Even if it were in DSM-5-*, would that mean it's a standalone disorder?

I haven't read much psychology, but this article suggests a lot of psychological diagnoses are just labels for symptoms:

https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2025/02/06/the-mind-in-the-whe...

  Imagine that your car breaks down and you bring it to a mechanic and he tells you, “Oh, your car has a case of broken-downness.” You’d know right away: this guy has no idea what he’s talking about. “Broken-downness” is an abstraction; it doesn’t refer to anything, and it’s not going to help you fix a car.

FYI: SlimeMoldTimeMold has been heavily debunked across multiple topics. It was popular for a while in rationalist communities for the multi-part series claiming lithium in the water supply caused obesity, until everyone realized the author has a serious habit of misrepresenting sources, claiming citations say things they don’t, and omitting contradictory evidence.

Thanks.

Any idea whether or not their characterization of psychological diagnoses is mostly correct?

I am not an expert on neurology or anything but for ADHD at least there is definitely a biological difference, it's not just a diagnosis of a bundle of psychological symptoms

It is treated with stimulants, but if you give those same stimulants to a non-ADHD person you will see very different results

What a terrible analogy. Diagnosing a car with “broken-downness” would be like a mental health professional diagnosing you with “bad.” Diagnosed aren’t always great, but they’re not that ridiculous.

Still down a bit and you’ll find plenty of vagueness with mechanics. “You have a bad tie-rod end.” Ok, cool. What caused that, why did mine fail when my buddy’s didn’t, how can I avoid this? Shrug. Once you’ve got it down to a part, you just replace it with a new one. Can’t do that with mental health. “Your time management unit is bad, we can replace it with a manufacturer part for $2,000, or an aftermarket equivalent for $1,500.”

Things can be that ridiculous and still be our best effort.

Because that's a colloquial name given to a range of specific symptoms people experience, and it is in the DSM, covered by 1.e.:

> Often has difficulty organizing tasks and activities (e.g., difficulty managing sequential tasks; difficulty keeping materials and belongings in order; messy, disorganized work; has poor time management; fails to meet deadlines).

The DSM doesn't list all minutiae of every general problem.

You’re conflating symptoms with conditions.

Having a single symptom does not mean someone has the condition. The diagnostic criteria for the condition for which you took that quote (out of context) is more comprehensive. It’s not a simple matter of doing Ctrl+F on the DSM and seeing that something can be a symptom or something else.

This is more obvious when you start thinking of other conditions: Feelings of sadness are a symptom of depression, but not everyone who has feelings of sadness has depression.

The misuse and misinterpretation of the DSM has become commonplace in parallel with the use of therapy speak.

I'm really not, you've made an argument based on a semantic misunderstanding of my first response. I did not say "time blindness" was a condition, I said that people generally self-diagnose conditions, not just for those symptoms. I also described it as a set of symptoms in later comments.

They did not bring the DSM into the conversation, someone else did. And the person you are responding to made no such conflation! They also made no such claim that "[having] a single symptom [means] someone has the condition." That might be how you decided to interpret what they said, but it is quite literally not what they said!

They simply stated that time blindness is a real issue and linked to an article which acknowledges exactly what you are describing: "Many people with ADHD struggle with a lesser-known but deeply frustrating sign called time blindness." (emphasis mine)

Thank you for joining in with some sense.