Is it better to tell a psychiatrist...
>...you belive you have a certain mental disorder because you've researched the symptoms and feel it accurately describes what you've been going through for years.
Or.
>...list your symptoms and let them come to their own conclusion.
As with any doctor, just list symptoms.
Tell them you think you have it because having x without knowing it and thinking you have it are 2 different things
Both of you picked opposite answers :( I'd love more opinions.
Looking up symptoms for mental disorders is similiar to being a hypocondriac when it comes to other health issues there are going to be overlapping symptoms and if you research the internet like crazy you"ll start to think you might have something take the saying you know yourself the best with a grain of salt personally i think a psychiatrist can be of big help and even for them they have to study a patient to get a better finding psychologists are more bs but serve their own purpose ie listening to your bs
>>16955379
Identifying mental disorders from only observable symptoms wouldn't be enough to guarantee better accuracy, so just go to a clinic and have yourself tested. Psychologists wouldn't have jobs if all it took was to read the DSM for symptoms, m8.
I didn't actually. I've been listing my symptoms to people I know and they all gave me the same answer that I should check out this thing because it sounds a lot like it. At first I was like there's no way. But when I actually looked up that thing it was like reading my entire life's story. I'm not sure how to go about explaining this without coming across exactly how everyone here has already assumed. It's a touchy subject. But I definitely need help as its impairing my entire life and has been for 10+ years.
Be honest with the psychiatrist and tell them everything. If you go with the second option all you're actually going to do is try to feed them the symptoms so that they come to the conclusion you want. You have to accept the possibility that you may be wrong with your self diagnosis. Most of the time self diagnosing is wrong.
>>16955379
List your symptoms. Psychiatrists are egotistical in that they are taught and often believe that a patient never diagnoses themselves properly. The reasoning being that "if you're aware enough to know what you are doing/what you have, then you wouldn't be mentally ill", with the exceptions being anxiety and general depression. You're likely to be incorrectly diagnosed if you tell them what you think you have.
Depends how specific the diagnosis is.
If you think you have depression or an anxiety disorder it would be perfectly normal to say "I get really bad anxiety and it's effecting my daily life: I think I might have an anxiety disorder".
If you start going on about how you have shizoid personality disorder because the internet told you that you did they might be incredulous and suspect your are overplaying your symptoms.
Ultimately it doesn't really matter. If they're a good psychiatrist they're not going to dismiss you because you've done research. It's 2016, lots of people going to a head doctor will have googled their issues.
Maybe tell him you did an online screening after being worried about your symptoms and it said you might be struggling with... whatever.
Thanks for the posts guys. The thing I think I MIGHT have is ADD. My mind is just all over the place. Doing anything is mentally straining to stay on said task. I try reading but I get half way down the page and realize my mind is totally somewhere else. And no matter how many times I try again it keeps happening. My life is a fucking mess and always has been. I barely made it out of high school alive. I've dropped out of college multiple times. I just tell myself that I'm lazy and fucking stupid but a lot of people close to me lately have said hey. Maybe you actually have ADD? From people who are actually diagnosed with it. I don't know the more I read about it the more of my life just seems to make sense but I would hate to walk into a psychiatrist's office only to get told to leave because I'm pill seeking or something. Fuck I don't know. It's just getting to a point where my life is 110% a giant mess. I joke that I'm just fucking retarded.
>>16955434
What this anon said,
Even if they agree that you fit the diagnosis, they may not let you know as to not feed your worry/influence/pigeonhole you etc.
