Feeling that something is wrong with you? Do not look for answers on Google

Do you know that feeling where you feel something is a bit strange with you lately? You are more irritable, have difficulty concentrating, think too much, or are simply going through a rough patch. Instead of letting it pass, you open Google and type: "Why do I feel this way?" A few searches later, you are already reading about one disorder or another and are convinced that the symptoms describe exactly you. Suddenly, behavior that was part of your character until yesterday becomes a "sign," and a temporary (and normative) feeling receives a name and a diagnosis.

The problem is that we identify ourselves in almost everything

Symptom lists on the internet tend to describe human experiences that many of us know: difficulty concentrating, procrastination, anxiety, mood swings, repetitive thoughts, or difficulty making decisions. When we are already worried that something is wrong with us, it is especially easy to find ourselves within the list and give it more meaning than it deserves. However, a diagnosis of a mental disorder is not limited to a few symptoms we found on Google — it requires a professional examination of the symptoms, their intensity, the duration they have existed, and the extent to which they impair daily life.

And today, this information is no longer just on Google. TikTok videos, Instagram posts, forums, and personal stories offer us countless explanations for our behavior. Sometimes it is precisely a stranger's story that makes us think: "Wait, I am like that too." From here, the path to adopting a new label for ourselves can be very short.

When general words sound like a diagnosis

One of the problems with self-diagnosis via the internet is that the explanations we find there sometimes use very broad words to describe much more specific phenomena. For example, a search for OCD might present us with the phrase "obsessive thoughts that repeat themselves" — a sentence that is very easy to identify with. After all, who among us does not sometimes get stuck on the same thought and return to it again and again?

But this term alone does not turn the thought into OCD. A person can think every day anew whether their relationship is right for them, deliberate about their job, or return again and again to a question that bothered them — and still not suffer from OCD. In a clinical diagnosis, it is a more complex and specific pattern of obsessions and compulsions, not the mere fact that a certain thought repeats.

For example, a thought like "if I don't turn off the light in exactly a certain way, something terrible will happen," which creates anxiety and an urge to perform an action to neutralize it, is much closer to what is described when talking about obsessions and compulsions. Therefore, the difference between "I have a thought that repeats itself" and "I have OCD" is much greater than a list of symptoms on Google might lead us to think.

And that is exactly the point: the internet gives us words that describe real human experiences, but we might mistakenly turn these words into diagnoses.

Not every behavior requires a definition

Perhaps it is time to remember that not every sadness is depression, not every difficulty concentrating is ADHD, and not every repetitive thought indicates a disorder. We are human beings, and sometimes we are just going through a difficult period, behaving in a non-ideal way, or experiencing unpleasant emotions. And if something is really bothering us or impairing our functioning, Google can be an excellent and useful information search engine — but not the place that can give us a psychological opinion about our lives.