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I've gone through a phase with probably about every mental illness out there and when I hear about a new one, I start to think about the tendencies I have related to that illness. I think deep down I'm aware I don't have a problem, but on the surface I can't help to think that I have depression, OCD, anxiety, bi polar disorder, etc.
People can often be aware they have a mental disorder but it is good to be evaluated by a respectable professional to find out why. By respectable I mean a doctor who does appropriate tests rather than diagnose patients after a 15 minute interview.
Most people with a mental illness with have a few of them because symptoms usually overlap and it is more rare for someone to have a mental illness that fits any of the labels perfectly.
Psychiatry is different from other medical fields because the conditions are all labels given to symptoms rather than finding the actual cause of the symptoms.
For example depression has all kinds of causes. There are many ways the symptoms could manifest.
Other conditions such as autism, are more well defined, but still have different causes and 2 patients will never have the exact same symptoms. I don't know of anyone who has only been diagnosed with autism alone. Also several genes have been shown to be possible causes for those types of symptoms.
Psychological disorder labels are simply clusters of symptoms used to define what kind of treatment normally works and how the insurance company will be billed.
They are useful for that, but in the future when medical science understands more, they will be able to understand peoples symptoms causes individually rather than use vague terms.
Yeah don't self diagnose, we all think we have something but it's just temporary phase we go thro.
Ain't self diagnosis great?
They say a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing and it seems you are living proof.