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Who really said it

Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes

Not Sigmund Freud — actually @debihope @debihope Twitter user “Notorious d.e.b.” · posted the line 24 January 2010
Disputed In copyright

Quote Investigator ↗ traces the earliest known appearance to a tweet posted by @debihope at 12:23 PM on 24 January 2010; asked about it in 2014, she replied that it “popped right out of my own head and based on a past boyfriend.” The Sigmund Freud Museum in Vienna ↗ lists the saying under “Attributed to Freud, no evidence.”

Last verified 14 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes” Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self esteem, first make sure you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes. —@debihope, Twitter, 24 January 2010. Not Sigmund Freud. Via Quotle.info

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Sigmund Freud. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by @debihope, the author of the 2010 tweet). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

Evoking the world of @debihope — display name Notorious d.e.b. · posted 24 January 2010. Theme: "Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The 2010 tweet

Earliest appearance
Tweet by @debihope (“Notorious d.e.b.”)
Date
24 January 2010, 12:23 PM
In Freud's works
Not found — no work, letter, or lecture identified
Earliest Freud ascription
13 October 2011 tweet, using the variant word “jerks”

Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self esteem, first make sure you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes. Original tweet · 24 Jan 2010

This is the wording Quote Investigator recorded from the original tweet. The viral form drifted: it hyphenates “self-esteem” and inserts “that” before “you are not.” The Freud Museum logs a further-drifted variant reading “depression or an inferiority complex,” and a 2011 Freud-credited version swapped in “jerks.” The account has since been suspended, so the original tweet is no longer live on the platform.

Quote Investigator: the full tracing

How we know

  • Quote Investigator ↗ dates the earliest evidence to a tweet from @debihope timestamped 12:23 PM, 24 January 2010, and reports that when QI contacted her she said it “popped right out of my own head and based on a past boyfriend.” Its conclusion credits the handle @debihope with constructing the saying and states the Freud ascription “has no substantive support.”
  • The Sigmund Freud Museum in Vienna ↗ lists the line on its quotes page under the heading “Attributed to Freud, no evidence” — a section the museum describes as quotations “attributed to Sigmund Freud but for whose authenticity we have not been able to find any evidence to date.”
  • The same museum told Snopes there is “no written evidence nor any other reliable source confirming that this would be a Freud quote” and that “the wording speaks against Sigmund Freud,” as reported by Full Fact ↗.
  • Snopes ↗ reviewed the claim that Freud said it and rated the Freud attribution false (Nur Ibrahim, 23 March 2021).
In copyright

No public-domain claim is available here. The line is not Freud's, so it inherits nothing from his long-expired works; its earliest documented appearance is a tweet of 24 January 2010 ↗ by an identifiable author who told Quote Investigator the words were her own — generations after anything that could be public domain by age. Whether US copyright reaches a single sentence this short is a genuinely separate question we do not resolve; what we can say is that nothing about this quote is public domain by age.

Fact-check

Three wrong names, one real one

This saying has been pinned on two famous men in turn, and each attribution has a traceable cause. Quote Investigator untangled the chain in 2014.

Sigmund Freud No evidence

The line reads as therapeutic advice, so it drifted to the most famous psychoanalyst — but no Freud work, letter, or lecture has ever been produced containing it. The Sigmund Freud Museum in Vienna ↗ lists it under “Attributed to Freud, no evidence,” and Snopes ↗ rated the Freud attribution false. QI is blunt: the ascription “has no substantive support.”

William Gibson He denies it

The cyberpunk novelist retweeted the line, and the act of retweeting alone produced the linkage ↗. He has denied it repeatedly — “Actually not my quote. Never said it” (8 December 2011) and, in a 2018 tweet quoted by Full Fact ↗, “This is misattributed to me. I didn't write it. It's obviously funny on first glance, but not really smart about depression…” Wikiquote ↗ files it under Misattributed.

Steven Winterburn Not the source

Gibson himself pointed at Winterburn (@5tevenw) as the origin. QI's citation record shows Winterburn tweeted matching text on 28 February 2011 — over a year after @debihope — and that this copy was retweeted more than 1,500 times, which is why it looked like the source. Wikiquote states plainly ↗ that Winterburn is not the original creator.

