'course, the flip side of problematic self-diagnosis is the game I sometimes feel obligated to play where I go into the doctor's office like
"doctor, doctor, I have these weird problems with my brain, almost like it's an... illness but mental? is there a word for that? anyway I'd say I've been having five or more of these problems on the majority of days in the past two weeks and they cause significant distress and impairment. you ever hear of anything like this?"
out of fear that if I even give a hint of knowing what I'm talking about it's just going to be "🙄 I see you've consulted with Dr. Google, try going outside more or whatever"
(probably I somewhat exaggerate this fear to myself due to aforementioned brainproblems--I've definitely overheard breakroom conversations about other patients that I wouldn't like to hear about myself, but not every doctor does this. I have had doctors who honestly surprised me with their willingness to believe me.)
anyway my point is that if you have any subject matter knowledge you're always going to self-diagnose or at least self-differential-diagnose internally, and most doctor visits aren't actually "Dr. House, whatever could it be???" mysteries to begin with, so the line between self-diagnosis and formal-diagnosis is not actually that rock solid. not when 90% of the questions on the formal diagnostic screen for depression are "do you feel depressed?"
I liked when I broke my toe. I mean I didn't like it, but I liked how I called my doctor and said "I broke my toe," they took an X-ray and there was a bone broken and they said "you broke your toe." It was very validating to not have to play the "doctor, what shape are bones supposed to be? as a non-physician I don't want to assume" game on that one.
