when trolling continued.
In response to this, Reddit user Ryodox posted on r/fakedisordercringe saying, “The thing I disliked most about her reaction was that she acted as though people in this sub are just a bunch of bullies hating ND/mentally ill kids. The thing is that most of us are ND/mentally ill and we’re incredibly frustrated by how so many people act like mental disorders/neurodiversities are something cute/quirky.”
It is difficult to prove fakeclaiming, and while some clinicians are sceptical, most agree that the mass internet crusades to prove a creator is a fake can be damaging. Doxxing, or the posting of personal information publicly on the internet, has resulted in rape and death threats for some creators. Catie Osborn, an ADHD mental health advocate with nearly a million TikTok followers, has spoken out about the barrage of rape and death threats that she receives.
Feldman says that this behaviour is unacceptable, but adds that, “the actual sufferers are the real casualties of deception.” TikTok creator Tourettesbian (Becca Braccialle), who documents her journey post-Tourette’s diagnosis, describes fakeclaiming as “really damaging” and as fostering a ‘boy who cried wolf’ environment, cultivating a digital world where reality and imitation become increasingly difficult to differentiate.
Little understood until recently, ADHD is now at the forefront of a debate on whether it’s real or not, with real-life consequences.
Flash forward two centuries and in 1968 the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders lists the disorder under the name “hyperkinetic reaction of childhood.” It was thought to cause restlessness and distractibility in children, but believed to go away or lessen by adolescence. Finally, in 1980 the APA coined the term Attention Deficit Disorder, with or without hyperactivity. In a revised edition in 1987, the standard name was changed to ADHD.
Today it’s widely used, but both the term and medicines given are the source of dispute. A 2019 paper by Dr Sami Timimi and Eric Taylor in the British Journal of Psychiatry, entitled ADHD is best understood as a cultural construct, opened saying “despite all the research it has been difficult to gain and maintain professional agreement on what ADHD is or what should be done about it”. The two doctors went onto debate whether it was real.
In a similar vein, Johann Hari’s 2022 book Stolen Focus looked at the role of ADHD in our shortening attention spans. He says ADHD diagnoses have sky-rocketed, with 13% of US adolescents given the diagnosis. But he says even the experts can’t agree whether ADHD exists and whether its cause is genetic or environmental. What they do all agree on is that those diagnosed with ADHD have a real problem.
Meanwhile online you’ll find ample articles on the perils of self-diagnosis. None of these are without controversy, as BBC Panorama found out when they aired a programme this May called Private ADHD Clinics Exposed. It explored how long waiting lists on the NHS are driving people to private clinics, some of which are guilty of misdiagnosing ADHD. Many who watched it were furious. Columnist Kelly Given described it as a “disgrace of a documentary” that “was monumentally damaging” and “stigma-perpetuating”. She said if anything ADHD is underdiagnosed. Meanwhile presenter Adrian Chiles highlighted that “those with ADHD are vastly over-represented in the prison population”, that “suicide rates are appallingly high” and that for these people they’ll likely wait “forever” for an NHS diagnosis. Chiles described it as “an unfolding tragedy”, which could be made all the worse if people stop believing those who say they have ADHD.