Do you ever doubt your diagnosis?

I agree, it's extremely dangerous. And I would get annoyed, too, in the above case. I mean, it's good and valuable when they provide their own perspective, but not if they ignore what previous psychiatrists (who've known you for much longer) say.

It's a bit of a long story, but in the first hospital that my psychiatrist referred me to for ECT, the psychiatrists there were extremely arrogant and they clearly felt they were above "regular" psychiatrists because this was an academic hospital. So they didn't even read the information my own psychiatrist gave them. Even worse, the psychiatrist there literally took no more than five minutes to talk to me. In hindsight I now see she had her mind made up about me then and there.

After everything went wrong at that hospital I requested my medical file and I saw that based on that first conversation, they thought there was a "discrepancy" between the symptoms I reported and their impression of me. I could have easily explained it because I have a very hard time opening up to people, so even if I'm dying inside I will still be polite and smile at you. It takes time for me to establish a connection. Apparently these people only take you seriously if you're a stereotypical case. But they didn't give me the chance to explain it because they told me nothing except "further examination is needed." They wouldn't even say what the tests involved or why they were necessary or how long they would take, they just said "further examination" and then walked out of the room.

They didn't even conduct the extra tests on their own, instead that was done by a psychologist who worked at the hospital. She was nice enough and took the time for me, and in the end she concluded that I did in fact have bipolar depression. She also tested for personality disorders and other stuff and concluded that I didn't have that. Then (this took several weeks) she gave her report to the psychiatrists, but I doubt they even read it because they completely ignored it. Instead they went with their initial gut feeling based on their own five-minute impression of me, and then called me up and told me they wouldn't do the treatment because "ECT wasn't going to work for me." Again, they refused to even explain how they had reached that conclusion. So after three months wasted there I was left completely empty-handed. By that time I had been severely depressed for well over a year and being left in the dark for so long at that hospital had driven me to the point where I was completely at the end of my wits, so naturally I got extremely angry and yelled at them (which I never do). And then they used that against me to conclude that I had "personality issues" and "bad coping" and that that was the cause of my problems. They are the most inhumane and heartless people I've ever met in my life.

Then I went to another hospital (which was way closer to my house, I should have gone there in the first place) and the psychiatrists there did take the time for me and agreed to do the treatment. And guess what, it worked like a charm! I wrote a letter to that first hospital to tell them how they completely missed the mark and wasted three months of my life, but I doubt they even read it. I seriously considered legal action against them but I couldn't because the stress of that would just cause me to relapse. So basically I'm completely powerless and they just get away with their malpractice.

And even though I knew the way they treated me was ridiculous, they still managed to make me doubt my bipolar diagnosis and I almost didn't go through with ECT. If I hadn't then I don't know how I would have ever gotten out of that depression. It makes me so angry that there are zero repercussions for them and they just get to carry on and screw over who knows how many other patients and there's nothing I can do about it. And to get back to what you said, I most definitely did want to give them the finger, and more.