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Comment by chatmasta | Hacker News Reader

What did you expect, going to a psychiatrist? They are drones programmed to tell you something, anything, about what's "wrong with you." Because of course if you're going to a psychiatrist something must be wrong with you.

If she said "nope you're perfectly fine," you would never come back!

Psychiatrists are disturbingly incentivized to overdiagnose.

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I have personally had the opposite problem. Multiple mental health professionals have told me there's nothing wrong with me. Yet I'm still desperately unhappy, completely beholden to my anxiety, and utterly unable to organize my thoughts, to the detriment of my career and personal life.

In my experience it's difficult to find a professional who takes me seriously. I feel like I've been treated like a drug-seeker. It's all very demoralizing.

I'm sorry you've had that experience. It sucks.

Traditional medication used for anxiety include stuff like diazepam, lorazepam, tamazepam, etc. These all have some abuse potential, and some potential for addiction.

If you decide that you still want to seek treatment here's some information from the UK "NICE" (the organisation that looks at cost-effectiveness of treatment and makes evidence based recommendations).

http://pathways.nice.org.uk/pathways/generalised-anxiety-dis...

https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/qs53

https://www.nice.org.uk/news/article/offer-psychological-int...

https://www.nice.org.uk/news/press-and-media/new-nice-qualit...

Hopefully this gives you some information that you can use if you decide to seek help in future.

What is the difference between a drug-seeker, and a patient aware of his options? It's too bad that the more logical you are with your psychiatrist, the more they find reason to diagnose you.

But I'm just commenting on an Internet forum.

Well they do have to take the hippocratic oath, and they're not all bad. But the OP's thoughts on privacy are definitely grounded in the real world and not made up. This scenario isn't too surprising given that about half the country still thinks the government should be allowed to write the rules on how software engineers design encryption protocols.

I like to think the number of psychiatrists who consciously make stuff up are few, but yeah at the end of the day, even when you visit a doctor, you are the one who is most responsible for your own health. You alone decide whether to get a second opinion or ignore the doc altogether.

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