One of the problems is that these "conditions" aren't actual, proven entities, in the same sense that osteoarthritis or tuberculosis are real, proven diseases. These categories of psychiatric disorder exist in the minds and intellectual culture of mental health professionals. They may correspond to real conditions in actual people, or not. Very possibly, they may only loosely correspond to actual conditions that exist in people.

For example, at one time, people were often admitted to the hospital because they "had" neurasthenia, a weakening of the nervous system that produced symptoms of fatigue and a generalised difficulty coping with life. No one gets admitted for that anymore. Nowadays, you can't find a doctor to say you have, or don't have, neurasthenia because doctors don't believe there is, or ever was, such a condition. They used to believe in it, just like they used to believe in a variety of mental and physical conditions that no one believes in anymore. Doctors used to diagnose some people as having the psychological illness of melancholia, which meant that there was an excess of black bile circulating in a person's system causing the person to be gloomy and grouchy. That diagnosis doesn't exist anymore.

People still come to doctors with problems of fatigue, inadequate coping, gloominess and grouchiness. But doctors have new ways of thinking about those problems and of tracing to the origins of those problems. One hundred years from now, doctors may use a system of diagnoses that doesn't include some of the diagnoses we hear a lot about today.

When a doctor gives you a psychiatric diagnosis, it may, or may not, show that the doctor has actually figured anything out. The things to look at, IMHO, are: What are your problems? What are your symptoms? What sort of difficulty in life may have contributed to developing those issues. What are some ways of getting a handle on these challenges. What medication, if any, has proven helpful to other people with similar difficulties?

If a pdoc tells me I'm depressed because I have a depressive disorder, that doctor hasn't actually told me a blessed thing.

Aracnae - you may keep getting different diagnoses from different doctors. That has happened to me and continues to happen. A useful diagnosis is one that helps you to predict future difficulties. If you read up on a diagnosis and you don't see where it fits you very well, then I wouldn't take it too seriously. It is totally false that you need to know what psychiatric disorder you have, before you or your doctor can do anything about it. And that's really what matters.