I'll turn 19 this year (so I'm fairly young!) I've always had the mortal fear that my Ts will see me as fishing for a label, so I could never be assertive enough with the p-docs. I'm afraid of being viewed as an attention-seeker who suggests dx and the like to gain sympathy or something. I guess it has to do with not wanting to seem needy, which means I find it very hard to ask for help or accept what's offered to me.

The GP was actually quite empathetic because he shared that he too suffered from depression, but that was perhaps why he got caught up with the depression part and missed out on the ADD. He diagnosed me with depression and wrote suspected BP on the letter. How the OCD came about was that I was explaining that my OCD ironically prevented my second attempt, but he said "Well we'll see about that." and wrote OCD on the referral letter (because I think he thought I self-diagnosed).

The p-doc frankly intimidated me quite a bit. She seemed like a foreign doctor from India because we lack mental health professionals here and kept asking me questions to things I did not say. I lied after I realised that she wanted to call my parents. WTF?? I am an adult and I told her as much, but she said that I was only legal when I turned 21. I had the good sense to give her my number instead of my mum's and she said she would call again in the afternoon when no one answered, but she never did because I think she realised she wasn't supposed to in the first place.

Well sorry for rambling but I wanted to illustrate the fact that I completely agree regarding the incompetence or nonchalance of professionals. You should not even join this field if you have no genuine interest in the welfare of your patients! I feel like a lot of these doctors become increasingly sceptical as they grow in experience. I have a nagging feeling some believe adults who seek an ADD diagnosis are just lazy but want to justify themselves.