[perfectfire]

I respectfully disagree. I would agree that someone-that-isn't-your-doctor shouldn't tell people what they should do, but hearing the personal experiences of numerous people that have taken certain medications or had certain therapies is invaluable. This is quite different than "regular" diseases and maladies. The drugs and therapies for psychological diseases aren't well understood and are very hit-and-miss. Like you said people respond differently, so hearing the experiences of multiple people can be just as, or much more valuable than your doctor's recommendation which may be based solely on a datasheet they read and maybe tried on a few patients. You may hear experiences of drugs that your doctor has never prescribed before or has never even heard of before. It's not uncommon for a psychiatrist to have certain go-to medications that they use almost exclusively. If those don't work for you, then getting advice from other patients can be a lifesaver.

The medication that helped me the most by far was not recommended to me by my doctor. I recommended it. And I found the medication through an ad in the lobby of the doctor's office plus I was considering that class of medication based on the experience of my mother. People rail on prescription medication advertising, but I might not be alive today if not for that ad. And that ad could have easily been a recommendation by a handful of random internet strangers (in fact I would trust the internet strangers more because it's less likely they have an agenda whereas the ad definitely has an agenda).

[mcguire]

"...but hearing the personal experiences of numerous people that have taken certain medications or had certain therapies is invaluable..."

...in roughly the same way that the personal experiences of numerous people of psychic phenomena, UFOs, and the supernatural are invaluable. Or personal experiences of the safety of commercial aviation. Or that the sky is blue.

Anecdotes aren't data, data isn't always applicable, other people are frequently more concerned with themselves than helping you, and your mileage will vary.

[perfectfire]

> of numerous people of psychic phenomena, UFOs, and the supernatural are invaluable.

No, not at all. How would that be valuable? If psychic phenomena, UFOs and the supernatural were definitely real things that could help your difficult to solve problems, just not well understood and could vary in effect from person to person then they would be valuable. But they are not any of those things.

> Anecdotes aren't data

They definitely are.

> data isn't always applicable

Oh, certainly. 5 internet peoples say Drug Q helped with craziness syndrome even though that's an off-label use doesn't mean it will totally definitely work for you. But if you've tried everything else, 5 anecdotal experiences is far better than the 0 anecdotal experiences and zero studies of the zero other options you have.

> other people are frequently more concerned with themselves than helping you

How is this at all relevant? Maybe because a doctor gets kickbacks for prescribing a drug and so prescribes that drug despite it not being likely to help much? But that's just a good reason not to rely solely on your doctor. Nobody is more concerned about you than you. Doctors can have ulterior motives and can be working with out of date information especially when it comes to off-label uses of drugs. Common off-label uses became common because of anecdotes. And sometimes those anecdotes spurred the company making the drug to get it approved for that use. This isn't at all like UFOs.

> your mileage will vary

I am well aware of that. But some people are getting mileage out of it and the worst that could happen is I get no mileage just like am getting now (not right now, but before I found the right meds).