Quote Investigator's conclusion ↗: “based on current evidence QI believes that the twitter handle @debihope should be credited with constructing this saying.” A woman on Twitter wrote a joke about an ex-boyfriend, and the internet handed it to Freud.

Context

Why this one landed on Freud

The line is a joke with a clinical frame: it borrows the vocabulary of diagnosis (“depression,” “low self-esteem”) and then pulls the rug out. Quote Investigator makes the mechanism explicit — the expression can be read as therapeutic advice, and so it was reassigned to the most famous psychoanalytic practitioner ↗. A punchline that sounds like therapy drifts toward the man on the couch's other side.

The Freud Museum's objection is not just archival but stylistic: it told Snopes that “the wording speaks against Sigmund Freud,” as reported by Full Fact ↗. Worth adding as a plain observation: Freud wrote in German and died in 1939, so any real Freud line would reach English through a named translator — and no translator, edition, or page has ever been produced for this one.

Popped right out of my own head and based on a past boyfriend.

The retweet chain that erased the author

Quote Investigator's citation record shows the sequence. @debihope tweeted the line on 24 January 2010. More than a year later, on 28 February 2011, Steven Winterburn (@5tevenw) posted matching text; that tweet was retweeted more than 1,500 times and became the version most people saw.

William Gibson was one of the influential retweeters, and QI is careful to note he was not trying to deceive anyone — he was simply sharing it. The act of retweeting alone welded his name to the line. He has been disowning it ever since: on 8 December 2011, “Actually not my quote. Never said it,” and, asked what it was like to have a viral quote misattributed to him, “Very 21st Century.”

The earliest Freud ascription in QI's record is a tweet of 13 October 2011 that credits “Freud” while using the softened word “jerks” — evidence that the attribution and the wording were drifting at the same time.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Wisdom Truth

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Investigator: full tracing of the quotequoteinvestigator.com

The authoritative study. Dates the earliest appearance to a 24 January 2010 tweet by @debihope, records her claim of authorship, documents Gibson's denials, and concludes the Freud ascription has no substantive support.
Sigmund Freud Museum Vienna: Quotesfreud-museum.at

The museum's own list of quotes attributed to Freud with no evidence behind them. This saying appears there, in an “inferiority complex” variant.
Full Fact: No evidence Sigmund Freud said viral quote about depressionfullfact.org

UK fact-checker. Carries the Freud Museum's verbatim statement to Snopes and a 2018 Gibson tweet denying authorship.
Snopes: Did Freud say this?snopes.com

March 2021 fact-check by Nur Ibrahim reviewing the Freud claim. Rates the Freud attribution false.
Wikiquote: William Gibson (Misattributed)en.wikiquote.org

Lists the line under Misattributed, notes Gibson pointed at Steven Winterburn as the source, and states Winterburn is not the original creator either — @debihope is.
Goodreads Q&A: “I have heard that a quote of mine is in…”goodreads.com

A user posting as Debbie Hope claims the line as her own 2010 tweet and asks whether it was reprinted in Robert I. Sutton's The Asshole Survival Guide.

The real author

Who actually wrote it

@debihope

Twitter user · display name Notorious d.e.b. · posted 24 January 2010

Quote Investigator credits the Twitter handle @debihope with constructing the saying, and stops at the handle rather than a full legal name. When QI contacted her in October 2014 she said the line popped right out of my own head and based on a past boyfriend. The account has since been suspended, taking the original tweet offline; a Goodreads user posting as “Debbie Hope” later asked publicly whether her quote had turned up inside Robert I. Sutton's The Asshole Survival Guide.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Earliest documented appearance

Earliest documented in a tweet by @debihope (“Notorious d.e.b.”), 12:23 PM, 24 January 2010. Traced in Quote Investigator, “Quote Origin: Before You Diagnose Yourself with Depression or Low Self-Esteem…,” 25 October 2014 (notes updated 16 December 2024).

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes’?” Last verified 14 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/before-you-diagnose-yourself-with-depression-or-low-self

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