@invisiblegorilla You write: "I want to acknowledge that throughout this article, I’ve written words such as ‘disorder’ and ‘illness’ in quotations. This is not to minimize or negate the seriousness of sensations people who have these words applied to them, experience. However, I simply refuse to speak in the language of the pharmaceutical industry and large proportions of the psychiatric community."

You're far from alone in my experience. I personally always write "ADHD" in quote marks, for example, since I know how that particular reification was invented.

When I first heard of it some years ago, it was customary for anyone who didn't accept the American Psychiatric Association's perception of reality to be accused of being a Scientologist. I don't know if that holds true still. Perhaps things have moved on (I haven't involved myself in any discussions on this topic for a long time). My views on the subject were more likely to find me accused of having no medical or other professional training, to which my response has always been that, when people speak to me of the DSM and its stories, they are no longer in the world of medicine; we are in the world of scam artistry where I've invariably been on much more solid ground than they have.