Hey everyone, thanks all for your replies!

I just wanted to let everyone know I read their replies and am grateful for them. They have been helpful and make me feel more optimistic about therapy! Thank you! I will think about a response in the meantime.

I think I'll start searching for a therapist and give it a try -- this is difficult when depressed! My brief forays into therapy have been unproductive but I will try. Hopefully now that I have some goals therapy will be more helpful to me. Perhaps the problem is that I generally don't ask for help, and don't see therapists as people to ask for help from.

I was very interested to hear the perspective that I would like to control the therapeutic process. I will never trust a therapist or p-doc 100%. I think it's dangerous to do that. I would mention that your mind is not the same as a physical foot. People use the mental illness = physical illness analogy to legitimize mental illness but I would say there are nuances that people ignore. My mind is unique. You cannot follow directions to fix a mind the same way you would fix a foot. (I would also add that sometimes you should not fix a mind, otherwise you are getting close to controlling a person's entire being.) I would never assume that a person understands me so completely that they could give me a diagnosis, treatment plan, and tell me whether my goals and self discoveries are valid avenues to explore.

Thank you all for responding!