Gemma Spake

There's a concept called concept creep that was created by an Australian academic that basically talks about how

In the last couple of decades, our language for things that like specific language for things has expanded and slowly creeped out of the bounds of what it meant such that it applies to more and more people.

And that expansion in many ways is morally progressive because it lets us recognize the harms that used to be minimized or invalidated by gatekeeping something.

But it also has caused us to pathologize ordinary distress and essentially believe in the existence of a problem or a disorder, even if maybe there isn't one at

because of how overly relatable our language has gotten, because of how essentially easy it is for people to see themselves represented in something because it looks less serious from the outside.

Let me give you an example.

I saw this video the other day on TikTok from this young woman.

She couldn't have been more than 17 and she was talking about the signs that you may have BPD.

And some of the signs were like, you love really deeply.

You get mad when people reject you.

You are very sensitive.

Let me ask you a quick question.

Who of us cannot relate to that?

Genuinely, who doesn't get upset when people reject them?

Who doesn't feel good about being in love?

Yes, on a very intense scale, this is BPD.

It may represent people with BPD and can cause impairment.

But it can also, this representation can represent pretty much everybody.

And I'm sure we can all think of a few examples of this where

The information we are specifically seeing online is simply too general and doesn't actually represent what the terms, what the words, what the clinical guidelines actually are.