This is a PSA/rant on learning about your mental health issues and getting a proper diagnosis.

I, like many of you, have suffered silently for many years before seeking out professional help and being diagnosed. In my case, it has taken just over a decade and for many others, undoubtedly much longer than that. For me, the reason was a mix of all or at least the overwhelming majority of my family and friends (whom I, eventually, after many years opened up to or sought help from) not accepting or believing my problems and/or not knowing how to help me. Not to say that there haven't been friends who have helped me immensely, but hear me out...

This lack of help, knowledge and skills, led me to do my research on mental health issues and eventually come to find specific issues which I felt were very close to what I have been dealing with day-to-day. It is my understanding that mental health issues often lead to developing other mental health issues, and that there is usually a large overlap of symptoms between a lot of these issues.

In my search, I often came across the advice to not self-diagnose, and while I think it is wise to be doubtful of my judgement knowing that I am not a trained professional, I also disagree with what I felt was usually implied by the above advice, which is to assume that you are probably wrong until you are properly diagnosed by a professional.

I know that for some, it can become a problem. It's easy to look up the symptoms of the probably thousands of known mental health illnesses and with how many symptom overlaps there are, it is no doubt easy to guess one's issues incorrectly and to go down that rabbit hole.

But I also know that it has been quite helpful for me to learn about different mental health issues and to come across issues which I believe I most likely had, most of which I was later diagnosed with.

I think knowing what my issues were most likely to be, helped me in a lot of different ways.

For one, mental health struggles can make you feel extremely lonely and alone and knowing what I might suffer from helped me feel a little more accepted and less like I was the only one and like I was making it all up, something that's been a huge doubt for me ever since I came to learn that I had mental health issues years ago.

Secondly, I was able to learn from the many great online resources that are available and to find out about things that have helped others in a similar situation to me and how to better deal with my problems. But again, the biggest thing for me was finding people who's experienced I could relate to, even if in the form of a YouTube video describing their experience with their mental health issues. The feeling of someone taking the words straight out of my mind was very helpful when I felt unable to comprehend, let alone explain my experience.

Something else that doing my research helped me with later on was accepting the amount and severity of my issues. I know that if my research hadn't prepared me for that, I would have had a much harder time accepting it and I know that my depression and intrusive thoughts would not have taken kindly to that.

In conclusion, I think that while you obviously should not take your guesses as a professional diagnosis, it's perfectly ok to do your research and to bring yourself some comfort and a sense of acceptance by learning more about the issues that you suspect you may have. Especially if you are taking an educated guess after learning comprehensively about someone else's experience who is professionally diagnosed versus looking at a simple list of symptoms after a quick google search. (which I feel is where the real problem is with self-diagnosing)

I'm not sure if I was quite able to put my thoughts into words here, but I had some advice that I wish I could've given my younger self, which is not to be scared to learn about other people's experiences and to take educated guesses as to what you think your problems could be, if you find that to be helpful, and I thought that maybe someone out there will be able to take my advice and benefit from it.

If you read through my rant, I hope it was of some help, and I wish you health and happiness.