[smt88]

My understanding of professional ADD diagnoses is that they look at the diagnostic criteria, ask whether the patient fits, and then make the diagnosis. It's not like there's an objective test.

Do you disagree? What makes it more difficult for someone to self diagnose than for a professional?

[DanBC]

A professional has a cohort of other patients to compare you against and they can rank the severity of your symptoms against everyone else they see.

People who self diagnose can't do that.

Most MH diagnostic criteria have a bunch of words that sound like everyday English but which are jargon words with specific meaning (although the ADHD criteria are better than, eg, Borderline PD).

It's a trope that people with symptoms will self-diagnose with some terrible illness when they have a bit of a cold. This is true in mental illness.

[Others]

uh, years of medical school?

[smt88]

What do you learn in medical school that makes you, an external person, better at knowing whether someone's thoughts/feelings are aligned with diagnostic criteria?

Take a look at the diagnostic criteria for ADD. There's nothing in them that doesn't involve observing someone's behavior. It's not like you're examining their organs or running tests.

[hndude]

Does your ADD have any overlap with ego? Rather than answer (directly) an honest question, you leave a sarcastic non-answer. Seems like you are pretty insulted by his query, perhaps your sense of self identifies a bit with your diagnosis of ADD.

[Others]

You're right that I was a bit short, I apologize. I'm a little touchy about self-diagnoses as I explained above.

[reitanqild]

Others' answer (question) seems highly relevant. And the sarcasm was well applied.

When people more or less ask why a person with years of training for a job is betterqualified than a layman I think a gentle nudge towards humbleness should be appreciated.

[smt88]

Years of training in what? We don't even have an objective, widely-agreed-upon scientific definition of ADD yet. Years of medical training don't help you do the impossible, which is to understand what it's like to be in someone else's head.

And we're not talking about just any layman. We're talking about the person actually experiencing the symptoms.

It was an honest question: what in a medical doctor's training makes them better at diagnosing ADD than the person suffering from it? Like the sarcastic post, you're taking a position without explaining your reasoning.

[reitanqild]

Years of training in understanding whatever little we know about ADHD etc.

> We're talking about the person actually experiencing the symptoms.

Yeah, me too. That makes me an expert, right? The fact is, I didn't even know until 5 years ago. You can make a qualified guess before asking a doctor yes, but at least here it seems a doctor has to rule out a lot of options, including sleep apnea before he they go with ADHD.

Also, as has been mentioned before, practicing d/p tend to see a few cases every year and has at least some background to say what is normal and not.

All this should be obvious, shouldn't it? It is not like anything I have written so far requires huge leaps of faith, no?